Divide By Zero - a blog by Kamran Ayub

HI!

I'm trying to find dirt on this motsinger scam. He asked for a refund from me after I shipped an item to him. I have issued him the refund plus shipping and I have contacted him several times about getting my book back. I'm apprehensive about this transaction. is there any way I can report the buyer if he does not send my book back?

Hey C,

Here's what you should do:

Contact Amazon Seller Support if they won't send your book back (it would be a miracle if they did) because they are watching this company. I don't know if they've allowed refunds to him yet, so you may still have your money. Check your Amazon Payments page and see if the refunds show up.

If he orders again, never refund until you get the book back. That's just not how it works.

I sent a book to him but I haven't had a problem yet (I got Signature Confirmation, too). You have to make sure the book is EXACTLY the same ISBN and the same condition you listed it as, then you shouldn't have problems.

Tyson M bought two of my books and now he wants me to refund it and he says he won't return the book. wow!!!!! so i basically write him a lengthy email logically explains it is his fault and he needs to return the book if he insists getting the refund. And i told him i will deal with it through Amazon.

Hello,
I'm still a newbie at amazon and I'm in the middle of transaction with Tyler M (Athens, OH) right now. He placed an order yesterday. When I google his name, to my surprise, I found lots of bad info about him. I sent email to Amazon, asking their opinion about this, but basically they don't care. What the best thing I should?

Send the order with signature confirmation and pray for the best. I didn't have problems with any of his orders.

so do I , I don't know what shuold I do.

same deal w/me. purchased a book and would not mail back even though I offered to pay the shipping to return. in this case, amazon sided with tyson mot. since i had to list under another edition. (amazon didn't have a listing for the previous listing). my comments were so clear that it was the previous edition, it would take a one-year old not to have read it, but apparently they know and use an amazon loophole of keeping any book not listed on the isbn site. i sure wish i knew about this company before i sent out the book to them.

I sell books on half.com. and had a bad experience with tysonmotsinger. That is his half dot com name. On Amazon he is Tyson Motsinger. I am meticulous about shipping orders the same- day. I did so and a few days later he canceld the order. Only later did I learn that this is a pattern with him. I have a no questions asked policy about customer satisfaction. Yes...I refunded his money. However, I immediately blocked him from making further purchases from my half.com store. I happily deal with several large drop-ship buyers. I actually court their business whenever possible because they tend to be repeat customers. However, Tyson Motsinger or Tysonmotsinger has proved to be unethical and without conscience.

I'll have to watch out so I don't get scammed on any of the books that he buys from me - I'll have to check my records to make sure. I was going to sell a book about Tom Osborne and the University of Nebraska football team, but I'm not sure now.

I am so happy that I got suspcious when he bought two of my books and googled him. You guys definetly saved me a headache... I had them all wrapped up to go.

Good article on this buyer:

http://www.bookthink.com/0125/125nbc1.htm

I was suspicious about this...I got three books ordered from them, all to Tyson Motsinger but none to the same mailing address. Does anybody know about this? Is it a book store? A person?

As a seller of books on Amazon Marketplace.com, I googled the ADDRESS given as 5833 Industrial Park Road (sent as the address for a customer) given by Tyson Motsinger. The building is EMPTY, and it is FOR SALE: See below:

Specialty Books Building – Bill Theisen Industrial Park
5833 Industrial Parkway
Athens, OH
Sale Price: $450,000.

MY CONCLUSION: This is a GENUINE SCAM, DO NOT Send Anything to a fake customer at an industrial address of a building that is up for sale. signed, abc booksource, seller on Amazon Marketplace.com Thurs. May 28.

I wish I had seen your post earlier. I got an order requiring to ship my book right to this Athen, OH address. And now I just received a refund request from him. What should I do?

I just recieved 5 orders from Tyson Motsinger for law books and I am cancelling them all, not going to send. Thanks for the heads up.

You're lucky liz, i already sent him a couple and now i'm hoping theres no cancellations or returns.

he is very bad person!!! be cautious! he is utilizing the amazon customer sanctification policy to steal any possible book from you!!! i already lost 2 expensive books!!!!

Wow, I can't believe there is an actual blog thing about this. I recently had a problem with the company. Sold them a book, but this was actually a weird case. The cover of the book said it was an instructor's edition, but the inside had the ISBN number of the student's edition. I called his office, left a message. The secretary called me back the day after and one thing that stuck out most within the argument we had was that Tyson Motsinger did not receive any e-mails nor would he be available at anytime to personally speak to me. Strange indeed.

Well, some good advice to people selling on Amazon-especially college students like myself-is not to send to this man, if he really exists. From now on, I'm researching names and addresses and I suggest everyone do the same!

Tyson is still doing this as of July 2009. I got scammed. He did not return the book but explained he is a bookseller and will leave negative feedback only if I do not return the book. I question how he pays for them in the first place and am furious that the Amazon company KNOWS about him but does nothing. It seems that they are not taking actions that are necessary and in enabling him to proceed,t hey are complicit in supporting him. I have asked them to help and they said they cannot stop a refund once it is engaged. My ass! They are raising alarm bells and this is soemthing that could legitimately now shut them down because it clearly sustains all kinds of unknown activity and not one of their representatives is protecting the victim. THat's questionable. Paypal and ebay DO have counter-measures of protection. WHY does AMAZON NOT??? I'm really seething angry at this.

a book of mine is bought from them... headaches came... they ask for refund, and require me to pay them $4 through Paypal in order to get my book back. I think there is no reason that I should pay them out of Amazon's book-buying system.
I did email and call them but never get their response!!
I am worried, the book is expensive, and they put a deadline on Aug4,09 which I must pay the shipping before the deadline. If not, they won't return my book, and will file a claim against me.
They are a AXX, not replying my response, and try to rip me off.
Anyone know what I should do!!?

We just had a similar problem with a $.75 paperback. The ISBN was not in the system, so we listed it as the later edition and stated clearly that it was an earlier version. Now he's requested a refund (for a $.75 book, I repeat).

What will happen if I stiff him?

I can't believe I fell for this guy's tactics! He claimed that I didn't send him a book and refused to respond to any of my e-mails. Then, he threatened collections agency on me.

This guy seriously needs to be kicked off. The selfish bastard is the reason why people can't just do something simple like buy a book from someone else.

So, Tyson Motsinger tried to order a book from me the first day that I started my Amazon seller account. I thought the address seemed weird, so I searched for it and ran across a discussion board talking about this scam. So I canceled the order and sent him the link to the discussion board. I got no reply.

Then yesterday, around 2 weeks later, he tried to order the book again. So, I canceled the order and sent him the link to this discussion board. He has ordered it at least 4 times since then, and I just keep canceling and re-listing.

What a pain in the tuckus. I can't believe that he's trying to punish me for not falling for his scam. Doesn't he have anything better to do with his life?

I found this after noticing a rash of orders after charge when shipped/confirmed shipping, AND several orders to the OH address mentioned above.

I have no issue with legitimate dropshippers, but cannot continue to lose good books to scammers who cancel an order AFTER I have already shipped.

Thank you so much for blogging about this issue. Even if Amazon allows it to continue, at least I'm aware of the game.