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

Post by invisible » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 7:45 AM UTC

buff-a wrote: post #144

chc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Post by ryan-allen » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 8:06 AM UTC

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.

Post by hackermom » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 8:26 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #112

hackermom wrote: post #7

I can't believe the buyer didn't reflect over how awkwardly wrong it was to destroy someone else's unpaid-for property on the request of a third party (PayPal). Breathtaking stupidity.

How do we know buyer did destroy the violin, and not some random shitty violin?

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 8:36 AM UTC

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…

Post by cema » Wed, Jan 04, 2012, 8:41 AM UTC

gwern wrote: post #151

chris_gogreen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The violin in the article supposedly made it through WWII.

Lots of things made it through WWII. Bringing that up (it survived the Arab oil embargo, Iran-Contra, WWI, the Spanish-American Influenza, 9/11...) is just rhetoric to drive home that it was more than a century old.