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Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

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Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#151

Post by Karunamon »

VMG wrote: post #145
ansible wrote: post #127

I'd recommend contacting all the carriers that this phone is compatible with, and tell them that the phone has been stolen. Give them the IMEI number, serial number and whatever else. If you can get law enforcement interested in the case (highly unlikely, but who knows), they should be able to issue a search warrant, and get the location of the phone from the carrier. If they can track it down to a residential addres…

The fact that it wasn't actually stolen makes this seem a little risky.

It would be considered a form of shoplifting wouldn't it? (Honestly curious here)

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#152

Post by kamjam »

agumonkey wrote: post #53
eli wrote: post #12

A few years ago I sold an Android phone on eBay. A scammer bought it, claimed it was broken, and filed a claim with PayPal. The guy sent me back a different phone of the same model that was indeed quite broken. I appealed to PayPal and lost. I got screwed in this case, but frankly I'm not sure what PayPal/eBay is supposed to do about this sort of scam. Dude even swapped the sticker with the serial number from inside…

It's hard, as a paranoid person I try to document things as much as I can, filmed tests, clean pictures, filmed packaging process. It's not perfect but for what it's worth, I had an issue on priceminister (european website) involving an old motherboard being flagged as failing by the buyer, they were thorough and rejected his claims after all. Nothing major it was 20$, but it's good to see that some websites go the o…

I'm the same. I sold a few things on eBay a few months ago, nothing of great value, some old Nokia 8850's I had lying around and 2 Raspberry Pi's I had purchased but not used. I photographed everything, against a verifiable backdrop (in this the BBC website on my monitor) and filmed the product in use and put it up on Photobucket so that the upload was also time stamped. No problems whatsoever with the sales, but you know, just in case!

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#153

Post by zobzu »

headShrinker wrote: post #7

Being the grinch that I am, I stopped giving any feedback at all for buying or selling on eBay. The principal being if anything ever goes wrong, feedback is your only weapon.

I do the same. Sometimes sellers harass me to put feedback tho. I filter it, but still, interesting.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#154

Post by UnFundedHype »

yebyen wrote: post #110
UnFundedHype wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There just needs to be an easier way to buy bitcoins. I added it to my gamerholic site and a couple users were just confused on where they can buy coins. You have to click one link after another.

No, the current ecosystem of Bitcoin is just fine. You have to click one link after another because you just don't _know_ anybody who has bitcoins. One day you will get robbed by one of these exchanges, and you will blame bitcoins (or the bad man) and swear to never work with Bitcoins again. But they will be just one link in a chain of exchanges that you've trusted each one, hundreds of times, to bring you music and…

So what's the quickest and easiest way to buy bitcoins?

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#155

Post by jakejake »

I actually wrote about this 6 years ago when eBay first started leaning their policy towards protecting buyers at the expense of the sellers. I went from selling things on eBay regularly to never using them for anything. Especially an iPhone or any new "hot" item you will be inundated with scam bids. And as an additional slap in the face you can't even give a buyer negative feedback anymore so what's even the point of feedback? It reminds me of when the post office, in response to long lines, resolved the problem by removing all clocks.

I know this was in reaction to scammers placing fake auctions but eBay basically threw out the baby with the bathwater with their buyer protection policies. The scammers just moved to the buyer side where they enjoy lopsided protection.

This is my post from 2006 - a variation of the scam, but the seller protection is equally non-existant: http://verysimple.com/2006/08/13/ebay-laptop-scammers-part-i...

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#157

Post by Karunamon »

ericdykstra wrote: post #114

Unfortunately, buyer protection is just as bad! I recently bought an item on Ebay from an Ebay shop in China and paid extra for EMS shipping because I needed it fairly quickly (less than 2 weeks). The seller sent using a non-EMS method that barely got to my door in time, and it was the wrong item completely! When escalated to Ebay, they would only refund the item and original shipping fee and only if I sent back the…

This happened to me once as well - there's no eBay dispute resolution process for shipping scams. If you spring for an extra $20 shipping cost to get it express, there's nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping the seller from shipping it media mail and keeping the $19. EB/PP will tell you to get bent as long as you get the item.

I had someone do this to me a while ago on a laptop. As usual, Paypal and eBay were utterly useless. I marked the guy all ones on his shipping ratings, but considering this was a high volume seller, the effect is probably nonexistent.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#158

Post by kamjam »

Shalle wrote: post #96

Paypal is the most fraudulent company that I've done business with. There for I never sell anything anymore using it, purchase is ok but also risky. A friend of mine purchased an engine part on ebay but received a brick insted. Paypal then refused to give the money back because he had signed it out. In total I've lost 1000's of dollars due to Paypal just handing it back to the fraudster. It doesn't matter what you sa…

Apparently all your friend had to do was raise a claim as "item not as described"...

But yeah, I get your point and try to avoid eBay as much as possible, although sometimes, very rare now, I have no choice. It eats me up inside when I do though :-(

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#159

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

joonix wrote: post #130
angryasian wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just wondering how would you expect or how do other companies currently avoid fraud. The costs associated or added with constantly investigating fraud would almost seem like a deterrent in making a system useful.

Chargebacks are a part of doing business any time you accept credit cards, whether paypal is your merchant provider or not. The problem here is Visa/MC/Amex etc. Since you almost have to accept credit card payments these days, you're stuck with their terms. Since the banks all provide credit through these card providers, there's very little competition. There are numerous ways to virtually eliminate CC fraud but the…

What we need is a competitor that disrupts credit cards altogether

http://www.dwolla.com

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#160

Post by coopdog »

DanBlake wrote: post #21

Heres the issue (and a opportunity for a startup?) - eBay remains the main place to sell second hand goods. There are other options (craigslist, amazon) but the fact is it takes longer to sell and still flush with scammers. What does the solution look like? A costco style paid membership with more information given back to the user? Ability to 'vouch' for yourself via facebook/twitter/etc. ? With all of this, its sti…

Bitcoins (no chargebacks) and a preference for buying through friends of friends on social networks (almost like a darknet) could be worth looking into.
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