Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Warning about Paypal.........LT61 eats Crow.

I have been busy selling (and some buying) On Ebay for quite a while now. Some time ago, I posted about something about how well it was going, and how much I was enjoying my new hobby.
If I remember right, someone responded with a rant about Paypal.
I defended Paypal, since I had no problems with them.

Well,.......I have to eat some Crow on this one. I can no longer recommend Paypal.

Eight days, after a routine transaction and I had already shipped the item, I get an E-mail from Paypal saying they were doing an investigation into one of my transactions, and were freezing the funds. To make a long, long, story short...Even though I had done everything correctly on my end, Paypal later reversed the funds back to the "cheat" with what was told to me as a un-authorized Credit Card! Paypal never explained to me after many E-mail, and phone attempts why this was done, or why I was not protected from this fraud. I have been getting a TOTAL run-around.I have been in E-mail contact with the other six sellers that were stiffed by this guy,and they didn't get any further than I have..In fact one said Paypal Has done this to him four times, in the last eight years.

So, I'm lucky that I'm not out as much $$$$$ as the others, but now I can't TRUST Paypal's payments...(What if this had been an expensive item? I could have been out BIGTIME $$$$).They can defer to the "small print," come back and reverse funds ANYTIME.

I normally don't make this type of post, but I CAN'T STAND to be CHEATED.

So, be CAREFUL, they may be, (as one person who E-mailed me about this said) "a necessary evil" but, Regardless of what they advertise, sellers, (possibly buyers as well) are NOT protected!

That really sucks. I hope I don't have to go through that ever.

I bought some parts for my pinball machine. It was supposed to be "NOS" (new old stock) with a genuine holographic serial number, etc...

Well, the stuff comes, and about 1/3 of it was fake/counterfeit and there was no serial number, etc.

So I file a complaint after getting nowhere from the seller, and even though he sold counterfeit stuff, and completely lied about what he was selling, I was still on the hook for shipping and handling both ways (to me and then back to him) in order to get a refund of the sales price.

Problem for me is that they don't make this stuff anymore, and I really only needed the part of the set that WAS legit, so I wanted to keep the part I needed, send back the junk and get a partial refund. Paypal claims that they had a "real person" look over the complaint, but it seems like it just went through their automated system. I put notes in that I would accept a partial refund based off of these terms I just mentioned, but the "human" didn't read that, so they they just marked it that I would take a PARTIAL refund after I sent EVERYTHING back!!! WTF? Why would ANYONE do that? The set of parts cost me $50 plus almost $20 shipping to get to me (rip off shipping fees). It would cost almost another $7.50 to ship them back, and then I would only get a $20 refund?!?! So if I did that, I would have spent $57.50 and have nothing to show for it. Gee THANKS Paypal. Way to protect the buyer! Needless to say, I had to suck it up and keep everything. I tried to get the fake parts sold for just a little more than shipping, but nobody wanted them because I was upfront about them, and you could tell when compared to originals that they were close but not quite right. So I kept them all and had since moved on until this post.

eBay and Paypal have been the same company for some time, and neither really protects the buyer or the seller. Feedback is a joke. As a buyer, I still haven't left feedback for the above transaction in fear that even though I would be in the right to leave negative feedback, and even though I paid right away and did everything a buyer should, the seller would turn around and leave me negative feedback just to be a jerk.

I've always looked at PayPal, eBay and the like as nothing more than a middleman that sets the stage.

If it makes you feel better, I can send you a free pdf that describes my opinions of the Ultra vs. the EP600 .

my girlfriend just recently bought some aftermarket headlights on ebay through paypal on her dad's ebay account.

The headlights never shipped. About a month after the order was placed we submitted a complaint to paypal. They reimbursed my girlfriend for the whole amount (minus the shipping)...

A little different then your situation but much better outcome!

Oh well, at least we know that whoever is doing this will most likely get caught at some point!

Its unfortunate that greater protections are not affrded to buyers / sellers who have been cheated.

As someome who tries to be positive...especially in the begining of "things", this has been a bit of a shock. To be cheated by Paypal is the most disturbing part of this. And not being able to talk to someone in charge at Paypal to reason it out, is to say the least...frustrating. You are right about what would happen if you left that feedback. (My feedback rating is 100 percent, but it didn't matter in this situation).

On a more positive note, I used to LOVE pinball! (still do)
and it's especially fun, on a properly working machine.

(the hijack subject matter, is now in place)

I feel for you. A very similar thing happened to my mother with eBay & Paypal. No need to go into the details, but basically the same situation. It's the Paypal lottery. For no reason at all they can just decide that your account is 'fradulent' and shut you down & steal funds from you. My mom went round-and-round with PayPal & eBay for weeks with no resolution. She was just out a couple hundred bucks. End of story. No appeals. Thanks and have a nice day. The problem with PayPal is that they are completely unregulated by anyone. Not at all like a bank. PayPal can do whatever they want with your money, including not give it to you.

Up until about two years ago I enjoyed 'eBaying' stuff and never had any problems with PayPal. Both as a buyer and a seller. Then I hit upon a string of attempted fradulent transactions as a seller. Then this incident with my mom & PayPal occured. Then I had a good friend get scammed as a buyer. eBay & PayPal has always been a bit risky, but the risk/reward ratio had been 'ok' in my book. Not any longer.

Unless the money changing hands is on the level of what I could find in my couch cushions, it's just not worth it.

The only way I've found eBay to be relatively safe (as a buyer) is if you can find a forum like this where (real) people can actually recommend a specific seller/product. Better still if you can exchange emails ahead of time with a seller. Even better if you can engage in a dialog with them in a public forum. Of course, doing any of that is frowned upon by eBay. I've done that a few times with various things and it's always worked out well. Good products, good sellers, no problems.

I hate being cheated (this includes being burgled), I hate being falsely accused, and I hate being used. (One time in college, friends invited me to dinner and it turned out it was mostly because they knew I had money at the time and I could afford to pay for the meal. That really pissed me off. )

Those are a few things that will bring out a side of me that people rarely see. That side of me wants to damage the offenders.

I know what you're going through and it ain't a pretty thing to put up with. Hopefully paypal gets their collective heads out of their collective asses.

Its a sad thing, but I don't trust any transaction unless I specifically know that the other party is for real. This is one of the reasons I took the time to visit Axiom.

I occasionally do stuff on ebay, but it is transactions where the other party is local. I can then pick up and, if needed, test before paying.