eBay advice :(

Cancel your Paypal Direct Debit with your bank, report any cards linked to Paypal stolen and tell Paypal they can take you to court if they think you rightfully owe the £580.

Dunno why people still use Paypal for large sales when they've been doing this for years...
 
I stopped selling with ebay/paypal for a similar reason to the OP.

Sold an expensive item, promptly sent it out, 2 weeks later the buyer claims it's broken and wants refund. He sends it back and it's not faulty whatsoever. So presumably they used it and wanted refund. (I didn't want to dispute whether it was broken before receiving it back incase they decided to break it on purpose).

PayPal sided with buyer, and put my account in negative balance, even though there was no money in it any more.

I've no intention of reimbursing them and so far they haven't done anything in 4 months.
 
Icm76 said:
how do you get away with this on eBay? if you decline to let the buyer pay using PayPal surely they just give you negative feedback and you get a strike for breaching the seller terms?
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Quite easily, In big bold letters at the start of the auction I type payment on collection. Lots of people do it. The buyer still has to agree to the terms of the auction before buying. If people want something posted and I am prepared to post, they are usually happy to pay by bank transfer and you can tell after an email exchange when they are making the effort to get you to post it if they are genuine or not.

Bit of a paradox since as a seller you are only safer from fraud using paypal when you post the item to their verified address, if they collect you are not doing this. I will sometimes take paypal on collection but require photo ID and proof of bank account/Credit Card.

You also find that buyers who collect tend to email you before bidding to confirm stuff and payment and are nice. No snotty emails etc etc. Just like the good old days of the local free adds pre eBay.

I don't mind selling stuff that is less scamable with paypal though and a couple of years ago I sold most of my Transformers and Starwars collection on eBay which I shipped round the world and had no issues with paypal or the buyers. I would only ship by fully tracked DHL/FedEx but when you are selling rare toys to well mostly geeks its all good.

Second hand stuff is sold as seen and the buyer always takes a risk buying second hand. Nothing has changed in this over the years except paypal seem to override common sense. Fair enough if the item is not as described or did not arrive and I have had to do chargebacks on sellers who have been problematic.

I also host maybe 20-30 hi res photos in each listing so the buyer knows it is worth travelling. I sold two guitars recently and had one buyer from Devon and one from Birmingham come down to pick them up.
 
mrk1@1 said:
Quite easily, In big bold letters at the start of the auction I type payment on collection...
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Hmm, well it's against eBay policy to refuse PayPal and you can't even remove the option from listings, and if you put "payment on collection only" your listing can be removed.

Most buyers are genuine, and I guess a lot of buyers are also very sympathetic to sellers about all the PayPal shenanigans. However, my own own experience of selling large items for local collection only is that I've had one person pay with PayPal. I had written on the listing "payment on collection acceptable" but I think the buyer just had PayPal funds available and wanted to use them.

I know people can fall victims to scams when PayPal is used for collected items (no postage tracking) and I would be uncomfortable selling a high value item for collection if the buyer insisted on PayPal, but I think the only way to deal with it would be to insist that they bring ID (which I would photograph) and have a witness present. Might not stop a PayPal exploit scam, but at least there would be more to go court with.
 
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I always post tracked even small things. I do hate selling cheap DVD's as ebay will only allow £1 for postage. Posting DVD's is more than a pound when doing recorded.
 
The__Malteser said:
Well, since you are all slating buyers, let me say my small story. (if you tell me to, I'll make a thread of my own)

I bought a phone, 150GBp odd, received in perfect condition, and left good feedback. 2/3 weeks later, phone starts acting up. I DIDN'T DROP THE PHONE, not got it in contact with water, nor removed battery when phone was working, or charged with an un-official charger....well, the screen started going black. I need to unlock/relock for minuted to maybe get 1 second of light and read a message. Its simply the mobile has gone haywire after 2/3 weeks.

I contact the seller and he tells me its been more than 1 week so he can't accept a return, and my warranty is only valid at an HTC store. Well, I live in Malta, no HTC stores here. So I tell him and he tells me to contact Italy. I tell him that its stupid, because if you buy something like a laptop from a shop and it doesn't stop working, you go to the shop not the laptop maker.

ANYWAYS, from then on I keep sending him e-mails, only to get automated messages along the lines of 'we will look into the case..............we have not gotten an answer from the warehouse yet'.

