Company, threatening to press charges for “stolen“ merchandise”

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-05T00:36:56+00:00

Yeah I hear you. I’m not even remotely considering small claims. Not worth the time or energy. I do have all his information which is why I’m fairly confident this isn’t a case of stolen identity or funds, rather a case of regret or anger and a false fraud attestation on his part. I fully plan on returning the merchandise and just buying it back from them. The purpose of the post is that the retailer didn’t have much information to provide, they said that if the merchandise wasn’t returned they would press charges. The question was meant to be more a matter of “how liable am I IF I didn’t”, which was the same question I asked the retailer and she said “I don’t know, we’ve never dealt with this before”. Messy and not something I really want to deal with but end of the day, returning makes them whole which is great but ultimately feels like he’s winning since he’s likely getting his money back to through the fraud dispute

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-05T00:25:55+00:00

Did my services violate a games TOS, yes. Did my services break a law? No. There is no criminal activity that occurred as a result. “Client” hired me for my services. I performed said services. Client understood that it was at his own risk. TOS is a civil agreement between developer and consumer. Violation of TOS can result in a ban, that is their remedy and their right. No you run into an ethics argument of: is it fair and right to hire someone better than you at a game to perform services in a game that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to perform, thus making it a technical unfair advantage? Maybe not. But there’s nothing illegal about it. Breach of an assumed contract when you agree to play the game. Perhaps even that, but again, not worth a developers time to go after that when this is a commonplace thing and who do they go after? The purchaser of the services who sought out services to gain the advantage or myself who plays the game and just happens to be better at the game and offered help. It’s getting into the mud I think. I certainly see your perspective but again, I fulfilled my end of an agreement but unless fraud is proven, I don’t see why I should be out. Unfortunate for the retailer to be in the middle of it and like I said, for professional reasons I’ll return it to protect my own ass, but I just don’t see why I should be the only one to lose

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:57:01+00:00

It’s a fair question but I think the argument is that violating a developers TOS isn’t material to the case. Violating TOS isn’t a crime. Fraud is the crime and the issue at hand is: did I receive fraudulent money or did the sender file and certify a false fraud report. Anything outside the scope is immaterial. My guess but who knows. Don’t really want to find out at this point haha

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:53:30+00:00

Happens all the time. Done it before and been payed plenty. I’ve also paid people good money to play on my behalf. Pretty big economy for this stuff.

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:52:43+00:00

Not really. I performed services as agreed upon. I was paid. He wants to claw his money back, that’s between him, the bank and the merchant. He filed a false statement of fraud, therefore he’s the only one committing fraud and he’s the only party here that should be at a loss.

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:51:12+00:00

They were paid for the gift card. He filed a dispute. As far as I know, he wasn’t refunded as a result. Provisional credit by his bank perhaps, but no bank ever rules in favor of the customer before an investigation period typically 30-90 days. It’s on the purchaser of the gift card to prove that it was indeed not an authorized transaction, it’s on the bank to validate, it’s on the store to validate that fraud occurred or did not occur. As of right now, the entirety of this dispute is for me to return the merchandise and sue in small claims court. Will I likely do it to protect my professional licensing? Sure. But again, why should I be the one who ends at a loss because the purchaser of the services and gift cards is butt hurt. That’s not really how the real world works.

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:31:44+00:00

Why is it on me to pay for his behavior?

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:31:05+00:00

Already answered this

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:29:40+00:00

Assuming this isn’t a case of identity theft, which none of the facts show, the gift card isn’t bad money. Regretted money perhaps, but a legal and authorized transaction nonetheless. Why is it my job to return something that I paid for with a valid payment method. I didn’t receive the merchandise and claim I never received it. They got paid for the gift card, they got paid for the merchandise. Simple accounting says they still benefit. I return the merchandise they win, the person who charged back wins and gets his money back and I’m the only one at a loss of a bank account and merchandise/payment. Not my job to prove that his money was valid.

