It pains me to have to write this as I see this as affecting somebodies income and almost making it difficult to put food on their table but since Mike Coulthard has pretty much completely taken the p*ss out of my life and made me lose faith in the human race – I’ve pretty much got no choice but to ‘review’ what he has to offer.
Which is nothing.
On Wednesday 16 June, a good friend of mine sent me a link to an Eibech Anti Roll Bar Kit that Mike was selling on Club GTI (
http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=173543.0;wap2). Some of you may know that I’ve been looking for a set for a while but I refuse to pay £300 for a brand new set so when I saw these I emailed Mike, negotiated a good price for them and was told they’d be delivered on Thursday or Friday. Brilliant. Or so I thought.
I’d been warned about this buyer from the same friend who told me about the ARBs as he’d previously been flagged up on various forums as a ‘seller to avoid’ for either not sending something out or none communication but after an issue was resolved – I thought best to give him the benefit of the doubt as you always hear of more bad things as you do good.
The threads are here:
http://www.clubgti.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-229851.htmlhttp://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=183455.20The first thing that set off alarm bells was how he asked for the payment to be made via PayPal as a ‘gift’ payment. Any experienced eBayer/Paypal’er will know that a gift payment leaves you no leg to stand on as a buyer if you decide to raise a refund request with PayPal should your purchase fall through, as the payment was made as a ‘gift’ which is pretty much like giving cash in an envelope to a masked man stood behind you with a knife. The bonus for the seller (if they’re legit) is that they won’t be faced with fees or charges when they come to withdraw the money.
The second thing was the PayPal email address/account didn’t match his name and was instead paid into the name of Michelle Laverick under the email address v9005252@live.tees.ac.uk . His name is Mike Coulthard, the email address to his original advertisement was mikecoulthard@googlemail.com and upon further investigation, he also uses mike.c1979@hotmail.co.uk . He also has 3 separate Facebook accounts linked to those email addresses.
The third thing was when I asked for a tracking number and was told his friend ‘Rob’ was going to deliver them as he was a courier for an undisclosed company and would be dropping it off on the side so no tracking number could be given. “Fair enough†I thought, “everybody wants to save money and if he has a friend willing to do it – great… it saves me money tooâ€. This prompted me to advise that I’d rather pay the money as a purchase for goods/services rather than a gift ‘just in case’, which he agreed to.
Via email he told me the ARBs would be with me on Thursday or Friday (depending on when they’d be picked up) which was great – within 48 hours! At this point I’d asked him to send me pictures so at least I knew he had a set of ARBs to sell, the pictures arrived late and I pretty much had to pester him to send them.
Thursday arrives and I receive nothing. I tried calling and texting only to be told he’d text his mate and was waiting for a reply. I chased him again a few hours later but was told the same thing. It was at this point I gave him another address (the gym) as I was going to be there until 8pm – just in case his friend was swamped with work and could deliver them but later on but I got no reply.
I received a text later that night telling me it would be mid morning the day after when I would get them – Friday. Mid morning rolls around and nothing. Same with the afternoon and mid afternoon and late afternoon and… you get the idea. Once again I chased it up with Mike only to be told he’d text his friend to tell him to ring me to which I replied “If you send me his number I can arrange it with him?†and it was from that moment onwards where Mike decided not to return any of my calls, texts or emails.
I have called him approximately 35 times. None of my calls have been answered and now Mike has my number on auto divert (the phone rings once then diverts to voicemail – I have tried calling from a private number and it rings out). I have sent him countless texts and left him a voicemail as well as sent emails chasing him up. I know for a fact all of these have been picked up, read and received.
My final email, text and voicemail message was today at about 12pm to let Mike know that if I didn’t hear back from him by 5pm, I’d be disputing the money with PayPal to get a refund put in place. As you can probably tell, no response.
A message to Mike, if you’d have told me from the beginning that it was going to be a week or 2 or even 3 weeks until you could get them to me – I’d have been fine about it. But you promised Friday and didn’t keep to your word. Then you ignored all my calls, texts and emails like a child instead of growing a pair and telling me straight up. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you completely took the p*ss.
I hope everything you try and sell now comes back to this thread, my website and various other places I’ve posted this so nobody ever purchases anything off you ever again. Even if you promise to deliver it yourself sat on a unicorn with harps playing. I work in an industry where you have to be patient with people and my patience has worn thin. A 48 hour turnaround for anybody is a great feat, never mind on a private sale but if you’re to lead me on, I’m going to run you down looking for what you promised to deliver.
The worst thing is how you feigned empathy when I told you I’d been had over before by somebody promising to deliver something and it never showed. For you to tell me it’s happened to you before and it’d be OK then go back on your word shows how two faced you actually are. I could threaten to turn up on your doorstep in Durham should I ever find out where you live and beat the money out of you as well as a few extra quid for texts, phone calls and time wasted but there’s really no point as in the long run – this will prove more damaging should anyone do any research on you.
You are a complete and utter joke, waste of space, time and money.
