Scammers sueing me for libel!

Hi,

It sounds very strange, but it's happening - to me!
August last year, I bought something from an eBayer, who then offered to sell me some other things. Being a little ignorant of what was really happening, I agreed. We were emailing back and forth almost every day, when eventually, I also agreed to a website being built.

It ended up costing me just under US$10K, which was close to half my income at the time. Being naive, I agreed when these people insisted that I pay via Telegraphic Transfer. This was back in September last year.

Almost as soon as I paid them the money, they started to ignore my emails. It would sometimes take them a couple of weeks to get back to me. Also, I noticed that they had sent me hardly anything. Just a couple of packages - only a small part of what they were suppossed to send.

They had repeatedy told me that further packages would be sent "tommorrow". However, this didn't turn out to be the case.

I started to get suspicious when they stopped responding to my emails, and so I checked their eBay account for further activity. It was closed. I called the number they gave me. It was disconnected.

I called the police in their local area, and they did some digging. Apparently the business name they were fronting is not registered, and they have a criminal record.

All these things pretty much confirmed for me that I had been scammed. I posted about it in a well respected forum.

Anyway, they did email back to me, but it was just to inform me that they had moved, and had a new address. This was back in late January. They told me that my items were going out soon.

I gave them a week, and when I didn't recieve anything, I filed a Rip Off Report on them. I was basically telling people to stay away from these guys, and admittedly I might have gone over the top, and called them outright scam artists. However, in my defence, I believed it to be true - I had been ripped off a lot of money.

Anyway, discussions between us have become less cordial, with me losing my patience, and them trying to avoid responsibility for what has happened.

I still haven't recieved anything further from them (packages or website). However, I have recieved an email from them recently stating that they had read my posts on the forum, and the Rip Off Report (which incidently they had just discoevered) and now plan to sue me for 'libel' loss of potential business.

Oh yeah, one other thing. They've now decided they're going to send the packages (probably so they don't look like total fools, when they present their case).

These people have mislead me, taken my money, and just now have found another way to possibly squeeze more money out of me. I know that apparently their merchant facilities were closed down by the bank, and so they were short of funds (that was the excuse they used for not sending me my items earlier this year).

They've given me the name of the law firm they will be using, and stated that there will be no further communications between us. They informed me that they will also be moving out of the state.

What should I do? I know they might have a case against me, however what I said at the time in the report appeared to be true (and I still believe this might be the case). Do I have a good defence against this?

I'm a low income earner, so I really can't afford a legal battle, if that's what's to happen.

John B