Ryan Lavery

Name: Ryan Lavery
Location: Downpatrick, County Down
Email: ballynoeautos@hotmail.com
Ebay: ballyn_81 (confirmed), termc4 (possibly)

I recently decided to go all-digital with my console games, both for the Xbox One X and the PlayStation 4 Pro, in order to save space. This meant that I had a load of physical games to sell which went on Amazon, eBay and Facebook.

I listed the games at just below the current going rates in order to shift them quickly, and I also provided free 2nd class postage to sweeten the deal. On Amazon and eBay the games were selling like hot cakes, but not so much on Facebook where it seems time-wasters outnumber genuine buyers approximately 10000:1. As an aside, I wouldn’t bother listing games on Facebook again.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand and my experience with Ryan Lavery from Downpatrick in Northern Ireland.

On Saturday the 1st of December she purchased The Evil Within for the PlayStation 4, and this particular game was selling cheap so mine was listed for just £4.99. As above, this included free 2nd class postage which I’m sure anyone would agree was a great deal.

I took the game to the post office the following day, Sunday the 2nd of December, along with a load of others. Postal services don’t run on Sundays of course, but my local convenience store has a little Post Office counter where they will sell postage options and take the mail ready for shipping first thing Monday morning. So the game was effectively shipped on Monday the 3rd.

Three days later, on Thursday the 6th, I received the following message from Ryan:

Fake seller refund no goods r case

So… as a sentence that made very little sense, but by breaking it down I could see that she seemed to be suggesting that I was a “fake seller” because she had received “no goods” and that she wanted a “refund”. As for “r case” though, I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. So I replied in what I felt was the most apppropriate manner:

What?

To which Ryan responded:

Refund were is the game

Although again this didn’t make any sense as a sentence, the fact that there were now two such posts in sequence suggested that I was dealing with more than a cat randomly pressing keys on a keyboard.

Since it was immediately clear trouble lay ahead, my first course of action was to prevent her from being able to buy any more items from me by adding her to my blocked buyers list. Once that was done, I informed her that she didn’t get a refund just because the game had not arrived 3 days after it was dispatched by Royal Mail. The game had been sent 2nd class (at no cost to her) to Northern Ireland, so it would be unsurprising if not expected that it could take an extra day or two to arrive. Ryan was having none of that:

Under stand this case black mark on your account plus I use your bad feed back to win case sorry

And with that, she left me negative feedback stating that her game had not arrived on time, ruining my 100% positive feedback rating on eBay.

I called eBay and explained what had just happened. They read our exchange and quickly concluded that Ryan was being unreasonable, so they happily removed the feedback and flagged her account for closer inspection.

Next, I received an email from PayPal where Ryan had separately opened a dispute and was once again angling for her refund. In her opening statement, along with a whole load of other nonsense she claimed that eBay itself was “fake” because they had sided with me.

I was satisfied that PayPal would shut her down just as quickly as eBay had, but having to take a few minutes out of my day to deal with this person was still irritating.

Sure enough, PayPal agreed that she was being unreasonable but surprisingly they elected to refund her anyway – not out of my pocket but out of their own.

I challenged this decision and pointed out that they were simply rewarding her terrible behaviour by giving her what she wanted. PayPal’s response was that they could see she was playing a game here but that immediately refunding her the £4.99 was more cost-effective than responding to her or investigating the case. So they paid her to get lost.

Ryan later sent me another message through eBay, gloating about her refund by copying and pasting the contents of the automated email that she had received from PayPal. I replied and told her to foxtrot oscar.

Ryan then replied again but this time referred to herself as Ryan:

Love u seller from Ryan xx up the ra

I had no idea what “up the ra” was supposed to mean so I ran it through Google. The most likely match was “up the R.A.” which is a phrase of support for the Republican Army among the Catholics of the Irish Republic. So yeah, I was dealing with a proper moron here. She/he continued:

I am a cops son M8 my dad will help u sure u want to keep going he’s report u to the met police as theft

So Ryan was now suggesting that I was going to be reported to the MET Police (which is Greater London’s police force) for theft, despite the fact that I live in Cheshire which is at least a couple of hundred miles outside of their jurisdiction, because Royal Mail had failed to deliver a 2nd class item from the British mainland to an address in Northern Ireland within 3 days. Oh boy.

