Let me start off by saying that within the near 6 years I have been on pinside, I have had nothing but good experiences and interactions with members of the community. From both giving and receiving technical help, to buying and selling machines & parts. However, it is unfortunate that I recently had an experience in which I sent $200 to pinsider Pinball7507 on June 11th, and have yet to receive my Playfield (https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive/94254). In fact they have neglected to respond to any emails / texts sent since June 30th, and deleted our email thread from their inbox; I have been checking daily and their pinside pulse has shown them visiting pinside every day up through July 18th, so I know that they have been made aware of my emails to them.
Order of communications is as follows:
1) June 11th: $200 sent via Paypal; told playfield would be shipped out on June 12th
2) June 18th: Playfield not yet received; requested a tracking number from seller; was told that I should receive the playfield around June 22nd or June 23rd. No tracking number sent.
3) June 26th: Playfield not yet received; requested a tracking number again. No tracking number sent.
4) June 30th: Seller responded that he was having some family issues (which are private and I won't go into detail here). Apologized for the delay, and said it would be shipped out by EOD on July 1st. Said that he would be shipping the playfield personally, and I would get a tracking number as soon as he was back in his car after dropping the playfield off for shipping. No tracking number sent.
5) July 8th: Playfield not yet received; requested confirmation from the seller. No response.
6) July 11th: Playfield not yet received; requested confirmation from the seller via text. No response.
....somewhere between July 8th and July 17th, the seller deleted our pinside email thread from their inbox...
7) July 17th: Playfield not received; new email sent requesting either a valid tracking number or a refund of my $200 by EOD on July 18th. No response.
Unfortunately for me, based on all of my previous positive experiences with fellow pinsiders, my guard was down and without even thinking, I sent the $200 via PayPal Friends and Family. Funny thing is that the very same day after sending the $200 for the playfield, I contacted another pinsider who had the backglass that I needed to match the playfield. Went through sending the $$$ via Friends and Family, and in a week I had my glass.
Don't get me wrong: It's totally on ME that I sent the $$$ via Friends and Family; I just wanted to put a warning out there for my fellow pinsiders, in an effort to hopefully prevent this from happening to someone else.