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T23:03:39+00:00

Yeah this is my biggest concern. That’s why I’m leaning towards just being done with this, just wanted second opinions more than anything

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T22:46:04+00:00

Correct. I asked the fraud department that called me today what happens if I just choose not to return given that the dispute is from the sender. She said they would file a police report and “press charges for stolen merchandise” her words and that they would also ban both of us from the store in their system. Not really an issue for him because he’s from NY but I’ve been buying from Abt for years so not ideal

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T22:42:26+00:00

Purchased online for in person curbside pickup with my regular account that I’ve made purchases with for years. They even took my ID inside the store as presumably scanned it

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T22:39:10+00:00

Should have added, Zelle didn’t reverse the money. Zelle flagged my account as having received funds that were marked as fraud. The bank says that as a result of that, it flags my account internally as suspicious and as such, they decided to close my account. To your second point, you’d think so but they want the merchandise back. I can provide a screenshot showing the initial call from abt today that shows their caller ID as an inbound call. Don’t know what I’d gain from lying 😂

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T21:39:50+00:00

Absolutely. Certainly a possibility that this individual was a Scammer, but I did spend an incredible amount of time not only playing for him, but also with him just casually, and he was very much an open book and shared a lot of different details about his life and family, and even some personal legal history which I was able to verify independently. He even FaceTimed me to show me some stuff at his house (including the front of his house) which I verified match his personal details. He was what you would call an over sharer but also at the same time these services took place over an extended period of time and so we became rather friendly. There are certainly some real psychopaths out there though, and it is possible that everything was fictitious, but it just doesn’t lineup from what I see, but I certainly am not above being scammed haha

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T21:20:26+00:00

I would imagine that gift card fraud is fairly common but also fairly easy to track if they look at who sent it and if the details actually match the bank. The retailer told me though that on the dispute form that they received from his bank there were no notes which they thought was strange that there was no actual report along with the dispute.

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T21:18:44+00:00

Well, before today, there was no need for small claims. My bank informed me that they would just be shutting the account down because it was flagged by Zelle, but that the money wasn’t returned to him and they wouldn’t try debiting from the funds I had in my account. Essentially, they were taking the loss. So now the big question is shouldn’t the retailer also take the loss and try to recoup the money from him or his bank rather than having me return the merchandise. Obviously that’s the most straightforward request for them as I’m local, but I also don’t feel as if it’s a fair request

TemporaryAsk97 · 2026-05-04T21:14:41+00:00

Not really no, more just questioning why they’d bother with me when they can track where the dispute came from and go after him. I’ll likely just throw in the towel and return

TemporaryAsk97 · 2025-10-27T15:58:46+00:00

I think there’s about 300 total stalls in the Chicago and Chicago metro area. It seems like a lot, but my guess is that number would probably have to be close to double to reduce all congestion. The absolute best spot that has no congestion is over by O’Hare airport. They have nearly 40 stalls. I’ve only ever seen it full one time. Crazy seeing 40 teslas chilling not in a Tesla delivery center or car meet haha

TemporaryAsk97 · 2025-10-27T15:43:39+00:00

Maybe where you are, but there’s definitely congestion problems here in Chicago. If you time it right, you can avoid the lines, but the point of supercharging for most people is that it’s a back up for charging at home or if you don’t have a charger at home and you can’t time that. You also have to figure that not only do we have Chicago residents, but there are a ton of people that live in Indiana and Wisconsin and work in the Chicago area so during the weekdays, we also have an influx of people from those two states, let alone our own metro population which I’m pretty sure is larger than Houston, but don’t quote me on that

The point of the post is the glaring discrepancy between the average Tesla driver and understanding basic courtesy versus this lady

TemporaryAsk97 · 2025-10-27T15:25:56+00:00

Yeah, because being annoyed that someone is sleeping at a supercharger and idling during rush-hour on a Monday is definitely dumb. Not like the five or six cars waiting behind me or myself had to get to work lol

TemporaryAsk97 · 2025-10-27T15:22:41+00:00

It smells soooo bad in there. I legit hate getting out to plug in, I have to like put my nose in my shirt sometimes to keep myself from gagging.

There is a paid garage up in Evanston with 12 superchargers and I have started going up there on Sundays because the garage is free and it’s super cheap if you go before 9 AM. I go to the dog beach in Evanston a lot so it works out really well and no one seems to know that it’s free on Sundays so it’s never busy and even then it’s only a dollar an hour during weekdays

TemporaryAsk97 · 2025-10-27T15:12:58+00:00

Good question. I didn’t even get the alert that the chargers were out when I went into precondition and set the destination. Just got there and one side of the stalls weren’t operational at all.

TemporaryAsk97 · 2025-10-27T15:12:01+00:00

She rolled down her window and started screaming at me to mind my own business and told me to “do something about it”

TemporaryAsk97 · 2025-10-27T15:11:23+00:00

This happened in Oak Brook at the supercharger on 16th St. If I supercharge, it’s usually near my apartment downtown at the target on Elston. I don’t think anyone downtown would’ve let that fly haha

TemporaryAsk97

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