Posted on 01/04/2012 3:31:35 PM PST by Swordmaker
If truly dispicable acts are now the norm for PayPal (EBAY), Scott Thompson should kick off his new Yahoo (YHOO) gig with a dog fight.
Sharing a heartbreaking account of a buy gone horribly wrong, Helen Killer of the hilarious Etsy send-up Regretsy posted an email from a reader who saw a treasured item destroyed at the behest of PayPal. Reader Erica writes in describing a recent sale she made to a buyer in Canada.
The item in question was a pre-WWII French violin worth $2,500. The buyer, however, disputed the label -- which isn't uncommon, Erica claims, but shouldn't detract from the craftsmanship of the instrument.
She writes, "Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as 'counterfeit' even though there is no such thing in the violin world." And to the delight of the buyer, he sent Erica a photo of the destroyed antique.
Erica has since been on the phone with "numerous reps," but they have "100% defended their action and gave me the party line."
And lest you think Erica's situation was solely due to one disgruntled PayPal executive who's declared a war on art, the destruction of items that are simply suspected of being counterfeit is actually laid out in the company's Terms of Service. The very definition of "Smash first, ask questions later."
Although this seems a tad excessive, it doesn't stray far from other acts of delusional and malevolent behavior perpetrated by PayPal.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I guess you better not use paypal to sell antiques!
From her own words, it sounds like the seller knew the label was counterfeit.
I’ve watched antique roadshow enough time to know than even forgeries are sometimes worth a bundle.
I guess I’ll never pay for anything that can be destroyed by using PayPal. Then again I haven’t had need to use it for anything for some time.
Lawsuit?
Based on what? EVery user of PayPal agrees to their terms of service explicitly. You don’t like them, don’t use them. This is simply a matter of taking responsibility for your actions . . . and knowing what you are doing before you do it.
In any dispute with Pay Pal I’ll destroy them first. I mean who am I to argue with their corporate policy?
A few years back I sold on ebay and one customer complained that one of the items was chipped and she wanted to keep all 9 plus get her money back...ebay told her to package up all items and send back to me then they would take the money out of my paypal account...she never sent them back, I was watching her site and she sold them....she didn’t get her money back cause she had no proof that she returned them to me...but paypal still stinks and I finally just quit selling...
What’s to prevent the buyer of the alleged fake from buying a cheap POS violin from a thrift shop, smashing it and using that to satisfy PrayPal, then keeping the money and the good violin too?
I read about someone being told to destroy a Hermes purse without proving it was counterfeit! Paypal really messes up sometimes. Hate them, but if you use EBay, not much choice.
that’s really insane. If you know anything about violins, it’s that half the violins made in the 19th century say that they are Stradivari. Of course they are not, but they can be perfectly serviceable violins. It’s very different transaction to sell one of that than selling a counterfeit modern consumer good.
When using paypal you got to sell”as is where is, no warranties expressed or implied, all sales final” on the invoice!
Burned last year at Christmas using both Ebay and Paypal.
Never again.
There is some truly stupid corporate leadership afoot here in the US. Verizon Wireless was the latest idiot, charging money to people who want to pay bills a certain way. Pulled the policy the next day, but the damage was done - shareholders found out the company is run by morons.
I can’t believe Netflix CEO still draws a paycheck.
You said:
“From her own words, it sounds like the seller knew the label was counterfeit.”
— —
I missed where the seller implicated herself by her own statement. Could you show me where those words were?
I use paypal rather irregularly and for small purchases and sales. I don’t trust it at all, but there is no doubt it makes things SO much easier.
I used to be a huge ebayer - one of the first in, when it really was “one gigantic garage sale”. Listed everything for one penny, and had a lot of fun. But somewhere along the way Ebay decided they didn’t want people like me, and they used paypal to make that very clear to me.
For me, Paypal is in the same category as Google and Verizon. It’s a great product, but the company is rotten.
The ONLY time I used Pay Pal, I ended up with fraudulent charges on my Visa.
No big deal you say?
When you have had a card for 15 years, it is a significant anchor in your credit rating.
When it is replaced with a new card, that continuity evaporates.
Paypal offers nex to no protection for sellers. They greatly, greatly favor the buyer. There is seller protection but it regularly fails. What’s worse is that as a seller you have to deal with credit card chargebacks that paypal has no control over and can be dragged out over months and even years. If the buyer defrauds you(more often than not) and wins the credit card chargeback(which they normally do b/c CC companies don’t want to lose customers), Paypal will come to YOU looking for the money. There are plenty of stories of Paypal bringing collections agencies against people. Oh, and they also charge a fee against you if you get a chargeback against you(even if it’s a fraudulent one that is eventually found in your favor.
Avoid using paypal unless you absolutely need it.
I will add though that all the paypal help center people I spoke to on the phone were prompt and spoke English as a first language. I just wish their ToS didn’t make it so easy for buyers to defraud people.
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