PayPal Incident

[CP Goerz]

I probably lose a lot of bidders because I insist on shipping any item overseas with Tracking via Priority etc. As Paypal will quote you every time, 'insurance is for the 'sellers' protection, not the buyer'. Towards that end I let all buyers overseas that insurance/tracking are mandatory.


Its tough to sell on Ebay without paypal, they have the lockdown essentially. I think fondly of the days when I would have a few money orders in my mailbox :-) And yes, in Ebay/Paypal's eyes, you as a seller are guilty of 'ripping people off' till either the buyer lets you off the hook/gets the item/wants to return it.


No return policy? Forget it! Any buyer can come up with the flimsiest of excuses to avoid that, I have offered to send ebay images/video and even the actual item itself but they don't want to get involved, they'll just refund the buyer and you have to beg to get the fees they ripped you for in the process. Ahhh Fun Times!! :-)

[JMB]

"Its tough to sell on Ebay without paypal, they have the lockdown essentially. I think fondly of the days when I would have a few money orders in my mailbox." Goertz


Right. I almost never buy on Ebay now because they encourage sellers to use Pay Pal, and oddly enough so many sellers have accepted this pressure. Pay Pal protection and convenience is overstated. Obviously, Ebay-Pay Pal put a lot of pressure on folks to maximize thier fees. I opened a Pay Pal account once, and I received so much hard sell promotion material and endured so many repeated attempts by hackers to crack the account that I closed it immediately. Pay Pal made it very hard for me to close the account as well.

Now, I always look to the forum and friends for purchases. I have had very good luck using Western Union since I am overseas for the time being. If the buyer picks up his payment at a Western Union office in cash [not a Western Union draft] nothing can go wrong for him. It seems that I am always a buyer. And to be sure the buyer has all of the risk with this kind of transaction. But I have only had one bad experience [my last purchase on Ebay] with a Belgian guy living in Brussels [Marc Steurbaut] who sent me all kinds of self contradicting excuses, but never the light meter, which I purchased by cashier's check.

I seem to be able to find what I need eventually on this forum --along with a good deal of sound advice on how to make the best of the purchases. No system is entirely theft proof, but one giant step in the right direction is to abandon Ebay altogether. It's no fun anymore with all of the Pay Pal pressure. And I too prefer the simpler days of money orders, which I used in my early Ebay days for domestic purchases.

--Joe

[JMB]

"Its tough to sell on Ebay without paypal, they have the lockdown essentially. I think fondly of the days when I would have a few money orders in my mailbox." Goertz


Right. I almost never buy on Ebay now because they encourage sellers to use Pay Pal, and oddly enough so many sellers have accepted this pressure. Pay Pal protection and convenience is overstated. Obviously, Ebay-Pay Pal put a lot of pressure on folks to maximize thier fees. I opened a Pay Pal account once, and I received so much hard sell promotion material and endured so many repeated attempts by hackers to crack the account that I closed it immediately. Pay Pal made it very hard for me to close the account as well.

Now, I always look to the forum and friends for purchases. I have had very good luck using Western Union since I am overseas for the time being. If the buyer picks up his payment at a Western Union office in cash [not a Western Union draft] nothing can go wrong for him. It seems that I am always a buyer. And to be sure the buyer has all of the risk with this kind of transaction. But I have only had one bad experience [my last purchase on Ebay] with a Belgian guy living in Brussels [Marc Steurbaut] who sent me all kinds of self contradicting excuses, but never the light meter, which I purchased by cashier's check.

I seem to be able to find what I need eventually on this forum --along with a good deal of sound advice on how to make the best of the purchases. No system is entirely theft proof, but one giant step in the right direction is to abandon Ebay altogether. It's no fun anymore with all of the Pay Pal pressure. And I too prefer the simpler days of money orders, which I used in my early Ebay days for domestic purchases.

--Joe

[Vlad Soare]

Joe, Western Union is not only extremely unsafe for the buyer, but it's very expensive, and you must go in person to one of their offices, during their opening hours (which usually coincide with your own working hours), and fill out a long form. By contrast, PayPal is cheap, and you can pay in less than thirty seconds, with just a couple of mouse clicks, without even leaving your armchair. I used to pay by Western Union a few years ago, before PayPal became available in Romania, and I must say it was a real pain in the rear. And outrageously expensive, too.
If you live in the US, and only buy from US-based sellers, and only ship within US, then you can afford to boycott PayPal. But for a buyer located outside US, PayPal is the best invention since sliced bread.

[eddie]

Sellers can use their merchant credit card a counts on eBay to accpet payment. And even say no paypal then as well.

Are you listening CP?

[Scott Walker]

I don't think it matters what form of payment is used, if you encounter a dishonest person, chances are you will lose something. If you sell enough over the Internet you will sooner or later get ripped off. Boycotting paypal or not shipping internationally will hurt the seller because you are limiting your buying audience which of course will affect the selling price of your product. The best you can do is follow all the proper protocols to limit your vulnerability and learn from mistakes made the odd time someone jacks you.

