a paypal warning

[David Murphy]

I think your analysis explains the problems fairly well, although I've not had quite that magnitude of problems with buyers, I can well believe your experiences. The problem of deadbeats there, is now so rampant I think it will eventually damage their entire business model. It actually surprised me how long it took this to happen after they eliminated the old feedback system, but the consequences of this policy are now becoming very evident to most sellers.

+1 !!!!!

I'm winding down from selling my Canon system on Ebay. NEVER AGAIN!!! Ebay and paypal have made it a miserable experience to sell.

There's no protection for the seller. 20-25% 0f my sales wound up as non pay or some problem. As sellers we can no longer post negative feedback on buyers so we have no idea of whether there honest or not. One buyer bid up my 85 1.2 and had buyers remorse. I did detailed images inside and out and pointed out flaws with a ball point pen and in the description in large red type. When the buyer received it she had a moment of buyers remorse and wanted her money back. It's stated in my auctions no refunds. She filed a claim with ebay and lied about the condition. Ebay upheld her claim even though I had a detailed description and photos. paypal proceeded to lock my account until the case was closed. Five days after the bidder had her refund she made another bogus claim for another $1200. My account was locked again for a short while.

I sold my 1DsII to a fellow in Mexico. When he went to pay the money he transferred to tried to transfer to paypal from his bank never made it. Paypal said they didn't have it and his bank said they did. That's been three weeks and it still hasn't been resolved. The poor buyer is now out $1600.

I'm not certain selling through ebay and paying through paypal is a good deal. Between the two they charge about 10-15% of the final price. They even charge a fee on the shipping.

 

[jtm6]

Paul you are right, the UK and some other countries have actually resisted these monopolistic practices, but not here in America - with certain exceptions only PayPal or credit cards can be used for payment, and that means PayPal for almost everyone, but merchants. Maybe I should move over there!

I've also heard paypal is legally considered a bank in Europe but they were able to avoid that classification here in the USA, entitling them to turn all kinds of screws.

 

[dubtom]

I try to limit my transactions on paypal to around €60 or less, it's not that I don't trust them,I don't trust the internet. I payed a bill to my mobile phone company a couple of years back, on their site, the money was taken from my bank account but never credited to my phone bill. Despite showing them all the details of the transaction,including statements from the bank showing the money was deducted, they still gave me the same spiel every time I called. It took one year of late payments from me, by phone, and having the same conversation with a different person every time, for a supervisor to finally give in and credit my phone account with the payment. They were sick of listening to me. The lesson for me was despite all this internet security and protected payments that companies boast of having,it just takes a glitch for your money to vanish into cyber land. The big boys just won't admit that there could be a problem on their end.

 

[pschauss]

FWIW, I had a similar problem paying my phone bill (AT&T - USA) by CHECK. Despite the fact that I had a copy of the canceled check in my hand, the phone company insisted that my bank had rejected my check because of an invalid signature. Only after I filed a complaint with the FCC did the matter get resolved.