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Sigh ... live and learn

Started by drewincanada,

35 posts in this topic

drewincanada

drewincanada

Posted
Posted

Won a couple of auctions on Ebay the other week for a couple of those Corgi Batmobiles from a few years back. They were really cheap, and even with shipping they were a good deal.

 

The two auctions were by different sellers, and both listed the toys as "brand new, never used" and "mint in box".

 

They both arrived in thin padded envelopes from Honk Kong. Not new. Not unused. And certainly not "mint in box". There was no box. Of any kind. And the toys were dirty and slightly scratched.

 

Both toys arrived the same day, in identical envelopes with identical return addresses. Turns out the seller is running multiple Ebay IDs.

 

I attempted twice to contact the seller to complain about the misrepresentation. He never responded. So I filed Paypal disputes on both transactions. He never responded to the disputes. So I escalated the disputes to claims.

 

Now here's the interesting part: within seconds of escalating to a claim, Paypal closed the cases and sent me the following email:

 

"As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It

does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund."

 

I wrote back to ask WTF?!? (But more politely than that.)

 

Here's Paypal's response:

 

"PayPal reserves the right to make a final decision on Significantly Not as

Described claims if the buyer and seller cannot agree. PayPal makes a

decision based upon the information provided by both the buyer and the

seller during the claim process and the dispute process as well as what is

listed in the auction by the seller. In some cases, we may request

additional information or documentation from either party to assist with

our investigation.

 

"Based upon the information provided by both parties, PayPal determined that

your claim did not fall under PayPal's definition of significantly not as

described. This case is now considered closed. We encourage you to work

directly with the seller to find a resolution."

 

So I filed an appeal with Paypal, since this sounded like an automated response. (The seller didn't provide ANY information!)

 

24 hours later, I got a response from a real person at Paypal:

 

"Thank you for writing to PayPal. I am sorry to hear about this situation,

and understand your frustration and concern over the issue.

 

In order to qualify for PayPal Buyer Protection, a payment has to be

recognized by the PayPal system as being associated with an eBay auction.

As this payment was not sent as an eBay payment, the payment does not

qualify for PayPal Buyer Protection.

 

We encourage you to work directly with the seller for further resolution.

 

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal."

 

Again, WTF?! That's a totally different story than in their previous emails.

 

So I went back to look at the auctions and realized what my problem was: the seller bypassed Ebay's payment system, and instead redirected the buyer to their own web page to process the Paypal payment. They said in the auction description "For security reasons, Paypal is now accepted through our website checkout link ONLY. (Checkout link will be given to you after auction ends)"

 

Because I paid through their link, Paypal doesn't offer Buyer Protection and won't intervene.

 

It's not a HUGE deal, since the car only cost me $12 including shipping.

 

But... stupid me... feeling ripped off, I left negative feedback for the seller. My feedback wasn't inflammatory, just factual:

 

"Item not NEW, MINT or IN BOX as described. It was USED, SCRATCHED, NOT IN BOX."

Of course ... and here's the forehead slapping part ... the seller immediately left retaliatory feedback for me, on both transactions:

 

"We can resolve the issue together... Poor communications!"

 

I checked his feedback (for both Ebay IDs), and he's left the exact same feedback for over a dozen different buyers in the past 2 days.

 

And - I'm not sure how he did it - you can no longer view the item in question from my feedback page. In the area where it usually says "View Item", he's somehow switched it to "Private".

 

I wrote to him to ask how he intended to "resolve the issue together", but I don't expect to hear back from him.

 

Is there any way to appeal this with Ebay? Why should my Ebay feedback rating be trashed by this insufficiently_thoughtful_person?

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comix4fun

comix4fun

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Posted

Did you use your credit card thru paypal?

 

You can bypass paypal entirely, and claim fraud through your CC company and dispute the charge.

 

C

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chrisco37

chrisco37

Posted
Posted

You should've responded the same way you did in the other thread:

 

the sooner you accept that eBay is full of imbeciles whose sole purpose is to make life miserable for the rest of us, the sooner you will be able to live with that knowledge
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the blob

the blob

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Posted

if they re-directed you to their own page, were you inputting your paypal info/password into their filter or something??? i'd be a heck of a lot more worried about that and paypal should be a bit more concerned.

