Got badly burned on gumtree - now seller is harassing me

hollydays

buglawton wrote: »

Well let us know what happened when you get it back from the repair shop you mention in opening post.

If you think the seller has something to do with the 'mailbaits' then we have to conclude there's near-criminality involved. At the absolute minimum you want the repair shop to format the disk and re-install Windows from scratch, for your own safety.
Quote that the the repairer: "format the disk and re-install Windows from scratch" and make sure they do it!

Or to put it another way- the op is not the villain here

mollusk

Just got the laptop back from the shop. They said that the harddrive had been changed and some other harddware tampered with. I've since called the guy again. His wife answered, said I still wouldn't be getting my money back, I said I'd have to go to the police, she hung up. Since then, the guy has threatened to call the police to have me done for threatening his wife!

Yikes!

forgotmyname

Stop calling them and go the legal route.

jbainbridge

If it is running Windows I use this tool to reset / enable accounts - http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/

Always works. You need to download it and burn it to a CD then boot from the new disk. Find someone who can do this for you.

mollusk

I got a full diagnostic report today. The hard drive is beyond repair so I would not be able to reset or recover it.

The small claim I filed went to his house today but I didn't realise that the courts would put my home address on the claim, so now he has my name and address which is making me feel anxious, tbh. I felt utterly sick when I found out. I would have put it down to experience if I'd known that.

WelshPaul

Sick_Boy wrote: »

Not true.

Laptops with Windows 8 have got COA.
The key is encrypted in BIOS and is easy to recover.

The windows key is encrypted in the BIOS as you say but a windows 8 machine does not have any certificate of authenticity!

xnatillyx

Just reading about this. It all sounds a right bother.

I bought a laptop myself this very one i am using on gumtree last year. Seller came round and thankfully my man is a computer whizz so properly checked everything. W paid £60ish , it's an older laptop to what you got a few years old but is still working fine and i had none of those issues.
It just depends on the seller - some are dodgy. On ebay we have had a few issues.

Best thing is like others have said do not contact them again. Make a note of all communications - the email threats. Keep them as evidence. If anything serious happens then contact the police again.
Don't phone them or bait them it will make it worse.

In terms of the laptop i have asked my fiance and if you can't install the OS via usb and the hard-drive has broke either give up on it or get a new hard-drive.
If you want to save it you will have to replace the hard-drive and then reinstall windows. It should work then.

Also what is odd about this story is i swear i have read the exact same scenario on the digital spy forums. I could be mistaken but i swear it was a faulty laptop off gumtree, all these emails and the person still phoned the seller after filing a complaint. Umm very odd , could just be deja vu or something similar but it does sound nearly identical.

Avoriaz

mollusk wrote: »

..The small claim I filed went to his house today but I didn't realise that the courts would put my home address on the claim, so now he has my name and address which is making me feel anxious, tbh. I felt utterly sick when I found out. I would have put it down to experience if I'd known that.

Don't worry about him knowing your home address.

The type of person who makes malicious calls, emails etc is probably a coward who wouldn't confront you personally. Very few people ever follow through on threats etc.

ulsterbeef

Free_Spirit_31 wrote: »

I would not touch Gumtree with a bargepole!

I call it scumtree