Buyer complained to Police

DoctorFoster

hamperman wrote: »

Basically I was reinterviewed about the efforts made to find the receipt. The interviewer then contacted crown prosecution. After being put in a cell for a bit, I was charged!! Crazy!

Going to court? I don't get this

Well there must be evidence that you've acted dishonestly.

Either with the sale of your laptop or while posting on here. 😉

DoctorFoster

Out of interest, what was the charge?

There's a way out of this.

misterthrifty

I have a lot of sympathy for the OP as a similar thing happened to me. The police turned up at my house on a bank holiday evening and threatened to arrest me for fraud. They were very threatening but turned out that the complainant had made a mistake and had been writing emails to the wrong person so I knew nothing about it. That didn't stop them them threatening me though and arrest & confiscation of my computer etc was on the cards.
The problem seems to be that the police have set up a new system to deal with 'fraud' ie small debt collection (£150 in my case) see https://www.actionfraud.police.report_fraud, making it very easy to report something and then it is passed to officers who have no idea what they are doing but they have to reach targets to sort them out so they use bully boy tactics.
I complained to the police about my treatment but low level complaints are now dealt with internally by forces, so guess what happened?
If you sell online beware and prepare!

Marktheshark

Royal Mail keep records indefinitely, what they do is make the database non public traceable.
Now you have legal aid, get the solicitor to obtain a court order for the royal mail data .

DoctorFoster

misterthrifty wrote: »

I have a lot of sympathy for the OP as a similar thing happened to me. The police turned up at my house on a bank holiday evening and threatened to arrest me for fraud. They were very threatening but turned out that the complainant had made a mistake and had been writing emails to the wrong person so I knew nothing about it. That didn't stop them them threatening me though and arrest & confiscation of my computer etc was on the cards.
The problem seems to be that the police have set up a new system to deal with 'fraud' ie small debt collection (£150 in my case) see https://www.actionfraud.police.report_fraud, making it very easy to report something and then it is passed to officers who have no idea what they are doing but they have to reach targets to sort them out so they use bully boy tactics.
I complained to the police about my treatment but low level complaints are now dealt with internally by forces, so guess what happened?
If you sell online beware and prepare!

Crimes generated by action fraud are not counted under home office statistics and therefore the police have no targets to meet.

Epic fail, just like your complaint. 😆😋

soolin

misterthrifty wrote: »

I have a lot of sympathy for the OP as a similar thing happened to me. The police turned up at my house on a bank holiday evening and threatened to arrest me for fraud. They were very threatening but turned out that the complainant had made a mistake and had been writing emails to the wrong person so I knew nothing about it. That didn't stop them them threatening me though and arrest & confiscation of my computer etc was on the cards.
The problem seems to be that the police have set up a new system to deal with 'fraud' ie small debt collection (£150 in my case) see https://www.actionfraud.police.report_fraud, making it very easy to report something and then it is passed to officers who have no idea what they are doing but they have to reach targets to sort them out so they use bully boy tactics.
I complained to the police about my treatment but low level complaints are now dealt with internally by forces, so guess what happened?
If you sell online beware and prepare!

If it was nothing to do with you why should there be a need to warn us about selling online?

misterthrifty

Well the OP has been arrested because he did not keep his proof of posting, I was nearly arrested for using a similar business name to another online business that was being accused of fraud. It's clear that the police are taking this very seriously and are prepared to blame online sellers whether there is sufficient evidence or not.
Good enough reason for a warning I would have thought, this could happen to anybody who sells online and the results could be very serious.

DoctorFoster

misterthrifty wrote: »

Well the OP has been arrested because he did not keep his proof of posting, I was nearly arrested for using a similar business name to another online business that was being accused of fraud. It's clear that the police are taking this very seriously and are prepared to blame online sellers whether there is sufficient evidence or not.
Good enough reason for a warning I would have thought, this could happen to anybody who sells online and the results could be very serious.

The police aren't blaming anyone, that's not their job. The investigated the allegation, gathered evidence which was put to the cps who authorised the charge. But you'd know that if you read the thread.

RFW

DoctorFoster wrote: »

The police aren't blaming anyone, that's not their job. The investigated the allegation, gathered evidence which was put to the cps who authorised the charge. But you'd know that if you read the thread.

It just all seems odd, based on what the OP said, that it got that far. My thoughts are that the buyer must have attempted contact within the 6 months before going to the police. Also, as far as I can tell the OP has no knowledge that he ever checked tracking to see if delivery was made.
I think most people on here can't see how it could ever get that far.

DoctorFoster

RFW wrote: »

It just all seems odd, based on what the OP said, that it got that far. My thoughts are that the buyer must have attempted contact within the 6 months before going to the police. Also, as far as I can tell the OP has no knowledge that he ever checked tracking to see if delivery was made.
I think most people on here can't see how it could ever get that far.

1. None of this has happened and the op is a troll.

2. We're not getting the full story.

I'll let you come to your own conclusion.