Congressional hearing please.
My only hope is that congress usually destroys instead of fixes whatever it sets it's eyes on, so PayPal would be doomed.
PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
211–220 of 303 posts
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can put that you own the customers soul in a tos or other ridiculous claims, but It will never upheld. This won't hold up in court.
caught -> court: oddest typo I've seen yet
It does sound similar. I regularly catch myself making pronounciation-based typos even though I definitely know the correct spelling.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 that the problem is exactly that paypal and credit cards try to solve the trust issue, but they do it in a simplistic way that heavily favors the buyer. Let payments be payments like cash, and solve trust issues separately with things like escrow services.
This is where bitcoin may be useful.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#214Earlier 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 presume you could take a bolt cutters to it and cut it up?
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#215I 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.
Legally the person who sent them the property agreed "If PayPal decides it's counterfiet, then I'm OK with it being destroyed"
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#216On the one hand, I can see why that particular clause (10.1b) is in their TOS. They don't want you (be you the buyer or the seller who got the item back) to re-sell the counterfeit item, costing PayPal the fees, and all of the lost time on the dispute.
However, there should be a reasonable limit, whereby if the item is >£x value, or is claimed to be an antique (or similar), an independent professional who can identify it will be hired -- and charged to whoever they side against (i.e. whoever made the false claim).
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The picture of the shredded violin causes me pain verging on the physical. It's probably best we don't know the identity of the buyer.
I hope the seller takes the buyer to small claims court. They should be forced to pay for a replacement violin. "but PayPal told me to do it" should not be a valid defense.
The seller agreed that if PayPal, at their sole discresion, thinks it's counterfiet, that they are OK with someone else destroying it.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#218To answer a couple of questions: 1. $2500 is a mid grade violin. I have a 100yo Czech violin that is worth $250. Sears specials for Jr. High students can cost $100. 2. The seller is right that the Label doesn't qualify as intentional counterfeiting. My Czech violins says its a Strad. This is extremely common, and should be taken more like a 'inspired by' tag--unless of course the maker is reputable enough to place th…
I wonder if counterfeits explain this: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/1444828...
FWIW, trying to compare two violins with recorded clips like the ones in that blog post is pointless because there are overtones picked up by the ear that you can't capture with a microphone.
I'm not sure whether or not to be surprised by the test results. I wonder what kind of credentials these "professionals" have? Even the best violinists probably have tried only a few of the many Strads and Guarneris in existence, so how would the professionals in this experiment know what to listen for?
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#219Note: the story only mentions the end result, not the path to that end results - so we only have a partial story
I've been through the PayPal dispute process as a buyer several times. It can only be escalated to a PayPal decision after communications between the buyer and the seller have proved unsuccessful / broken down, as in the seller doesn't reply, or refuses to sort out the situation. It doesn't happen overnight.
It's not clear which way this went, but after negotiating with the seller proved fruitless, and then being forced into raising a PayPal dispute, then again the seller failing to resolve the matter forcing an escalation to a PayPal decision - this led to the path of destroying what was claimed to be counterfeit materials.
So the seller knows that violin labels are a contentious area, thus perhaps should have been more accommodating and resolved the issue without forcing the buyer to escalate.
From the buyers perspective, being asked to destroy an item they claim is counterfeit as a pre-requisite to getting his money back seems a rather straightforward step.
Clearly the buyer and seller disagree with the authenticity of the item - but that should have spurred the seller to remedy the situation rather than force an escalation to a PayPal dispute. That way the seller wouldn't have lost out.
The seller's failure to resolve the situation appropriately, before the buyer felt it necessary to escalate a Paypal dispute is part of the problem here. I guess the seller was playing hardball instead of negotiating in good faith. And by playing hardball and failing to resolve the problem initially, the seller loses.
Where the seller believes that they sold an authentic item, and the buyer disagrees, isn't it logical for the seller to offer a good faith refund and send-back without forcing the buyer to raise a paypal dispute and then escalate it when no resolution could be made?
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#220Note: the story only mentions the end result, not the path to that end results - so we only have a partial story I've been through the PayPal dispute process as a buyer several times. It can only be escalated to a PayPal decision after communications between the buyer and the seller have proved unsuccessful / broken down, as in the seller doesn't reply, or refuses to sort out the situation. It doesn't happen overnigh…
This is it though, you don't know the path to the end result. In that it could quite easily be that the buyer is a pain and has escalated it when the seller disputed the buyers claim that it was not authentic and have stated that it has been checked before hand.
I have had dealings with people on Paypal and eBay where the issue has been escalated quite quickly because the buyer was a pain in the ass. I had one buyer who escalated a claim because they had paid by eCheque and we sent the item the day after the item had cleared yet they were raising dispute before the eCheque had cleared.
Some people just don't work the system properly which can lead to these situations so quickly. From a sellers point of view, the system doesn't work. It's all about the buyer