Divide By Zero - a blog by Kamran Ayub

I sold this person a book last night on half.com under the name "Tammie Gomez." But, tysonmotsinger bought it. There is no way in hell I am sending this book out. I'm going to contact half.com later and ask them what to do. I haven't sent the item out and refuse to do so.

If it matches the condition you set, matches the proper ISBN exactly, then I don't think you'll have problems.

I have to agree with and find some mild relief in the last paragraph. I started selling books about a month ago. I've sold about three or four books to Motsinger. So far--fingers crossed--I've not any cancellations. The thing is, I have two more orders to send Motsinger. Here, I don't know if I should go ahead with them.

Thank you for your assurance.
I will be more careful when entering the books information.Again thanking you for giving "Amazon Seller Community forums" reference.

I just began selling books via Amazon, and I noticed that Tyson Motsinger is a repeat buyer though the books are shipped elsewhere to addresses that look suspiciously like commercial locations. This raised a "red flag," and I became curious, so I Googled Motsinger's name and found your comments. I'm already a bit put off with the book marketing business if scam artists like Motsinger are poised to cut into the profits. I have two books in the mail to his addresses, I have cancelled a third order (withdrawing the inventory), and now I keep my fingers crossed that Motsinger does not scam me as he has others. Thanks for providing useful information about this fellow. Tell me if you think I should do anything more proactive. Regards, R.T.

I don't think this is true. I sent the exact book with very specific details on the condition of the book, and he has claimed I sent the wrong ISBN number. I know this isn't true; I have receipts from the book and know exactly what copy I sent. Also, I have read accounts of "Tyson Motsinger" emailing sellers with ISBN numbers that belong to teacher editions or student handbooks, which are obviously not what the seller sent.
Just don't sell to them. Amazon is no help and it's not worth it.

The company uses an automated purchasing program which even they admit is prone to make mistakes. Even when the program makes a mistake and mis-buys a book, they still insist the seller refunds their order or they will file an AtoZ. These guys are unethical scammers that should not be allowed to buy off amazon

I just sent a practically brand new book to this buyer, and they are saying it was severely water-damaged when they received it. I have sold many books on Amazon, and none have been water-damaged or returned. I just googled this guy's name because it sounded "fishy" and found all of this info. Ahhh!!! What should I do?

They bought a book from me in November and now say its water damaged. This book was packed well and in like new condition. Half.com is going to debit my account. I am a small seller just trying to get some of my daughters money back by selling her textbooks. What bullshit.

The author of this blog posted this above:

"I think that problems arise when you send them a book that doesn't exactly match your description and condition and ISBN number. If you are accurate, I don't think you'll have any problems."

This couldn't be more true...

If you are listing a book on Amazon & Half under an *incorrect ISBN* (i.e. international, old or teachers editions - all of which are against Amazon & Half policy) or have not clearly disclosed damage to the book in your listing comments (yes, we analyze each comment), we may buy your book believing you will be sending the correct book or a non-damaged book. Obviously, if you send us an incorrect or damaged book (which are graded liberally - according to Amazon condition standards), it's not a book we want - so we'll ship it back to you and request you refund us once you receive it. We currently ship books back to sellers at our expense. All we need is a return address. Amazon does not provide us this address, but in some cases Half.com will.

Nebraska Book Company is purchasing books from a large number of sellers on Amazon & Half and, at the same time, working to provide a reasonable process for sellers to use when incorrect/damaged items are received (which currently represent around 2% of all books received). Unfortunately, some sellers list incorrectly and either don't understand what it means to "list a book on Amazon or Half under an incorrect ISBN" and accidentally list it or even intentionally list it because a more recent or US edition of the same title garners a higher price. Granted, in some cases a listing page is unavailable for a title, there are title data issues on the site or we'll incorrectly purchase, but each of these occurrences is extremely rare - especially for the types of books we are attempting to purchase.

