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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

#381
just an FYI, guys. Due to virality of this post and the waves of support on twitter, I got phone calls from both paypal executive offices and ebay's fraud teams that not only did resolve my issues, but also hinted at a serious effort at apprehending this fraudulent individual.

Its very unfortunate that it took this community outcry to get this far. Im currently working on a "post-mortem" overview of my what happened in the past few days resolution-wise and ill post it on my blog.

Tech-wise, its pretty amazing how much load a static octopress-based blog hosted for free on github pages would handle.

Also im pretty glad I chose to host the pictures on picasaweb. Hosting them on S3 would turn out pretty pricey :)

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

#383

just an FYI, guys. Due to virality of this post and the waves of support on twitter, I got phone calls from both paypal executive offices and ebay's fraud teams that not only did resolve my issues, but also hinted at a serious effort at apprehending this fraudulent individual. Its very unfortunate that it took this community outcry to get this far. Im currently working on a "post-mortem" overview of my what happened…

care to share with you what the stats are on your hosting arrangement? Im sure we could get a lot out of a debrief.

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

#384

The Paypal dispute system is a joke. I had a simliar experience with a $300 laptop. The condition it came in was NOT as described. I tried to get the seller to refund, but he just ignored my messages. Unable to contact the seller, I opened a dispute case and I took photos, documented the entire thing, and even did the dispute message system (and the seller didn't respond once to my complaints within the dispute syste…

Does Paypal have a messaging system like eBay? Whenever I've had an eBay dispute (rare), I always communicate using their messaging system so they can see exactly what we are saying to each other.

Yeah. When I referred "Dispute Center" above, all the messages took place inside Paypal's internal dipsute center messaging system.

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an issue, as a buyer, very recently. The item was not as described. I was frankly flabbergasted how quickly and decisively eBay worked in my direction. A little too quickly. (There were issues with my purchase that could have been fixed with a partial refund, but instead I got everything back, while I still have the item. I actually feel a little bad about it, like I don't want to use eBay again, even though th…

Exactly. It doesn't make sense unless eBay just considers all sellers to be high volume resellers who write off small item losses as part of doing business.

If they actually had to devote much resources to investigate our claim, they would probably lose money on the transaction.

But, really, it's okay to lose money on some transactions, especially if you reduce buyer/seller stress on other transactions.

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL! What attorney would give a crap about a $500 phone? The sad truth is that in this system of ours, you can screw someone for up to $50-100k and get away with it because that's the minimum potential damages amount that would pique a decent attorney's interest.

Jaded much? I think that depends a lot on what you mean "a decent attorney". Sure, a partner at Proskauer isn't going to take your call, but in my experience, the nice woman with the office down the street might be glad to help you put together a plan, critique your demand letter, etc. This kind of "decent attorney" is willing to work with you on the small stuff, in the hopes that you'll come back to her in the futur…

I have had similar experiences with attorneys that are single person practices or a partnership. As the firms get larger, they are less likely to miss any minutes of billing. In fact I am meeting my lawyer tomorrow for lunch, I am sure I will pay and I am sure I will not get a bill for his time. I am also sure that we will spend an hour talking about a small legal issue that I need advice on. URSpider is correct, it is good to have a friendly lawyer.

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

#387
The problem with Paypal/Ebay should be referred to your State Attorney General. If enough people complain your state Attorney General could file a lawsuit against Paypal/Ebay. The way I read this is that Paypal/Ebay does not have the appropriate mechanisms in place to protect sellers from fraudulent chargebacks and the seller loses out even when the case is clear that the chargeback is fraudulent. The message appears to be that, "sorry, we agree with you the seller but since the buyers bank agreed to the chargeback you are out of luck." In my view the State AGs should force Paypal/Ebay to take the loss in the case of fraudulent chargeback thus providing an incentive for Paypay/Ebay to fix the system. The seller protection policy should be that as long as the buyer received the proper product, you should get paid for it regardless of fraudulent chargebacks honored by the buyers bank.

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

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I was in a snarky mood :) It seems every 2 months there is another popular blog post about how impossible it is to be a seller and how there is just no way to deal with the fraud. They act like once it involves more than email or phone, it's all impossible. But, yes, sending to shipping address is unlikely to work. Paypal will turn over the info if you subpoena them (you will have to open a miscellaneous matte…

Thanks for your comments Danny. You make this process seem so simple that im eager to learn it. Can you outline steps necessary to subpoena paypal without having access to an expensive legal letterhead(that comes with an hourly legal bill attached) and to actually follow through this subpoena into getting requested documents. I was able to get a phone number for supposedly a legal department, but I was told in so man…

Being a lawyer, I can't really give you actual legal advice on how to do this stuff without you being my client, but i can explain a very very generalized process.

Note that if you are not a lawyer, you will end up spending some time reading rulebooks and filling out forms that lawyers know how to fill out. There are usually legal aid folks/etc in most state courts that can help.

So let me give you an example process (Again, this is not legal advice, just an example process):

1. Open a small claims case against the pseudonym of the paypal person (to be filled in later), or what they claim their name to be if you have it, in the state you believe them to be in (assuming that state allows subpoenas in small claims. If not, you may have to open a real case in their district court, which is more expensive and requires more paperwork). This will require service of process, which will be initially hard, but there are fallbacks in case the person is deliberately making themselves unreachable, like publishing service in newspapers, etc.

2a. Start by getting a subpoena from the small claims/etc court, see if that's enough to get what you want. They may want a subpoena from their local court. In that case

2b. Contact the relevant court for paypal (northern district of california, I believe), and get them to issue an out-of-district subpoena. For the central district, you can see the exact process here: http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/court-procedures/filing-procedu...

It should be roughly the same process for northern district (the form numbers are the same, though the form content will say northern district instead).

Note that the envelope should be addressed to you.

They will assign a miscellaneous action number, and mail you an endorsed subpoena.

3. Send a copy of the endorsed subpoena (keep the original since you are likely to end up playing mail tag a few times) to the address paypal provides. Again, i don't have this address handy, but as a registered corporation, you should be able to lookup where they receive service of process. They are required to have a registered agent that accepts service of process.

If they fail to respond, file a motion to enforce the subpoena (this is covered in the URL linked above in the case of northern district, if it's another local court subpoena, they will have a similar way).

They do have a fraud investigation team which you could contact with the subpoena first, and see if they will respond. They may work only with law enforcement.

Again none of this is legal advice, there may be intermediate or more steps, i'm not responsible if the steps are not right or in the right order, or if following these steps causes you to lose all your legal rights, etc.

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

#389

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…

"Solution: Never use eBay for anything."

That is just plain silly... I'm "paranoid" and don't want to be ripped off $500 or $1000.

Biggest I was ever scammed was $70 (it's ok, I can stomach that).

So I don't use eBay for big transactions which I have no recourse on in case something bad happen (e.g. I'm not a famous blogger so it's unlikely eBay / PayPal would ever help me like they helped OP).

But I do still use eBay a lot:

- for tiny transactions / items I really want that are cheap (e.g. some cheap but rare to find obsolete hardware I need to fix one of my old-but-cool printers)

- for big transactions where I can go to the seller's place to pay in cash and take delivery of the item.

Saying "don't use Ebay for anything" doesn't make sense, even if you're paranoid.

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

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for start, buyer needs to send the item back.

What stops the buyer sending back an empty box?

I would imagine the buyer doesn't get to charge back until the seller has the item again?
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