In the days before paypal I shipped lots of product UPS, COD and I thought it was safe until I sent a few thousand dollars worth of stuff to the wrong person. UPS had a box you could check that instructed the driver that only cash could be accepted which meant that the person receiving the package could pay with cash or with a certified cheque payable to UPS only and if the cheque was returned UPS dealt with it and the sender still got paid. So how could you go wrong. I sent a COD package and it was delivered and the driver picked up a certified cheque, immediately upon completing the transaction the receiving party phoned UPS frantically requesting that they send the driver back because the COD package was to be refused and if the girl didn't get the cheque that she had given the driver back she would loose her job. Dispatch radioed the driver and he was back within a very short period and made the exchange. UPS sent the package back to me, it was empty of course. When confronted by the UPS investigator the customer explained that it didn't surprise her that the package was empty because the last order that we sent her was missing some of the product and that is why she refused the order, case closed, I lost even though UPS had never had a claim filed against me for any reason.

[Brian Ellis]

I ran into a new ebay/Pay Pal problem recently that I never heard of before. I submitted a bid on an item and the bid was rejected by ebay. I was told by my sniping service that it was rejected because the seller required that a bidders' Pay Pal account and ebay account be "linked." I looked at the listing again and didn't see anything about "linked" accounts.

When I asked my sniping service about this they said the sellers don't need to say anything specific, if they say something like "payment by Pay Pal only" then it means they want a linked account. That seems strange because it's my understanding that the only way to pay on ebay these days is by Pay Pal (and that other service, the name of which I can't remember). But if I list an item and say "Pay Pal only" to refelct this requirement I'm apparently requiring a linked account, which I don't want to do because I have no idea what it accomplishes and requiring it loses bidders.

Anyone else run into this "linked account" business and know why some sellers want it, what it accomplishes for a bidder if anything, how to go about doing it, etc.?

[srbphoto]

I used to do a lot of selling on feEbay (over 1200 positives, 0 neg). All with Paypal and many overseas.

My rule for overseas is: If you don't want to pay the shipping I am willing to use, then you don't want the item.

With Paypal, (I haven't been very active for a couple of years so they may have changed how things are done) I have my account linked to a small (VERY small) bank account. As soon as I have over $100 in Paypal, I send it to my bank account. When it hits that account I withdraw it and put in my "real" account. That way they can only stop me from using Paypal but it gives me some time if they are trying to get $ from me. I have only had it happen once. The package took a month to get to Germany. The buyer received it during the dispute and it was settled.

[JMB]

As you can see from these comments using Pay Pay and even Ebay purchases themselves are becoming increasingly complicated. You know, its still possible to walk into a shop and purchase things directly from human beings. This forum is a marvelous source, too [the best, I think]. And so far at least, I have been able to work around Pay Pal. If not, I just don't buy, and with no hard feelings. I just think that the desireability of Ebay shopping and the convenience of Pay Pal payment is overstated. I don't know, but I guess I don't mind a walk down to the WU office when I am out of the country [or the post office when I am in the US], a stop for a cup of coffee, and a little flirting with a salesgirl [and more if I am lucky] when I execute these little transactions. A lot can happen on the way to the store that cannot happen by clicking a mouse from an armchair. [I suppose that you could get run over by a bus too, but Lord, a guy just has to get out of bed in the morning and take his chances at some point without further analysis].

I think the best answer is to deal a bit more directly with people --even if its just a matter of closing the circle of sellers and buyers with whom we deal a little. Cross boarder purchases in particular tempt parties to take advantage of others --even companies that you would think are respectable. For example, Fotoimpex-
Adox just dumped 5 boxes of expired [over one-year old and apparently discontinued] 8x10 ortho film on me simply because they knew I was in China and they are in Berlin. There is always going to be a thief out there, and I guess there are two ways of dealing with him: 1. Ignore him and be happy that our lives are otherwise good [i.e. ignore a few bumps in the road sometimes for the sake of peace], or 2. at least in the case of a shop purchase, you can take the seller or buyer by the throat and shake your money or your camera out his pockets. Now in the case of Fotoimpex, they don't seem to realize that I might enjoy a little ride to Berlin, and I am just not enlightened enough to recognize the value of plan "1" above.

[rguinter]

All this deja vu all-over-again, all-over-again, all-over again!

Getting to sound like one of those classic "broken records" we all used to mention... like a 33LP jumping back to the same groove over and over and over again. Paypal ripped me off... skippppp... Paypal ripped me off... skipppp... Paypal ripped me off... etc., etc., ad nauseum.

I have over 1000 purchases on the current auction site... several within the last month. All the big ones have been postal money orders and (yes actually) a few in cash. I can only remember one seller who refused to accept a money order payment when I asked... and this is still an option for sellers. Who on earth is worried about the possible loss of one letter containing $25 sent in the mail out of over a thousand? Why would anyone want to deal with paypal for that? I completely can't fathom. I've saved more in paypal fees alone than I could possibly lose on any one upcoming purchase.

Some of the other posters have followed my example and I applaud them. I sold items on ebay at one time but the instant they went to paypal required I stopped.

Ebay owns paypal... and wants everyone to use it. Go figure!

So get real people. If you go back to an original cash-and-carry type of mentality you really have very little to lose, except the constantly increasing fees, the obvious hassles that so many are reporting, a little bit of added time, and that always increasing risk of identity theft of important financial data.

My 1-1/2 cents and consistent with my (largely) cynical lifestyle.

Bob G.