Posted on 01/04/2012 4:06:38 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
PayPal is feeling the wrath of the viral web yet again, fresh off of a spat with Regretsy that unleashed a wave of negative PR.
What did it do this time?
An eBay seller named Erica sent a letter in to Regretsy outlining a recent experience with PayPal that cost her what is apparently a $2,500 antique violin.
According to Erica, she sold the violin to a buyer in Canada, who disputed the label. PayPal declared the violin "counterfeit" (which Erica says there's no such thing in the violin world), and told the buyer to destroy the violin if he wanted his money back.
That's what the buyer did, and he took a picture. Why couldn't he just return it? Here's part of PayPal's dispute policy:
"PayPal may require you to ship the item back to the seller - or to PayPal - or to a third party at your expense, and to provide proof of delivery. Please take reasonable precautions in re-packing the item to reduce the risk of damage to the item during transit. PayPal may also require you to destroy the item and to provide evidence of its destruction."
And so, now the seller is out $2,500 and an antique violin. She says that when she spoke to PayPal reps over the phone, they "defended their action and gave [her] the party line."
She also says that the violin was "examined and authenticated by a top luthier prior to its sale," and that, "in the violin market, labels often mean little and there is often disagreement over them. Some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, but they are works of art nonetheless."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Stuff like this is why I no longer sell things on ebay. I had an experience similar to this and was almost cheated out of $800. They are not good to their sellers.
Very strange. Incidentally, for any sellers here, there is a tremendous amount of fraud committed by the BUYERS of instruments, ranging from theft of the instrument to fraud where they attempt to get into your bank account. Beware.
I also had my first bad experience on “FEEBay” after 10 years of trading, seller totally lied about a laptops specifications (6 of the 9 specs were wrong, processor, hard drive cap., screen size, ram, etc.)
I would have been out the shipping cost to send it back thru NO FAULT OF MY OWN.
Told them to shove it, gave the seller her first bad review (which dropeed her to 93.3%)and used the money I would’ve wasted on shipping the laptop back to upgrade it to what was advertised!
Amazon.com from here on out!!!
Got taken for a Bobcat 843 (8700 bucks) and tons of overdraft fees because of it by paypal. And I had to pay the consignor of the machine.
Guy won, guy paid, I hit transfer to checking, he picked it up, I paid the seller, buyer went home waited 2 days (now 8 days past date of sale) and claimed I never shipped.
It was sold local pickup. paypal did not care, pulled the money back and gave it to him.
I’ll use paypal GUEST to pay (I can’t have a paypal account, They say I still owe them money on this ordeal) but I would NEVER, EVER give them access to my checking accounts again.
I did finely get the machine back after dragging him to court (locally) winning (he no showed) driving 500 miles with truck and trailer and paying his local sheriff to assist in recovering the asset.
Of course the machine was trashed.
“there is a tremendous amount of fraud committed by the BUYERS of instruments, “
NSS! I know a guy who sold a quite valuable old Tweed Fender amp on ebay. The buyer claimed it was damaged in shipment. When my friend got his amp back, the speakers were missing, as were the tubes and transformers.
She should have accepted the instrument back then there would have been no destruction of the instrument.
Buying any instrument without playing it is just dumb. Buying a violin on the Internet without really knowing the makers and their makers or styles is throwing money away.
Having said that there is a huge fraud game in the labels inside a lot of violins so if you do not know the makers styles or have papers to go with the violin from good experts then you are going to be taken for a ride. Even when dealing with the "experts" you are dealing with the violin mafia and can be taken for a fool....so good luck!
What I don’t understand is why the dispute had to go to Paypal to be mediated. Erica wouldn’t take it back? They couldn’t agree on shipping and insurance? Erica didn’t answer emails?
The seller stated that she would have been happy to accept the instrument back. The fact is, when eBay or PayPal chooses to believe the "counterfeit" claim, they often, if not always, demand that the buyer destroy the counterfeit product so that the seller cannot try to sell it again. Selling counterfeit items is prohibited on eBay. Often the culprits are handbags and shoes.
I gave up on ebay and pay pal two years ago. My credit card reached its temporal limit and Visa sent me a new one. When I tried to replace the old number on Pay Pal PP said no, that I could only use the old one. Of course I couldn’t actually pay for anything with the out-of-date card but PP was intransigent. They must have hired a bunch of ex bureaucrats.
There are many times when sellers aren’t even contacted by the buyers about items purchased before a dispute has been filed. Typically it happens when a buyer is not a seasoned purchaser on eBay, and doesn’t understand the preference to contact the seller with a problem before filing a dispute. eBay/PayPal sides with buyers very frequently, despite a seller’s best efforts to be an honest trading partner, and many times despite the evidence at hand.
I have been an eBay buyer for many years, and I wanted to get started selling through them, so I first ventured to the Answer Center there for education on how to proceed. Boy, did I get an education! Sellers are given very little latitude, and buyers hold almost all the cards. Sellers are rarely protected from unscrupulous buyers. Needless to say, I do not currently use eBay for selling, only buying.
Before I started selling on ebay (few years back) opened a checking account with 50 dollars only for paypal..when my paypal account got over 100 dollars in it, I had it transfered to the new account...no way was I giving them access to my regular accounts...then empied the ebay account, they couldn’t freeze money from paypal as there was never over 100 dollars in it, sometimes less...I had heard of too many people that left thousands in their paypal accounts and had it frozen...Back then I sent money orders for things I bought unless it was just 20 dollars or less...Post office money orders cause I was always there shipping anyway.....but never sold anything over 300 dollars...
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