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Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

codenerdz.com

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

#341

Post by shimon_e »

dexen wrote: post #332
kahawe wrote: post #331

I think this problem goes a bit deeper and it is something I have been wondering about. When I send a letter or a package and want to be sure it was received, I can rely on tracking or I can go the extra mile and request a signed return-receipt. Now all I have is confirmation the letter or package was handed over and someone confirmed they got it. They can still claim when they opened it, it was nothing but empty pag…

Polish Post Office provides a service solving this very problem: the sender can marked the parcel with ``recipient opens the parcel in presence of mailman before payment and can return it right away without payment if she so wishes'' option. This optional service is quite cheap, at about 10% of general shipment fee methinks. The other downside is that recipient have to pick the parcel, either at doorstep or at the po…

It's like this in China also plus alipay holds the money in escrow.

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

#342

Post by cskau »

sukuriant wrote: post #37
kerryfalk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shameless plug; we've built one for automotive enthusiasts: https://www.styckyd.com Our target is to serve the C2C market and make shipping less painless as well as eliminate some of the risk on the buyer's side. With the current climate for buying goods online companies serving the space are at risk for opening themselves up to scams like this one by buyers. The reality for anyone accepting credit cards is that you'…

How do you pronounce that?

"stick it"?

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

#343

Post by VMG »

georgiecasey wrote: post #250
Spooky23 wrote: post #32

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…

Regarding #3, it's shocking that Ebay feel the need to remove all auction information after a few months. Is hard drive space that expensive?! The Ebay site is a remnant of the 90s, it's crazy they're still a viable company.

They've overhauled it recently, but due to the amateurish look and text of the offers they probably can't shake that 90s feeling

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

#344

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

kahawe wrote: post #331

I think this problem goes a bit deeper and it is something I have been wondering about. When I send a letter or a package and want to be sure it was received, I can rely on tracking or I can go the extra mile and request a signed return-receipt. Now all I have is confirmation the letter or package was handed over and someone confirmed they got it. They can still claim when they opened it, it was nothing but empty pag…

It'd be nice to have a 3rd party receive the package, open and photograph it, even try it out, then package it back up and send it off to it's recipient. BUT... The USPS needs to introduce 3rd party interception in order for this to work. Otherwise buyers would be paying double postage + the cost of interception and checking.

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

#345

Post by hughw »

001sky wrote: post #270
codenerdz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! Paypal is the middleman here and they are preventing me from going directly to the credit card issuer and providing them with extensive documentation proving fraud. Not only that, they are making it extremely inconvenient to have any sort of communication with them

Something is beyond wrong if a verbal "not as described" lets them keep the object. That's such an obvious scam/abuse there should be a legal issue with it, if paypal is not pursuing actual proof. They are acting in bad faith because their contract/terms of service is not even plausibly verifiable. The CC company requires an affadivit to issue a refund; if Visa gets wind of this guy with 5 refunds to the same card/pr…

If the seller accepts returns, would that solve the problem? I apologize of the OP mentioned whether his item was returnable -- I did not see him say that.

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

#346

Post by Nursie »

sdfjkl wrote: post #329

So what's a good alternative to the evil empire of eBay/PayPal? In the UK (where PayPal is the only valid way to pay for anything on eBay) there is just Gumtree, which is not an auction site and many categories get barely looked at (and those that do are swarming with scammers too), plus a few small auction sites that have so few users it's not worth bothering.

I used gumtree in Australia to great effect a little while ago.

You may not get quite the same price you could through ebay, but you don't have any fees so I'm pretty sure I cam out ahead. That and transactions were completed in person for cash. When one of my items (WiMAX router) didn't work correctly for the new buyer I offered to go round and help and give a full refund if I couldn't get it working (it started working thankfully).

The weird thing about gumtree was the rapidity of response - I put a microwave oven on there a midnight on a Saturday night, and got three email responses within 15 minutes. They didn't follow up the next day, leading me to think perhaps they were drunk or stoned prospective microwave owners, but it still sold within 12 hours.

Perhaps I was too cheap, but it was an 'everything-must-go' emigration situation.

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

#347

Post by jeremyjh »

nicholassmith wrote: post #36
lh7777 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seller Protection should protect the seller in the case of obvious fraud like this regardless of what the credit card company says.

Definitely, it seems super obvious to us that fraud has occurred and that's the long and short, to the credit card companies all they can see is that they might be severely out of pocket. They will generally fight back against it, and side with their money. It sucks.

I doubt Paypal presented any of the evidence provided by the OP.

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

#349

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

codenerdz wrote: post #289
repiret wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having recently sold an iPhone on eBay and been concerned about problems like this, I wish eBay would allow non-professional sellers restrict bids to professional buyers.

Thousand times this. Their buyer filtering options are laughable. If they were to let me limit sales to people with certain types of addresses, purchases of certain value, a reasonable number of feedback, etc, that would be very helpful in reducing a chance of being defrauded

If they allowed that, almost all sellers would do it for security, and then there would be no ways for buyers to get any feedback.

In fact, when I was placing my first bids on eBay, some buyers would cancel the auction or retract the bids because they didn't trust me. I understand their position, but how are you supposed to get feedback if sellers won't sell you anything?

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

#350

Post by finnw »

pdonis wrote: post #252
pbreit wrote: post #163

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).

if the buyer is complaining "not as described", there should need to be some sort of attempt to return the item Exactly. I'm extremely confused as to why this does not appear to have been brought up by any of the parties in the OP's case.

What good would that do? The scammer would just "return" a broken phone, or a piece of roof tile, claim that was what they received, and the victim has now paid for shipping twice.
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