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Sal

Sal

Posted
Posted
how do you type all that and not give us the seller's eBay ID?

 

(shrug)

 

Maybe it's because he's still willing to work it out and want to protect the seller from undue lynching here on the boards...

 

 

 

lol

 

"Some names have been changed to protect the guilty who are at least willing to mitigate the pain and suffering their malfeasance caused and thus be viewed as 'not as bad as they could be.' This is known as The Comic-Keys Effect."

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OldGuy

OldGuy

Posted
Posted
how do you type all that and not give us the seller's eBay ID?

 

(shrug)

 

Maybe it's because he's still willing to work it out and want to protect the seller from undue lynching here on the boards...

 

 

 

lol

 

Did you read the original post? It's not "getting worked out".

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drewincanada

drewincanada

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I've got no problem naming names:

 

merrymall88

 

1000ez

 

I've just written to Ebay to complain about these sellers (or seller), and see if they can get the seller to respond, and also to see if they can delete the feedback (although I doubt they'll do that, given their feedback policies).

 

Good point about their checkout system. I went back and looked at it again. Here's the page:

 

Checkout page

 

You enter your Ebay email address and the item number. Nothing too private about that info; anyone you've done a transaction with can get your email address using Ebay's contact system.

 

After that, it lists the transaction details with total including shipping. The rest is done via Paypal as usual and there's nothing that would give the seller access your Paypal password. What it DOES do is remove you from the Ebay>Paypal standard routing, so that the transaction is no longer connected to Ebay, and Paypal can no longer offer protection.

 

I posted all of this more as a "heads up" to anyone else who runs into the same payment system. Be forewarned that you're not protected.

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drewincanada

drewincanada

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Sorry to hear about yet another unpleasant eBay experience for you . . . :sorry: Why dont' you just spend your money here? hm And if you have to go to eBay - shoot some my way :angel::devil:

 

I know it sounds like all my Ebay deals go sour, since those are the only ones about which I post.

 

But the vast majority have gone exactly as expected, and some have been far better than expected in terms of responsiveness, quality of product, etc.

 

I'm sure if I bought from you, David, you'd be firmly in the latter category. (thumbs u

 

Now, if you only had HG Avengers for sale... :foryou:

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GACollectibles

GACollectibles

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You can also "respond" or "follow-up" to the feedback that he left to you. That'll give you the chance to have the last word.

 

Andy

 

I like having the last word.

 

 

Who do you think you are, my wife?

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drewincanada

drewincanada

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You can also "respond" or "follow-up" to the feedback that he left to you. That'll give you the chance to have the last word.

 

Andy

 

I like having the last word.

 

 

Who do you think you are, my wife?

 

Would you stop playing with those silly comics for just one minute and come and help with the dinner??? I feel like I have to do everything myself around here.

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GACollectibles

GACollectibles

Posted
Posted
You can also "respond" or "follow-up" to the feedback that he left to you. That'll give you the chance to have the last word.

 

Andy

 

I like having the last word.

 

 

Who do you think you are, my wife?

 

Would you stop playing with those silly comics for just one minute and come and help with the dinner??? I feel like I have to do everything myself around here.

 

(quickly closes the browser of interent porn)

 

Yes dear.

 

:sorry:

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drewincanada

drewincanada

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I know it sounds like all my Ebay deals go sour, since those are the only ones about which I post.

 

But the vast majority have gone exactly as expected, and some have been far better than expected in terms of responsiveness, quality of product, etc.

 

In the interest of balance, here's a deal that DID go well. Just received it moments ago. Great communication, and some of the best packaging I've ever seen. Lovely copy, too. (thumbs u (thumbs u

 

Avengers #32

 

Does anyone know if he's a board member?

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drewincanada

drewincanada

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You can also "respond" or "follow-up" to the feedback that he left to you. That'll give you the chance to have the last word.

 

Andy

 

I like having the last word.

 

 

Who do you think you are, my wife?

 

Would you stop playing with those silly comics for just one minute and come and help with the dinner??? I feel like I have to do everything myself around here.

 

(quickly closes the browser of interent porn)

 

Yes dear.

 

:sorry:

 

That's a new one to me! I didn't know that "playing with comics" was a euphemism for ... well ... self-congratulations (to use another euphemism) ...

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