Even with the volume, we've had good success with packages being delivered by the USPS. Sometimes we'll run into trouble with a few packages lost by the local USPS branch, but nothing close to unreasonable given the number of packages received. Some sellers rely on USPS tracking mechanisms. Amazon encourages sellers to fully understand the significant limitations of USPS "delivery confirmation." Read the last paragraph on this Amazon page to learn about these limitations:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200222890

If you are concerned about delivery, we'd suggest UPS or FedEx. Both provide tracking all the way to the point of delivery.

We currently provide dedicated staff who monitor our seller support line (402-237-TEXT), auto-responding email information, automated ways for sellers to block us from purchasing and a very easy-to-use (and free) process to request a damaged or incorrect book back. We continue to learn about the best way to help sellers while keeping our operations efficient. We have adjusted (and continue to adjust) our processes along the way, but the idea we're some big operation scamming marketplace sellers is simply not true.

Some of you reading this post will understand the situation and some of you won't - likely depending on a large number of factors. Either way, understand our goal is to have a successful transaction with marketplace sellers and to help sellers in the event a transaction is not successful - by both getting the incorrect/damaged merchandise sent back and helping educate why the product was rejected (providing specific damage infomration and/or the incorrect ISBN received). Purchase volume is certainly a factor, but we do our best to create tools which help us manage issues and allow sellers to self-serv in getting incorrect or damaged books returned.

We hope this sheds some light on the "mystery." Know that we do read your posts and will take constructive feedback into account.

Tyson Motsinger
Marketplace Purchase Manager
Nebraska Book Company, Inc.
(402) 237-TEXT (8398)

Hi Tyson,

I think you should provide the link on how to opt out of automatic purchases so I can update my posts with that information.

You should see this post for a livelier discussion about your tactics: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ayubx003/dividebyzero/2008/05/22/more_about_tyson_motsingernebr.html

Tyson, thank you for screwing college students out of the little money they do have. what an honorable company you run...

Looks like he is copy and pasting this wherever he can.
Maybe if they continue to tell people its all their own fault and take no blame people will believe it. Nice business model.

Tyson you are what I would like to call a c**t!!! I sold you a book in perfect condition, you said you received it damaged so I refunded you the full amount plus $5 extra just to be nice. It has been TWO months and you haven't returned the book. I am a student and have a 6 month old baby, and I NEED that money!
PRICK!

I placed a book (mass media communications)on auction through ebay and amazon; keep in mind it was the same book, by the same seller, and the same isbn and description. This tyson motsinger used 2 different peoples names but when I actually compared ebay and amazon's account activity he had purchased them each a minute apart! I sent the book via ebay and received payment. 1 or 2 goes by and amazon says that I never shipped the book but I did through ebay! He paid me twice knowing that there was only one book. So now he wants his money back plus the book. So from october 2009 up until january 27, he deposited more money in my account. Get it.... he claims he bought the book so the seller has to give him a refund and then the book already gets shipped out so then he basically is making the book value profit for NOTHING!!!
Of course amazon is going to say that nebraska book company is legit because there making profit along with this he or she conartist!!!!
Legal Department through Amazon does completly NOTHING!! I am personally hiring an Attorney so this__________could get caught. Hopefully the authorities will caught this piece of>>>>>>> -KimK

Kamran,

maybe u shouldnt still call it the "nebraska books company scam". like u said if your descriptions are right then u probably wont have a problem - i sold 2 books to them and didnt have a problem :) Jane

He scammed me out of $45 for a used textbook saying it never arrived. I had USPS delivery confirmation that says otherwise but as any scammer, he knows enough about amazon policy to know this isn't enough and took this opportunity to rip me off. Well, I can only hope that karma is real and he gets hit by a bus or something.

btw tysonmotsinger buys on half dot com too . he claims book is not received or incorrect edition or item not as described. after me and other fellow victims of the Tyson Motsinger/Nebraska Book Scam has already printed postage and shipped books, days later he suddenly decided to want me to refund him but wont send my book back due to "handling large volumes".

