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 ...
No, but the highest bid was $73, as I said, why didn’t he bid 74, 75, 76, why did he bid just above my supposedly “secret” max of 81? Something fishy.
Never mind, I get it, he must have proxy bid himself!
eBay’s system doesn’t bid in increments for the autobid. So assume you bid $10, max of $30. If someone comes in and bids less than $30, It should have what they bid, then your autobid going higher. But if they type a max bid of $50, it’ll jump straight to the first bid that’s higher than yours, $31.
Gotcha!
Well, surely Paypal can provide her with a copy of the appraisal that they had performed in order to ascertain that the item was, in fact, a counterfeit and worthless...right? Right?
I would say a third party cannot legally tell someone to distroy something that does not belong to them...did they have it verified as a fake, if not I hope the seller takes them for thousands....along with the idiot that destroyed it...unless they have it in writing from ebay/paypal, they are in for a lawsuit...
There is also www service software that can make final bids for you:
https://www.bidnapper.com/
Additionally if you are looking for a rare something or other on Ebay, but don’t want to have to search every day for it, there is an auto www search sevice that sends an Email report that I use at:
http://www.searchdome.com/ebay/
Cool, thank you. I just downloaded a Chrome browser extension, that just sends info but performs no other actions.
RRRRIIIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHTTTT.... crickets... crickets... crickets...
That's it. Sometimes these snipers get too smart for themselves as they put in some REALLY ridiculous price in order to outbid everybody. A couple of times I have seen a $100 antique reloading tool go for $500 and when you check the bidders, you see where one guy bid $490 and another bid $500. Oops! Dunno if, under those situations, the buyer ever paid up.
Paypal is perhaps the greatest advance in business in say 500 years.
Paypal enables safe transactions not previously possible without severe delay
If I have to use paypal, I cancel the order and go elsewhere. I’ll pay more to avoid using paypal. Burned once, twice shy.
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