Time goes by, get 3/4 automated messages and contact eBay. They tell me to file a complaint. Well, my 45 days passed, BECAUSE I WAS EXPECTING TO GET AN ANSWER FROM THE SELLER. So not only did the seller do f*ck all about my problem, but he even 'cheated' me from the possibility of doing a complaint.

Well, I contacted ebay and they asked again for the item number and the seller.

What do you say about this? its not my fault, and I got ****** over TWICE by the seller.

SORRY to hijack your thread, but I was meant to do a thread about this for ages :P Seeing as this thread talks about something like this I posted it

To answer you, tell him clarity is subjective. If for me a picture is VERY clear, for you it might not be that much clear. Tell him what you sent is 100% un-damaged and anything that happened after was his fault.
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That sucks, I'm cynical and getting near the 45-day limit I'd be on to ebay sharpish..
 
That's what I did when a screen arrived broken. Let the seller try and resolve it, at 40 days opened a dispute.
 
Why not offer to have the manufacturer look at the lens? If they say its as its meant to be, or that its physically damaged he pays for this and keeps the lens, if they say its lost the sharpness, then you give him the refund.

There is no way he will agree to this, because hes either dropped it, or its as sharp as its meant to be, and you can then use this as evidence in the paypal dispute.
 
Had similiar, sold a very expensive set of bike wheels. took many pictures of them in perfect nick etc, few weeks later, apparently they were damaged, a case was opened, to prevent over £1k going back, I got him to send the wheels back and I would get them done under warranty.

The wheels were clearly ridden and damaged as a result when got them back. Luckily they still fixed them under warranty and that settled it, but I remember going through the same notions and everyone telling me I'd lose £1k.

I only sell stuff on Gumtree now really, in London there's a big market and you almost always get as good, if not better, than what you'd get from ebay (post fees etc)
 
I have a really weird situation as a seller at the moment, someone won an item, I sent it 1st class recorded signed for.

It hasn't been signed for, the buyer hasn't contacted me and i've sent them several emails apologising for the delay, I even went as far as to request their contact details so I could phone them, the telephone number is not recognised.

It's all very strange and because 15 days have passed I've now submitted a 'lost' royal mail claim.
 
Never really had any bad experience with eBay/PayPal, but have with Royal Fail.

This was during their strikes a few years back, I sent a phone I sold special delivery 9am next day. It didn't arrive for over 4 weeks. Thankfully I had a VERY patient buyer.

RM denied any liability and refused to compensate me in any way. All I was asking for was my postage costs back.

I kicked up a stink with some high up people, basically demanded to know how they can take my money then REFUSE to deliver the service I duly paid for due to them SKIVING from work. I got £150 from RM, which more than covered the £9-odd postage costs.

Cheers, RM :p
 
norm said:
I stopped selling with ebay/paypal for a similar reason to the OP.

Sold an expensive item, promptly sent it out, 2 weeks later the buyer claims it's broken and wants refund. He sends it back and it's not faulty whatsoever. So presumably they used it and wanted refund. (I didn't want to dispute whether it was broken before receiving it back incase they decided to break it on purpose).

PayPal sided with buyer, and put my account in negative balance, even though there was no money in it any more.

I've no intention of reimbursing them and so far they haven't done anything in 4 months.
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What so you now have both the money and the product back!! WoW thats proper scummy!! Either send the product or money back to the buyer you've just robbed :mad:
 
C.R.A.Z.Y said:
What so you now have both the money and the product back!! WoW thats proper scummy!! Either send the product or money back to the buyer you've just robbed :mad:
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He owes paypal, they will chase him with a debt collection agency eventually.
 
i'll be interested to hear the outcome of this. will make me think twice about selling something expensive

there is the Buyer protection which heavily goes in favour of the buyer but this is just his opinion, not fault so...
 
C.R.A.Z.Y said:
What so you now have both the money and the product back!! WoW thats proper scummy!! Either send the product or money back to the buyer you've just robbed :mad:
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The buyer got their money back when PayPal refunded them. PayPal do whatever they want and expect the seller to be out of pocket for time + postage, even though the buyer was ripping me off.

And yes PayPal used a DCA agency to send out threatening letters, but ignoring all their correspondance they have done nothing since.

The simple fact is I signed no credit agreement so I owe them nothing, unless they want to come dispute it in small claims court, they are welcome to.
 
Just an update for GD - after ignoring me for a week buyer finally escalated this to eBay customer service. They decided, within 10hours, not to refund, and I have the funds back in my paypal account!!!

I think it was the 'I took it on holiday for a few weeks' bit. Anyway, relieved! Balls in the buyer's court now...
 
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