He just purchased a book from me under seller "Tyson Motsinger" but the shipping address is as following:

Floyd Early : Ste. 159
5833 Industrial Park Rd
Athens, OH 45701-8736

Who's Floyd Early? God knows who. So I checked the address; it's no where to be found. If you remove the address number, it shows up in some rural area with no specific location. So I googled it; guess what? This fraud alert message popped up on Amazon:

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/Booksellers/Motsinger-Has-Returned/510102495&

But this time, he had used a different name and suit number:

Alma Hills : Ste. 559
5833 Industrial Park Rd
Athens, OH 45701-8736

There is another Amazon seller community thread about them:

http://www.amazonsellercommunity.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=153296&start=0&tstart=0

And another one:

https://www.theartofbooks.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1211327172

Thank goodness I found this blog. Tyson Motsinger purchased a book of mine. I thought it was fishy that he wasn't actually receiving it, so first I googled the recipient (nothing) and then the buyer - BAM! - all this info about his shadiness. I'm not selling to the guy.

Here's the address he used:
Lena Grantham : Ste. 256
5833 Industrial Park Rd
Athens, OH 45701-8736

Here's a tip though: Within hours of making the book the lowest price on Amazon, he bought it. I was happy and now this. It's back on the market!

Good luck all!

Tyson, you know perception matters. Now I believe that you are a half-scammer if not a complete one. Even if you are not, your policy that claims you don't have time to return books to sellers but still demanding refunds is NOT a pretty picture.

And just for this BS you used to give to sellers, I'm not going to sell anything to you ever. For the one that's on the way to you, I'm recalling it back. Save your time!

Thankfully I just googled the Tyson Matsinger name along with the address that was provided:

Pat Ayala : Ste. 508
5833 Industrial Park Rd
Athens, OH 45701-8736

After reading everyone's comments and the linked articles, I decided to cancel the order on Amazon.

It is definitely not worth the potential hassle of pocketing $80 off of a used textbook.

So, did I understand it correctly that Tyson Motsinger is a scammer? And why has no one complained about it, normally people of this kind should get a ban very quickly!

Hey hey hey, calm down people. We all now know he's a scammer, I bet more victims to come. But why not try this Prepaid Legal Opportunity one. Should I say more?

Cheers,
Nico

You would think Amazon and others would have brought legal action on the scammer, no?

Aha! Getting all the details right seems to be the answer. Thanks

Scam now days are really every were and we should know that.we really do much more information about the guy or some things before going through it. hope this would be a lesson to all of us.

Guy just tried to buy two books from me. He gave the same address yet listed two different names.

What I dont understand is why he has 100% positive feedback? If there are so many complaints here, why can nobody leave negative feedback?

Yeah he does have a 100% feedback. There's something fishy about Tyson Motsinger.

You have to be careful with product descriptions, they need to be spot on. I got this wrong once and ended up with a big hassle on my hands. As long as you description is good you are fine.

I was curious if you ever considered changing the page layout of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or 2 images. Maybe you could space it out better?

I am looking for a catholic book by Fr.Jerry Orboz.If you can send me the link i will be gladly to say my thank you in advance :)

I'm sure he will get what he deserve eventually. Scamming too many people...bad...he will get caught and punished one of these days.

Ahmet Öner und Don King spenden 25% der Ticketing-Einnahmen von Aydin vs. Dan II für türkische Erdbeben-Opfer, finde ich sehr lobenswert.

This is an old post, is Tyson Motsinger still doing this? What's the update on this news?

How come he still has 100% positive feedback?

Das ist ein interessanter Post zum Thema Prepaid. In deutschland gibt es mittlerer weile soviele Prepaidanbieter, da den überblick zu behalten ist irre.

aber wir haben einige Seiten, die die Prepaid-Anbieter vergleichen. Meistens sind die nach Kosten pro Minute oder nach Kosten Pro SMS sortiert. Sinnvoll wäre noch ein Prepaid Startguhaben. ;).

Also beste Grüße aus Deutschland
Marusch

This is a very good article. As far as I’ve read several articles. Thank you.

Amazon Best Selling http://www.the-best-selling.com