Similar story to Dylan regarding Paypal

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Heckler

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I sold an Eber a while back on Ebay. Man from South Wales, paid with Paypal. I sent it off and went to transfer the dosh from Paypal to my bank account. It wasnt allowed, a Paypal message to the effect that due to anti fraud measures the money would be held for 3 months or until the punter gave me good feedback!
I phone up (what a nightmare getting to speak to a human!) and was spoken to in gobbledygook by a Philipino call centre op. Basically I was wasting my time, the dosh wasnt mine till punter gave me good feedback.
I then contacted punter, things became clearer, he was a smart arse! On Ebers they have a date number like 04 05 06, I had always thought that it was a date, as in 4th May 2006 and had put in the description "date of manufactur 2006" (Turns out it means manufactured between 04 and 06.) MISTAKE! Turns out punter knew the info about the date and had contacted Paypal about the "false" date and called it fraud. Basically he said to me, send me a cheque for £35 and I will give you good feedback and it will release the dosh! I was incandescent but kept my cool. Was pointless talking to Paypal "computer says" was all that came out of them! Just like Dylan, got nowwhere fast. I bowed to the inevitable and and payed the twot. I got my dosh out that week and have never put myself in the position of having lots of money in Paypal since!
Stu
 
skipper_stu said:
I sold an Eber a while back on Ebay. Man from South Wales, paid with Paypal. I sent it off and went to transfer the dosh from Paypal to my bank account. It wasnt allowed, a Paypal message to the effect that due to anti fraud measures the money would be held for 3 months or until the punter gave me good feedback!
I phone up (what a nightmare getting to speak to a human!) and was spoken to in gobbledygook by a Philipino call centre op. Basically I was wasting my time, the dosh wasnt mine till punter gave me good feedback.
I then contacted punter, things became clearer, he was a smart arse! On Ebers they have a date number like 04 05 06, I had always thought that it was a date, as in 4th May 2006 and had put in the description "date of manufactur 2006" (Turns out it means manufactured between 04 and 06.) MISTAKE! Turns out punter knew the info about the date and had contacted Paypal about the "false" date and called it fraud. Basically he said to me, send me a cheque for £35 and I will give you good feedback and it will release the dosh! I was incandescent but kept my cool. Was pointless talking to Paypal "computer says" was all that came out of them! Just like Dylan, got nowwhere fast. I bowed to the inevitable and and payed the twot. I got my dosh out that week and have never put myself in the position of having lots of money in Paypal since!
Stu
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Send me the address and I will carry out a full credit review.
 
Sorry, I would have said if you don't want it send it back, you can sell Ebers anywhere.
I've had the same thing where they hold the cash, a real pain in the rear. However I have always been able to clear the problem.
 
paypal - so far so good

Twister_Ken said:
I also have a paypal horror story which I won't bore you with. Cost me £350.
NEVER use paypal if you have any alternative.
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me and paypal

so far so good

but in the past I would have said the same of google

but there are lots of people deeply suspicious of it

for myself I would rather trust my credit card to one organisation than risking typing in the details to lots of weird websites.

I have teenagers - they range the web like feral cats

so it also hleps me to keep them safe from fraude and using my credit card

Most of KTL functions Paypal and for me its been great

Buty lots of sailors promise to send me cash

I sign them up just on the promise

every now and again an envelope arrives with a small denomination note in it.


I have a strange collection of small 5 euros, $Cannadian, $US $NZ $Aus pinned to my notice board in the kitchen

I love them

D
 
parsifal said:
Seems to me like 'demanding money with menaces'. A criminal offence.
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As you probably guess, I am an ornery **** when I want to be, but in this case the thought of dealing with a computer driven horror story filled me with despair and I took the easy route!
Stu
 
parsifal said:
Seems to me like 'demanding money with menaces'. A criminal offence.
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I sold a couple of old bakelite telephones on eBay last year. I polished them with Brasso to prepare for the sale, so I knew they were in perfect condition. After he received them, the purchaser contacted me to say that one was cracked and demanded a refund not to give bad feedback. He wouldn't send it back (at my expense). He wouldn't even send me a picture of the alleged damage. He just wanted money not to post bad feedback. eBay were useless, so I got my one negative feedback out of 800.
 
Ubergeekian said:
I sold a couple of old bakelite telephones on eBay last year. I polished them with Brasso to prepare for the sale, so I knew they were in perfect condition. After he received them, the purchaser contacted me to say that one was cracked and demanded a refund not to give bad feedback. He wouldn't send it back (at my expense). He wouldn't even send me a picture of the alleged damage. He just wanted money not to post bad feedback. eBay were useless, so I got my one negative feedback out of 800.
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Make sure you add your reply to the feedback that you offered a refund but the buyer refused to send it back. That way anyone reading your feedback will know you tried to resolve it.
 