At this point I went to town a little bit, mocking this individual and their ridiculous comments. Some more moronic comments followed including further threats to report me to the MET and to the Police Service of Northern Ireland… which was just bizarre. Next I got this:

Us Irish beat the English we killed slot off your queen cunts to xx rira

Now, anyone with an IQ above double digits would be able to guess with some confidence from my name that I am not English, but Ryan here apparently isn’t included in that demographic because it seemed that this remark was meant to offend me somehow. I mean, I was offended by the butchering of the English language at the hands of this cretin but that was clearly unintentional.

“RIRA” is another Irish nationalist reference to the Real Irish Republican Army.

I replied and further mocked this individual. I just couldn’t help it, sorry! He/she replied:

I am a high well top doctor love look me up so go away u have to sell crap on eBay for cash I have 10 bedroom house and three rangerovers so go away my husband is a inspector in the Psni so go away

I sent Ryan a link to this article so that they could witness firsthand the fruits of their labour. They replied as follows:

Silly man with your lies we have called Psni and u r being arrest we r pushing charges on u and sueing u dick

They then opened a return request through eBay, claiming that the game (which until now hadn’t been received remember!) had actually been received damaged and that they wanted to return it for a refund – despite the fact that they have already received a refund out of PayPal’s pocket.

I declined the return and contacted eBay, who then closed the dispute immediately, apologised to me for this buyer’s behaviour, and raised their behaviour with the appropriate team in order for the account to be sanctioned or closed as appropriate.

Update: 13/12/18

Almost a week later and Ryan still had their account on eBay and had left another user negative feedback for not posting a game on a Sunday – a day on which, as highlighted above, postal services don’t run anyway. So unfortunately it seemed that eBay was failing genuine users here by allowing a poisonous, lying little shit to continue to use the service.

I contacted the seller, gave them a link to this article and advised them to contact eBay. They were thankfully able to get the negative feedback removed as a result.

Update: 5/3/19

I have since received confirmation from eBay that Ryan’s account has been closed.

Over the last few weeks, perhaps as a result of the above, I’ve received messages from four different people telling me how Ryan is the victim in this case and that I am a terrible person for posting this article – though in much more colourful language.

However, all four of those people posted their message from the same computer, all four had the same terrible grasp of English and two of them even used the same email address… which was Ryan’s.

Ryan, sending me abusive messages under different names is not going to achieve anything. I am not going to remove the article. If you don’t want to be exposed as a thief, liar and a racist, then the simple answer is not to behave like one.

Update: 5/12/19

The abusive messages mentioned above have continued for several months now, and they range from sad to desperate to threatening.

The author frequently uses different names, but it’s pretty obvious from the consistently poor English and general writing style that it’s the same individual in each case. And they also post each one from the same IP address.

Another such message was posted today so I decided to finally share with the world the true scale of their stupidity.

mate u need a lift shameing people someone should kill u i put bounty on your head £1000 for some one to kill this sad loser

tim smith

u r right the poor people died three months ago in sligo and this twat is a dirty tramp putting them on here with lies

frank wuinn

poor u trp tout get it off shameing people pver a game wise up cunt i hope they sue u

fran quinn

u r sad wee man

mary

The lady is dead u r sick person and house someone was has it so wise up

Sean MC gee

The lady is dead u r sick person and house someone was has it so wise up get this off

Sean o neil

This guy’s needs shot

Tim lee

U need to wise up lady died

Timlee

Take it down r the family will sue u county court sheriff’s will pay you a visit

Tim lee

There are two instances of a threat here, which means I can report them to the police should I so choose. And their IP address would make it pretty straightforward for the individual responsible to be tracked down, irrespective of the stupid fake names they use.

I haven’t reported them yet, but if I receive any more of these messages then I think I will.

Update: 12/4/20

Despite the above warning, Ryan continued to post inflammatory comments such as:

This guy who owns the site needs to go home how are bank get over himself before someone puts a bullet in his head because he’s not wise simple retarded as he is forgetting Google has supplied people with his IP address which he thinks he’s simple he can go and ask Google

Tim

Get a life before someone takes yours

teresa mccomb

And so as promised, on the 10th of April 2020, I reported him to the police. PSNI were already aware of Ryan as it seems this is not the first time he’s been picked up on such behaviour.

