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PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

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Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#141

Post by andrewkreid »

psychotik wrote: post #138
walexander wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I froze for a second after reading that statement, which I was completely unaware of. I sometimes buy and sell rare coins (particularly US Morgan dollars), which regularly go for thousands of dollars. I have one on eBay at this very moment that I'm attempting to get $3000+ for. I've never heard of such a dispute happening before, or have I had any issues in the past, but now knowing this, i'm really scared of what mi…

Out of curiosity, how do you destroy a coin?

Traditionally, by leaving it on the train tracks.

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#142

Post by kd5bjo »

psychotik wrote: post #138
walexander wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I froze for a second after reading that statement, which I was completely unaware of. I sometimes buy and sell rare coins (particularly US Morgan dollars), which regularly go for thousands of dollars. I have one on eBay at this very moment that I'm attempting to get $3000+ for. I've never heard of such a dispute happening before, or have I had any issues in the past, but now knowing this, i'm really scared of what mi…

Out of curiosity, how do you destroy a coin?

Melting.

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#143

Post by loopdoend »

anigbrowl wrote: post #66
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the law is wrong. I mean, let's drop the literal-mindedness for a second. It's my money. They are holding it hostage. I want it back. They should not be allowed to do this. Still nothing wrong with the situation, in your opinion?

No, you're wrong. Nobody is forcing you to use Paypal, you accept payment that way because it's convenient for both buyer and seller. You could advertise on Craigslist, but would you feel comfortable if someone says, 'I will send you a check, please ship to this address'? No, because the check may be bad and you could have a big financial headache. Likewise, many buyers would not be comfortable sending a check or tak…

I'm pretty sure PayPal charges fees for the convenience of getting your money instantly, which means nobody is expecting charity here as you seem to be implying. Thus, PayPal is not bearing all the risk, indeed they are being paid to carry the risk. I have a merchant account and it clears to my bank account next day, there is no such 21-day float period, which might be more common when you are being paid by a vendor but not a bank.

In my opinion their rules are exploitative and out of line with what I would expect from a company that I would do business with. (Edited to remove 'out of line with what rational people expect' comment, I do not presume to speak for anyone.)

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#144

Post by buff-a »

chc wrote: post #80
jackowayed wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above clause of the TOS is the reason not to sue. The seller agreed to a TOS that says that if PayPal decides that it is counterfeit, they refund the money and the item is destroyed, without any restriction on what care PayPal has to take to decide that it's counterfeit. So PayPal acted within the terms of their agreement.

Are you a lawyer? Because it doesn't look like users are actually required to hold PayPal harmless in the event of property loss due to bad counterfeit decisions.

Are you a lawyer? You appear to believe that a signed contract is inviolate. I am not a lawyer either, but I've dealt with contracts enough to know that the clause in this contract has "reasonable" in it for a reason, and that "reasonable" does not mean "whatever we think is reasonable".

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#145

Post by tibbon »

shasta wrote: post #45
tfe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official policy is probably to have buyers destroy counterfeit products to prevent their circulation (possibly at the request of manufacturers?), and that's the reason this happened.

Next week: counterfeit kitten claims lead to international PR disaster for Paypal.

Frodo should have just sold the ring via eBay as a counterfeit 'ring of dancing +1', had Paypal deem it fraudulent and then had Paypal use its magical powers to destroy it.

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#146

Post by buff-a »

kstenerud wrote: post #65
droithomme wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see at all that they reasonably believed it was counterfeit. Unreasonably speculated, perhaps. Reasonably believed? Nope.

The key words here are "in our sole discretion". Those words are legal kryptonite.

You might want to add "IANAL".

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#147

Post by tibbon »

pbreit wrote: post #76
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #40

Yeah. I'm selling some old stuff on eBay, using money to buy newer stuff, drawing the difference from the bank when the PayPal balance is not enough. Repeat. After not even two cycles of this, I get an email from PP saying: > Starting MM/DD/YYYY, money from payments you receive will be placed in a pending balance for up to 21 days. By doing this, we're making sure that there's enough money in your account to cover po…

I can assure you they do not do it to earn interest. PayPal loses far more money on chargebacks, fraud, payment reversals, dispute resolutions, etc. than it makes on a measly 21 days of interest. Further, "hold backs" (aka "reserves") are very common in bank-operated credit card merchant accounts.

So why didn't they do that from day 1 when i opened my account 8 years ago?

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#148

Post by MPSimmons »

walexander wrote: post #123
dotBen wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know this 10.1 b clause until now but it makes it VERY clear to me: NEVER use PayPal to sell anything that could in anyway be disputed as counterfeit given that the terms allow PayPal to deems what is genuine/fake remotely, without physical inspection and results in not only money witheld but a potentially genuine item being destroyed. So so crazy.

I froze for a second after reading that statement, which I was completely unaware of. I sometimes buy and sell rare coins (particularly US Morgan dollars), which regularly go for thousands of dollars. I have one on eBay at this very moment that I'm attempting to get $3000+ for. I've never heard of such a dispute happening before, or have I had any issues in the past, but now knowing this, i'm really scared of what mi…

Square. Authorize payment via phone.

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#149

Post by burgerbrain »

psychotik wrote: post #138
walexander wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I froze for a second after reading that statement, which I was completely unaware of. I sometimes buy and sell rare coins (particularly US Morgan dollars), which regularly go for thousands of dollars. I have one on eBay at this very moment that I'm attempting to get $3000+ for. I've never heard of such a dispute happening before, or have I had any issues in the past, but now knowing this, i'm really scared of what mi…

Out of curiosity, how do you destroy a coin?

I remember a year or three ago there was a story going around about Chinese scrap metal recyclers getting shipments of "destroyed" euro coins and reassembling them to pass off as intact money. Turns out at the time the official method to decommission the coins was to pop out the center piece.

So to answer your question: In some cases, not well enough. ;)

EDIT: source: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/euro_coin_recy...

Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute

#150

Post by gwern »

tibbon wrote: post #145
shasta wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next week: counterfeit kitten claims lead to international PR disaster for Paypal.

Frodo should have just sold the ring via eBay as a counterfeit 'ring of dancing +1', had Paypal deem it fraudulent and then had Paypal use its magical powers to destroy it.

'The Eye of San Jose is on us, Samwise Tibbon!'
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