I am a keen belly dancer. I am also a qualified and experienced dressmaker, but not in the specialist area of belly dance costumes. Good quality ones are made with much thicker sequins and heavier beads than western clothes, and thicker stronger thread that can't go through a machine, and the finished costumes can weigh several pounds. So if I want a practise costumes, or a lightweight costume for informal performance, I'll make my own. But when I want a professional standard, heavyweight hand-made costume I buy it. I've had some lovely stuff off e-bay in the past. This time, I saw a costume on the UK e-bay that I liked the look of. The seller, Mohamed Awad , calling himself 'arabiancostumes' described the costume as prefessional standard, heavyweight and hand-made - just what I was looking for. The flowery over-the-top description and given value of hundreds of dollars I put down to poetic license. Wanting it quickly for a special event, I paid the 'buy it now' price of $99 plus P&P - reasonable for this type of costume. What arrived shocked me - the style was nothing like the picture. It was so lightweight it arrived in a cardboard envelope. It weighed almost nothing - barely even registering on my kitchen scale. As I took it out of the envelope, flimsy broken beads and thin sequins cascaded out all over the floor. It was machine made and badly. Lightweight. Flimsy fabric. The give away - the value had been declared on the customs certificate as $5. Useless. I never even tried it on. A clear rip-off. A good quality item was sold - but a substandard rip-off item sent in it's place. I contacted the Mohamed Awad immediately, who after some arguing, agreed to a full refund. I sent the costume back untouched. I had to wear something else to the special event. The refund never arrived of course. I had to enter a dispute with Paypal,ignored by the seller. I escalated the dispute to a claim, still ignored by the seller. Judgement was made in my favour. Due to an admin error, when I claimed £79, I was paid out $79. Paypal cannot now correct the difference, so I am now still around £45 out of pocket. The Mr Awad even disputed the judgement, but I didn't find out on what grounds until later. Not surpisingly, I entered a truthful(and rather mild) negative comment on e-bay feedback. 'poor quality. overpriced. full refund promised, never received'. Imagine my shock when the seller then added insult to injury by libelling me on e-bay, ( and I presume to Paypal) saying that I had worn the costume and subsequently claimed a refund, and that he had supplied a full refund as asked. So not only did her rip me off, he also tried to damage my good name into the bargain. This seller clearly wants money at all costs and is not bothered who he hurts in the process. Full correspondence, etc is available as I saved it all. If you have also had problems with this seller, and need further evidence to back up a claim of your own, please do contact me. In the meantime, if you want to buy a costume, go for a better seller than this one ! He is Mohamed Awad, otherwise known as 'arabiancostumes', of 332 North Street, Yreka, California, CA 96097. e-mail mawad85@hotmail.com. Update - yesterday I had an e-mail from the seller. No apology, no promise to change his misleading advertising. Just the usual 'I make no money out of trading - I'm doing this to feed the starving millions back home' ploy. I don't believe it. And even if I did, ripping off his customers to send money home is no excuse. But he did offer to pay me the rest of the puchase price (but not the return postage of $25 odd I had to pay) if I would take my negative comments from e-bay. After the blatant lies, the open attempts to stop me getting any refund at all, and the libel, I decided this was a bigger issue than just my own loss of pocket. I want to protect others from the same treatment. So I declined his offer, so that I can continue to warn other people. 14/11/06 - update 2 - someone has kindly contacted me and suggested I sue - for both the lost money and the libel - I like this idea - can anyone recommend a lawyer in California who works on a 'no win no fee' basis and would like to take the case on ? 15/11/06 - update 3 - he's upped his offer to include postage, but still no apology, and he's still putting out his misleading ads, and I found out he libelled several other e-bay buyers. I've laid out my terms - watch this space. Thanks very much for your support.