They opened another file for this matter here, took all the relevant details and spoke to Ryan on the phone, explaining how if he continued his behaviour then the matter would escalate and he could land himself in some trouble.

The following day I received this:

Public humiliation – the act of embarrassing someone in the eyes of other people – can create a civil cause of action if the victim experiences damage to his reputation, finances or physical body. Public humiliation can be a type of defamation, which is the tort of making false statements that cause damage to someone else, as long as the statements were made with at least a negligent disregard for their truth. If a prank causes physical harm, there may be a case for an assault or battery charge. take it down as google is backing me as u r a lier police doing nothing as u r in the wrong u have no proof call cops as gos to court breaking the law i will sue u

j

So despite the warning from PSNI, Ryan has seen fit to post yet again. This time however he has at least put some effort into forming an argument rather than just post moronic threats, and so on this occasion I’m actually going to respond to the message.

Ryan, you are correct in that “public humiliation can be a type of defamation”, but your problem here is that in order for a statement to be considered defamation, it has to be untrue. It even says so in your quote. Relevant parts underlined:

Public humiliation can be a type of defamation, which is the tort of making false statements that cause damage to someone else, as long as the statements were made with at least a negligent disregard for their truth.

Here it clearly states that a statement can only be considered to be defamatory where the statements are false and are written with a disregard for the truth.

I can prove that everything written here is true because it’s all backed up by logs: communications through eBay, PayPal and this blog are all logged and recorded without any bias and as such it all serves as reliable evidence.

You DID open an PayPal dispute claiming you hadn’t received a game that you had clearly already received. You DID then open an eBay dispute to try to obtain a further refund for the game you had in your hands, despite the fact that PayPal had already refunded you just to get you out of their face. And you DID send me a load of racist, nationalist, bigoted and threatening bullshit that was also laced with lies.

All of this is recorded and can safely be considered FACT, which means it cannot meet the requirements of the definition of “defamation”.

And I’m not even the only person you’ve done this to. eBay displays the feedback that users have both left for others and received in return, and your profile clearly showed that you made an unfortunate habit of purchasing items, immediately opening disputes with the sellers for “items not received” and then sent them a torrent of abuse – all of it just as moronic as the abuse you’ve sent me. A couple of those victims even found this article and posted in the comments section. And again, this is all logged and ready to be considered as evidence.

The existence of this article clearly bothers you, as you have spent an unusual amount of time sending me nonsense comments over the past 12 months. But if you had any sense you could have gone about your mission to have it removed in an entirely different way.

I have removed an article from this site in the past. It was about a guy who sold online photo gallery software, and after he had seen the article he apologised, took steps to make things right and demonstrated how he was going to make sure that he didn’t do similar things to anyone else in the future. As a result, I removed the article in an effort to help him clean his slate.

You on the other hand have just continued to send me stupid threats.

If you feel that you have a good chance at court at proving your defamation case, then you are welcome to go ahead and take me to court. You already have all my details so go ahead. Just so that we’re clear here though, the judge will absolutely rip you apart.

Update: 16/5/20

Ryan posted a few new messages again tonight, bragging that “Ryan Lavery” wasn’t the name he went by so this whole post was irrelevant.

He also said a whole load of other nonsense as usual but to be honest none of that is important because I just want to make a simple point.

I already knew he went by a different name. I knew because I’d found him on Facebook a long time ago, but until now had decided to do nothing with that information because, to be honest, I thought he’d eventually take the hint and fuck off.

But here he is 18 months later still sending me abusive messages so I’ve decided to step things up a little.

He goes by “Ryan Fitz Fitzpatrick”. Here’s his Facebook profile. I believe Colette Lavery, one of just 8 friends, is Teresa’s daughter. I’m going to message her now and show her this page, and I hope she can get Ryan the help that he so obviously needs before he ends up in serious trouble.

Ryan also claimed to no longer be living in Downpatrick and that he was now living on the UK mainland. Strange then that his IP address still resolves to Downpatrick.

Ryan, you obviously have some serious mental health issues and I hope you get them sorted. But I’m done with you now.

Goodbye.