Rather then write that entire post again pleasse go here:

http://groups.google.ca/group/.....=en#47f7e3ff48006e95

Sucks sorry to hear about that ... Hopefully you will get full or partial refund.  I wonder if Ebay would suspend the account?

Never a nice feeling to get burned ... (been there done that).

I feel for ya

At least it's only a couple hundred, Jim is out a few thousand from a scammer.

What lessons can be learned from this case?

Quoted from jonny_eh

What lessons can be learned from this case?

Avoid Money order if possible and only if you *Trust* the seller.  But even then its not guaranteed.

Yep money order never again.  I'd prefer to have gone Paypal with my CC, credit card companies are pretty easy going when it comes to stoping payments.  I talked to my bank about the Money order and they said I'm basically mess outta luck.  

I wanted to also buy some parts from him on Ebay, but he wanted a Money order also, No Paypal he stated. He would accept it in the USA, but not from Canada. I asked why and the response I got did not leave me with a confident feeling, something about a bad deal to Canada. So I ordered from BAA even though the parts cost me more. Glad I did. I have the policy that if they do not accept Paypal, I look elsewhere. No money orders anymore.
Feel bad for you Adam and Flashman has a similar story. Not sure what RCMP can do, but Ebay should shut him down.  

Is ebay responsible for transactions that happened beyond its borders? i.e. this purchase was not an ebay purchase, why would they ban the guy?

If any Canadian contacts him to see if he will ship to Canada, he offers to sell you direct and to send a Money order. That is what he did to me, and that is against Ebay policy.

Sorry to hear about this, Adam. Hopefully you get your money back. At the very least, you have warned others and potentially saved others a lot of grief.

Duane

I hate guys like that.

First off I would start a claim with the post office or bank issuing the money order that it was either lost or stolen.  If it has not been cashed, then a stop payment will go on it and you should have some recourse (albiet it takes time) to recover your payment.  If it has been cashed, then the issuer can provide you with details of the deposit.  You collect as much information as you can about the transaction, the name and address, phone of bank etc. and you file a police report with the local detachment in the area that the money order was cashed.  If you are polite and persistent, and offer to send evidence (emails are valid evidence these days) you should be able to convince them to at least call the seller for an explaination and get a more direct answer to the charge.

Lastly, if you can find someone who has completed an eBay transaction with this guy, and who is willing, they can request his phone number through eBay's service, and then you can try calling directly.

The timeline indicates that if he didn't ship until the very latest dates that it may still be in transit.  My experience (and I'm almost certain I have bought from this guy myself, but there are others like him - Richard Chez comes to mind) was that it came by the slowest mail method.  There are US sellers who begrudgingly sell to Canadians and then do everything in their power to make it a "bad" deal, like some self fulfilling prophesy. When dealing with questionable sellers and expensive purchases, I always switch my payment method in pay pal from my pay pal account to my credit card.  That way I actually have two courses of action if something goes wrong.  In all cases I have started a Pay Pal Dispute and either the buyer/seller has come through OR my credit card company has reversed the charge through Pay Pal and with enough evidence, Pay Pal doesn't re-dispute the chargeback. (Hindsight is 20/20 however.)

Well I can close the issue, after filing my report with the RCMP Mike had the parts sent out that week and I got them today.

Sometimes a little persuasion is needed. Glad to hear you got them.