annoyed with ebay & paypal

reen_3

i've been buying and selling things on ebay for about 6 years now. i've had my share of difficult transactions, but none have annoyed me quite so much as these two.

in the first transaction, a buyer from canada bid on a cd that i was selling. the listing clearly stated that it was a cd and it was listed in the correct category. following the end of the auction, the buyer e-mails me and says that he didn't realised that it was a cd. he thought it was a vinyl. normally i let these people off the hook. but then he went on to say that how dare i sell the cd for more than he could buy it for in a shop (in canada, i presume). he was quite rude about it, so i wrote back a polite e-mail stating that by bidding, he entered into a contract to buy the item, and blah, blah, blah. the guy wrote back a long rant culminating with him threatening to come to my house and beat me up (in less polite words). i was in no way frightened by this guy, but i was angry and forwarded his e-mail to ebay (including the full headers to prove that i didn't just make this up). i then left him negative feedback. so what does ebay do about a (non-paying) member who theatened another member? nothing! the guy kept his account and later proceeded to leave me negative feedback!

then recently i had a problem with a seller. i had bought a jacket from this guy and paid via paypal. the jacket arrived looking nothing like in the picture. not even the same colour. on top of that, it was dirty. the seller refused to refund, so i filed a claim with paypal stating that the item that i received was different from the one that i had bought and that i would be happy to provide photos. i then waited for almost 3 months for a response from paypal. when i finally got a reply, they had ruled in the favour of the seller without even seeing the pics. again, i've been with paypal for many years without any problems or complaints (by or against me). the seller had only been a member for a few months. why had they ruled in his favour? based on what? ugh. i wish there was an alternative to paypal, but there's really not.

motorguy

i've been selling for a couple of years now, am a power seller and naively thought things were great and that ebay and paypal would look after me if things ever went wrong, recently i found out to the tune of a £435 transaction they don't. They just look after themselves and as long as they get their fees and money then great, after that they take the path of least resistence to themselves, and sod the innocent seller!

beachbeth

pgilc1 wrote:

i've been selling for a couple of years now, am a power seller and naively thought things were great and that ebay and paypal would look after me if things ever went wrong, recently i found out to the tune of a £435 transaction they don't. They just look after themselves and as long as they get their fees and money then great, after that they take the path of least resistence to themselves, and sod the innocent seller!

This has been my experience too. Any people out there wanting to scam can feel safe in the knowledge that they will never be made to pay for their cons!

mrwibble

pgilc1 wrote:

... they take the path of least resistence to themselves ...

100% correct - this is the essence of Paypal - usually its fine but any issues are dealt with on the basis of the least effort to themselves since they don't have to have good customer service (look at how the major 4 banks used to treat people (and still do to an extent) and how they responded when alternatives came along) to make a profit - we all pay via paypal and there really is no alternative.

From a sellers perspective NoChex at least recognises the issue by allowing sellers to dodge chargebacks most of the time - wonder why they decided that would be a good marketing ploy ? If you have a high value transaction then at least check the buyer out via a service like 192.com - I do for laptop sales and speak to the buyer. I don't do much checking for business-oriented products such as servers / server power units etc as they don't have an easy resale on the black market - fill in the blanks and see which one is more believable - "I got a .......... from a man down the pub" - Sony laptop or IBM pSeries server.

At the end of the day my advice to sellers is budget 10% of your profits for bad debt / chargebacks and try and go for cash / bank transfer via discounts if you can - if not do some checking - I've sold stuff to Croatia, Moldova and Thailand without problem - its not really that much of a jungle !

For buyers - make sure you use a credit card with a good customer service reputation e.g. Egg and a large UK customer base as they will be used to dealing with Paypal and will not make elementary errors like believing them without cast-iron proof.

Reen : Check your transaction for the jacket - if it shows you funding it via a credit card then call them not paypal - you will at least speak to someone who is reasonable and gives a damn.