I couldn't find on the Internet a Bourguignon Maurice priced at less than $10.000. This certainly looks as if the seller tried to make an "irresistible offer" with their chinese violin that even had a inkjet paper label inside.
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PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
221–230 of 303 posts
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should really try to appreciate how a musician relates to their antique violin. Would you not understand peoples' sadness if a collection of great paintings were destroyed in a museum fire? The sickest part of it was that it was destroyed intentionally by humans for no good reason at all. Sure, this was not the most valuable piece in the world but there are definitely a finite number of them remaining. My guess i…
If only we were as compassionate towards, say, starving people.
The estimates I've seen for the total amount of humanitarian aid are on the order of $20bn/year. What's the world's annual violin-compassion budget?
(I think $20bn/year is way too low and the world would be a better place if we were more compassionate towards starving people and others in distress. But that's no reason at all not to care about old violins being destroyed.)
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#223Some 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…
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.
The terms don't allow that. It says that Paypal must reasonably believe the item to be counterfeit. For this kind of item, clearly only a physical inspection would be reasonable, and I would sue them over it.
But I agree - it's clearly better not to use Paypal at all.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#224Interesting story, but how is this hacker news?
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Cool. I'll second that for tptacek. (and sadly kragen got fed up of HN)
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#226The way I see it the buyer/destroyer should be sued.
A sale was agreed upon. The goods were delivered. The money wasn't.
Buyer simply did not hold up his end of the bargain and should be taken to court.
In my simple view, PayPal does not even enter the picture. Or is there more to it than that?
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#227Some 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…
That's really shitty. It would be interesting to know what sole discretion or reasonable belief constitutes. I doubt ebay/paypal sent experts to 'investigate', they more likely said "If you, the buyer, believe it's counterfeit because of , then it is. Seller won't sue anyway."
It now appears that the seller did get the violin authenticated.
From a brief search, it looks like eBay had to pay large sums multiple times for selling counterfeit goods. $2500 violin, as sad as it is, is small fries. It seems that it's cheaper to operate under the assumption that if there's a suspicion an item is counterfeit, then that's more likely than not. Even if they messed up and lose a lawsuit from a seller, they'll pay a small fraction of what they'd pay a manufacturer.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#228Some 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…
I've bought and sold a couple dozen pre-WWII violins on eBay. The violin I play (which I suck at) is labelled "Antonio Curatoli", which sounds old and Italian, but that name was just marketing by the German workshop that made the violin in the 1920's. I think of violin labelling as like the fake non-working decorative shutters in American suburban homes.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
The easiest way to destroy the value of numismatic coin would probably be to clean it. A coin at the highest level of grading would be "destroyed" (lowered to a less valuable rating) by simply picking it up outside of its sealed, graded holder. There are plenty of ways to destroy it physically (throw it in a forge, bend it with pliers, etc). I'm a bit more concerned that a scammer wouldn't destroy the coin per se, bu…
Would it be trivial for someone to dispute the authenticity of the coin, receive PayPal's request for its destruction, photograph something that looked like a mangled coin, and then essentially get the coin for free?
That's why PayPal insists on you destroying the counterfeit item and providing proof that you did.
Re: PayPal forces buyer to destroy $2500 pre-WWII antique violin in dispute
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
there are overtones picked up by the ear that you can't capture with a microphone.
I am confused. I think you're claiming that, for example, a KSM-137 has frequency response in some part of the audible range that is so terrible that there are sounds it just flat out isn't capturing. What frequencies?