Sounds like a nightmare if you can't get your money but there is a flip side.
I bought a prop from Ebay and when it arrived it clearly wasn't as described inasmuch as it had been obviously modified and wouldn't fit on my (or any other) boat. Made repeated attempts to contact the seller to discuss but he wouldn't respond. Only route left was Paypal, who ultimately refunded the money to me. The seller never did want the prop back despite numerous offers from me to return it.......he obviously knew it was worthless.
 
I use PayPal a fair bit as both a buyer and a seller. I've also used it as a convenient way of sending money abroad. I think most of the problems people experience are with eBay's feedback system and with fraudulent sellers and buyers. OK, I know it's the same company, but for me the PayPal part of it seems to work OK.
 
I think the problem is with Ebay rather than paypal (although there is a very fine line to determine which is which?).

Since the new CEO took charge of Ebay it has changed significantly, and is hugely biased towards the buyer.

I had a similar problem as a seller to one of the previous posters, I sold some audio equipment (described as used), it was in pretty much as new condition. The buyer claimed there was a small scratch on the case. He took a picture, it was the most minute blemish you could imagine, but claimed it 'wasn't as described'. I challenged it in the resolution centre on ebay, but of course the seller won the dispute. He was refunded and I had to pay for return postage, plus the cost of original postage.
In relation to the OP, who was blatantly scammed, I got off lightly, but is does demonstrate that you may as well not bother challenging if you are the seller.

Paypal is an effective way to send or receive money outside of ebay, but beware.

The new sellers rules have really ruffled a lot of feathers and even put traders out of business with unfair practices and increased fees, but what can you do?
Ebay is truly a faceless corporation, absolutely huge with virtually no way of personally speaking to someone who can be bothered to help.
 
Ebay attracts a lot of unscrupulous sellers who rely on a percentage of buyers just being too embarrassed or too bussy to resolve things. I am very impressed with their customer service as a buyer but would dread to sell anything valuable, they are biased towards the buyer.

As for Stu, his Ebers are the business, I bought a used one 5 years ago and it works a treat. Mind you, it was properly installed which 90% of failed Ebers aren't.
 
skipper_stu said:
I then contacted punter, things became clearer, he was a smart arse! On Ebers they have a date number like 04 05 06, I had always thought that it was a date, as in 4th May 2006 and had put in the description "date of manufactur 2006" (Turns out it means manufactured between 04 and 06.) MISTAKE! Turns out punter knew the info about the date and had contacted Paypal about the "false" date and called it fraud. Basically he said to me, send me a cheque for £35 and I will give you good feedback and it will release the dosh! I was incandescent but kept my cool.

Stu
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Sorry to be unsympathetic, but why does spotting your mistake make him a smart-arse?
I'm unclear about what you expect Paypal to do. From their point of view, there is a dispute, with the "facts" supporting the purchaser. (OK, he may be trying to exploit your mistake, but at least he's negotiating and he might genuinely feel mislead.).
As far as I understand the T&C's, in this situation, Paypal withhold the vendor's money in case they have to eventually re-imburse the purchaser.
This seems fairly reasonable to me.
 
Its the random decisions that PayPal makes that gets me.

I sell specialist (ie. single car model) parts as a side line and as a favour to the car owners who have to put up with manufacturers parts prices.

I run a forum and had a long dialogue with a guy from South Africa which eventually resulted in him wanting to buy a part. The forum discussion involved long conversations and exchanges of photographs of car parts, engines etc. so I knew he had such a car and knew lots about them. He was a customer that could be trusted, not a one off get rich quick scammer.

He bought the parts with PayPal from a South African account via PayPal. However, PayPal decided that this was a possible "fraud" and stopped the money (I had not sent the goods by the way as I always wait for clearance period). So eventually, and despite protests from both me and him to PayPal they stopped the transaction, refunded the money AND CHARGED ME £9 FOR THEIR TIME!

I then completed the transaction with cash outside of PayPal (told you he could be trusted) and its all fine but they made £9 out of me for their own decision.

Martin
 
I have a small online business and use paypal as a means of accepting payment both direct and on Ebay. We have conducted over 15,000 problem free transactions. In fact the only problem we have had (recently too) was a guy who legitimately paid for his ebay item via paypal but from an overseas internet cafe. It was picked up as dubious and the money was held for several weeks until his identity was confirmed. pretty reasonable I thought. As a small business, paypal is way cheaper than having your own credit card facilities too.
I agree that getting to speak to anybody who makes sense can be very difficult - a common feature of online businesses of any kind. Ebay are easier now than they were a few years back although paypal still not good. As a powerseller/top rated seller you have direct phone support on an immediate person to person basis.
 
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