Bummer!

Yeah, so even though I have not seen my money since mid-January 2007, it appears that Asif Zamir continues to try to drum up business with others. As you can read in the comments from a previous post, as recently as a month ago Asif was taking money from others.

When Asif's ebay account was suspended last January, I still had faith. I really believed that he would come through. Then I called him and left a message. He was relatively quick to respond:

"Hi Robert,
Basically some hacker / identity stealer tried to get into my Ebay account and he's causing some trouble with some of my legitimate buyers. I've asked Ebay to investigated and I'm filing a complaint with the police as soon as Ebay tells me what's going on.
Otherwise your order is perfectly fine, I'll have it this month to ship to you!
If' you sen't other email I'll get to them in the next few days."

I was not exactly relieved to read this, but at least he wrote back! (On a side note, I imagine he intends to file a police complaint about the hacking right after OJ finds the real killers). But the seeds of doubt were sown. I started to call him and look into his website bointernational.com (since shut down). I called the toll free number, which was disconnected and looked at what services were supposedly offered. When I saw a fixed price list for things like "Business Plans" I knew that this website was unadulterated bullshit. My heart sank.

I then decided that a refund ASAP was the only way to go, because every other customer would be asking for one very shortly, if they hadn't already. So, I wrote this to him:

"Hello Asif,

I have called you 3 times today (and once 3 days ago) and now I am sending you a formal demand to refund my payment for the Nikon camera as is specified in your advertisement for the camera.

I have filed a dispute with ebay and fully expect an immediate refund. If you fail to respond, I am prepared to pursue all legal means at my disposal to recover my payment."

After that, the conversation became more of a one way affair with me writing things like this:

"Asif,

Given that you have neither delivered the item I paid for nor have you returned my telephone calls, I am forced to demand that you return my $1,190 CAD payment in full as promised in you ebay advertisement for the item.

I am going to reiterate in writing what I have just said to you on the telephone:

It is now approximately 9:50 EST February 19, 2007 and I insist that you refund the money I paid to you in the amount of $1,190 CAD for the ebay purchase of the "Brand New Nikon D80 10.2 Megapixel + 1GB Memory Card" Ebay item number 200069106501 by 5:00 p.m. February 20, 2007.

If you fail to refund the $1,190 CAD in its entirety by the specified time I will take the following actions:

1) I will contact the Toronto Metropolitan police and the RCMP and file a criminal fraud complaint against you, Asif Zamir living at x xxxxxxxx, Apartment xxx, Brampton Ontario.

2) I will sue you in civil court to recover the money owed, damages and costs.

The proper resolution of this issue is in your hands now. I pray you do the right thing."

And this:

Asif,

I have filed a criminal fraud complaint against you. I am about to urge your other victims to do the same thing in the same place in order for there to be an aggregate record of your crimes.

On a personal note, I find it disgusting that a self-proclaimed Christian like you could steal such a large amount of money from me, an honest man whose wife is expecting a child in 3 weeks.

Tell me, Asif, what would Jesus do?

Apparently, Jesus doesn't figure into the equation where money is concerned!

Asif never responded to the dispute I filed in ebay, and ebay paid me $175 in compensation, apologizing for the bad experience.