The sad thing is he could have bought a $5 piece of junk at the pawn shop smashed it to bits then showed Paypal a picture of that.
PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
161–170 of 303 posts
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#162Yeah. 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…
Sorry, I had to laugh a little when I saw this since I received the same notice recently. I've been using eBay / PayPal since 2002 with 100% feedback and hundreds of transactions, so you'd think they'd treat me like a loyal and valued member, nope. I think my trigger was that people were giving me refunds for my purchases and I was giving people partial refunds as well. During the holidays a lot of people I purchased…
I got that notice too recently, and I've had no activity in my Paypal account for more than 6 months, so I'm not sure what their rationale is...
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#163Earlier 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…
We seriously need a viable competitor to the paypal/ebay system yesterday. That may be, and I make extremely little use of PayPal (only as a processor of credit card payments for merchants I trust on other grounds, and never as a seller of goods). But any new viable competitor to PayPal will have to solve all over all the cases of fraud and abuse that were responded to over the years by PayPal's current policies. "Th…
I think they need to be separate.
Paypal is still a great tool for transactions and I don't see a true competitor any time soon.
Ebay on the other hand is getting worst everyday. I visited their own forum and it is filled with extremely disgruntled sellers. The entire site is a complete mess.
I saw post on /r/startups about a ebay competitor in the works.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#164I just wish PayPal supports SOPA so that we can make a GoDaddy out of them.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#165I'm surprised the dispute got this far. Normal SOP on paypal goes like this.
1. Buyer pays for expensive item with credit card through paypal.
2. Buyer receives shipping confirmation.
3. Buyer disputes credit card transaction.
4. Paypal customer service says "LOL, should have sold it locally. We don't recommend using our service for items like this."
5. Buyer enjoys free $2500 violin.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#166Some guides for buying violins that go back to 2006 which say to ignore the labels on violins. http://reviews.ebay.com/Buying-an-old-violin-on-ebay?ugid=10... http://reviews.ebay.com/What-apos-s-in-a-Name-A-Guide-to-Lab... http://reviews.ebay.com/Violins-on-Ebay?ugid=100000000142981... Paypal TOS Covers counterfeit items: 10.1 b Further, if you lose a [Significantly Not as Described] Claim because we, in our sole dis…
It actually seems reasonable that PayPal would destroy counterfeit merchandise but it better be certain before doing so. Seems like it would make more sense for the item to be turned over to PayPal or law enforcement but perhaps that's too costly?
We're not talking about a fake handbag here that's replaceable with the genuine thing made in the Chinese factory across the street.
Antiques are irreplaceable and you'd better be sure what you're doing before destroying something like that.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#167I would sue PayPal in small claims court.
That won't bring back the violin. :-(
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you are someone who cannot afford the legal fees that would allow you to challenge said legality/enforceability. Which is pretty much anyone.
In California, the small claims court fee for this case would be $50, and lawyers are barred from representing either party.
Until the appeal, I believe.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This is the absolute best response to this post that we could ever have expected. Nailed it.
A good way to read Hacker News is just to follow 'anigbrowl comments:
http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=anigbrowl
He's like this all the time.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
TOS mean as much as the lawyer you have. PayPal can't get you to agree to things that are illegal, and improperly designating counterfeits would/should qualify. Especially when PayPal is a defacto monopoly. tl;dr lawyer up.
TOS mean as much as your small claims court judge decides it means. They had a professional appraisal on the violin that said it was authentic. Paypal has its TOS saying they can call anything counterfeit and their TOS says they can't be held liable for it. Sorry it's a judges job to say if you can or can't be held liable for your business terms and practices.
Seems like he would be holding the buyer liable in small claims, not paypal.