241–250 of 398 posts
I would have expected David Marcus (PayPal CEO) to chime in by now but apparently not. Counterparty risk is definitely a hard problem to solve but this situation seems easy to solve: if the buyer is complaining "not as described", there should need to be some sort of attempt to return the item (at seller's expense or split).
The whole tech culture is also to blame. I'm sure there have been a LOT of great alternate ebay, paypal start ups who just didn't get traction. Bloggers won't talk about you if you haven't raised a million and you won't get much traction on google without bloggers or spending major bucks. My Dreamybids.com site for example, is an awesome service that uses the quibids model. It allows anyone to host their own auctions…
That's not an auction, that is a lottery, a raffle basically.
The only logical conclusion that can be made from eBay's and Paypal's policies is that they no longer want small sellers to use them. They want professional sellers to sell from their site, people who are used to dealing with chargebacks, etc, and can foot the bill when it comes to chargebacks/fraud. They want to facilitate BUYING from regular people, but make SELLING by regular people very difficult. There is no oth…
There is no other explanation for getting rid of buyer reputation and providing no protection to sellers. I disagree. Back in the old days when I used to use eBay before they removed buyer feedback, it was considered unwise to ever leave a seller negative feedback because they might turn around and leave you negative feedback in retaliation. By removing buyer feedback, it allows buyers to leave unbiased seller feedba…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever tried to get your money back after getting scammed as a buyer?
"Item not as described" is the secret passphrase. Seller has absolutely no recourse. I've never tried it as a buyer, but as a seller it's been 100% effective in the scammer getting their money back from me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What we need is a competitor that disrupts credit cards altogether http://www.dwolla.com
ACH chargebacks are even worse than CC chargebacks, from the perspective of being able to fight them. As soon as a payment touches any of the existing networks, it's at risk. The only way to fix it completely (or at least significantly improve the situation) is to have a system that's completely isolated and properly secured; i.e. every payment authorization requires true multi-factor authentication.
I wouldn't mind so much if consumers were actually advised of their ability to use these chargeback facilities, but apart from Direct Debits it seems almost no-one gets told about this here in the UK. Certainly no bank or credit card service I used had ever told me before I started running businesses and seeing it from the merchant's side. The one time I got screwed as a consumer and a chargeback would have helped because it wasn't really worth the time/hassle of figuring out the courts' small claims procedure, I didn't know I could do that so the merchant won by default anyway.
So right now, the do-I-have-it-or-don't-I question over funds is a huge burden for merchants here, yet the supposed protection it offers to consumers here is mostly illusory as well. Nobody wins from this kind of arrangement. The entire payment services industry needs to die and be replaced by something fit for the 21st century, where you simply can't transfer money electronically without robust proof of who you are, and you can't accept money electronically without robust proof of who you are, but given such proof transfers are final as soon as they are confirmed. Is this really such a crazy idea?!
OP here. Interestingly enough, my conversations with Paypal became more and more surreal and I felt more and more powerless with every one in the end. I had a trail of information and there was evidence of multiple fraud, but I never felt as powerless as I did after my phone calls with Paypal. I am in contact with the police captain in the small town where the item was shipped, but I have very little faith in their a…
If you really want the money back, sue the guy. File a miscellaneous action in Ohio and then use subpoenas to acquire his real address/billing info. Contact the state AG and local federal AG's as well, just for kicks. Note that if you go to file a small claims action, you will actually have to be present in Ohio. They require in-personam jurisdiction. (You do have the option of filing in local federal district court…
I would have expected David Marcus (PayPal CEO) to chime in by now but apparently not. Counterparty risk is definitely a hard problem to solve but this situation seems easy to solve: if the buyer is complaining "not as described", there should need to be some sort of attempt to return the item (at seller's expense or split).
I don't have much sympathy for this seller. - General Delivery is a big red flag, paypal confirmed or no. - You should check buyer feedback in advance, not afterwards. - don't leave feedback until you have the cash in your own bank account. - For expensive items, don't just get signature confirmation, pay the extra few $ for insurance. I insure anything over $50, for two reasons: you can claim against the insurance i…
The problem with accepting PayPal or CC payments is that you can withdraw the money from your PayPal account immediately, but they can still issue a charge-back up to 180 days later and your PayPal account will be deducted that amount. For remote transactions, money order by mail or Bitcoin are your only safe, non-reversible options as a seller.
That's a variant of one of the oldest scams in the book on EBay. Removing seller feedback actually fixed the issue, at least for buyers. Back in the day, the formula for an EBay sell-side scammer was to: 1 - Setup a phony account, or network of accounts. 2 - start selling small value things to each other. (Postcards, keychains, digital pictures, etc) Leave positive feedback, including nonsensical feedback (ie. My lap…