eBay The eBay Official eBay Thread eBay 33 33

[RockMyAmadeus]

6 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

These are bold scams in this day. I got hit with an empty envelope, and I filed a police report against the perps. They were so offended that they couldn't scam me for $1500, they called ME to harass me about it, and then sent cute little cards in the mail filled with expletives. Really wish I had the PO Box back then.

It was quite amazing.

And yet, people defend this. AND YET, people defend this. "Well, you deserve to be defrauded, because you're such a jerk to sellers."

That's the most amazing part of all. There is none so blind...

For your situation, file a police report at your local station. That way, it's on record. 

The serial is in the picture, but it's the small type. It might be 0118798001. Checking now...

Yup, that's the correct number.

Hope that helps a little.

Certification #:	0118798001
Title:	Amazing Spider-Man
Issue:	14
Issue Date:	7/64
Issue Year:	1964
Publisher:	Marvel Comics
Grade:	8.5
Total Graded At:	150
Page Quality:	CREAM TO OFF-WHITE
Grade Date:	06/11/2003
Category:	Universal
Art Comments:	Stan Lee story Steve Ditko cover & art
Key Comments:	1st appearance of the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn). Enforcers appearance. 1st meeting of the Hulk & Spider-Man.

[Spiderphill]

6 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

These are bold scams in this day. I got hit with an empty envelope, and I filed a police report against the perps. They were so offended that they couldn't scam me for $1500, they called ME to harass me about it, and then sent cute little cards in the mail filled with expletives. Really wish I had the PO Box back then.

It was quite amazing.

And yet, people defend this. AND YET, people defend this. "Well, you deserve to be defrauded, because you're such a jerk to sellers."

That's the most amazing part of all. There is none so blind...

For your situation, file a police report at your local station. That way, it's on record. 

The serial is in the picture, but it's the small type. It might be 0118798001. Checking now...

To be clear I am the one that received the box. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

1 minute ago, Spiderphill said:

To be clear I am the one that received the box. 

Right. Good luck on getting it resolved. Don't let this scumbag get away with it. Hopefully, it's some colossal mistake. 

Saw your feedback. Have they replied? Check the weight on the box, too, and see if you can get the initial scan weight at the PO. 

[justafan]

On 5/8/2018 at 10:45 AM, Number 6 said:

The bolded part especially concerns me as that could prove to be very problematic. 

From what I’ve read on other message boards, eBay has been doing this for a few months now. 

Interestingly, I think I’ve seen this happen with a couple of auction listings as well. 

I had a couple of items from different sellers in my Watch List that were auctions. The starting bid was pretty close to FMV in both cases. About 24-48 hours before the listings ended I noticed that there was the option to make an offer as well as bid. 

I found that odd since anytime I’ve created an auction I’ve never seen the option to add Best Offer; I’ve only seen it available with BIN listings. 

In both cases I didn’t make an offer as I assumed that’s probably not what the seller intended. 

When there’s been a dispute between buyer and seller eBay has always positioned themselves as a neutral, disinterested 3rd party facilitator. 

If this Best Offer tampering results in an unwanted “sale” I wonder if eBay will assume responsibility for the fallout that results with the buyer?

this is why I raised all my BIN prices, switched all my listing shipping to calculated cost from free shipping, and set the minimum best offer to auto decline below my minimum.

[justafan]

here's my latest kerfuffle. it's a new one to me.

seller accepted my best offer price on 2 pre-order incentive variants. release date was a month out. I paid them over 30 days ago. release date came and went with no shipping update or messages from the seller. 

a week after release I contact them via ebay message inquiring about the status. I receive a response stating they have received the comics but their funds are being held by PayPal and PayPal will not release any funds until all purchases have been confirmed delivered by the buyers. seller says they are not willing to risk shipping out $20k worth of comics without being paid. they recommended I get a refund through PayPal directly because going through ebay expect's the sellers to be able to refund the buyer but the seller can't because PayPal is restricting access to the funds.

I called PayPal and they confirmed the sellers account has been restricted and that they will only release the funds after the seller ships. I couldn't convince the seller to ship so I'm now trying to get a refund through a PayPal claim.

anyone else ever run into this as a seller or buyer?

[BlowUpTheMoon]

21 hours ago, Spiderphill said:

The serial isn’t listed on the actual auction. 

0635468001

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

0635468001

Wrong book, oh master of the search.

Make sure you click on the original listing, not the one eBay force feeds you.

[darkstar]

25 minutes ago, justafan said:

here's my latest kerfuffle. it's a new one to me.

seller accepted my best offer price on 2 pre-order incentive variants. release date was a month out. I paid them over 30 days ago. release date came and went with no shipping update or messages from the seller. 

a week after release I contact them via ebay message inquiring about the status. I receive a response stating they have received the comics but their funds are being held by PayPal and PayPal will not release any funds until all purchases have been confirmed delivered by the buyers. seller says they are not willing to risk shipping out $20k worth of comics without being paid. they recommended I get a refund through PayPal directly because going through ebay expect's the sellers to be able to refund the buyer but the seller can't because PayPal is restricting access to the funds.

I called PayPal and they confirmed the sellers account has been restricted and that they will only release the funds after the seller ships. I couldn't convince the seller to ship so I'm now trying to get a refund through a PayPal claim.

anyone else ever run into this as a seller or buyer?

You should open a case on eBay. You won't have an issue getting your money back through them as eBay will either take it from their paypal or pay you themselves and charge the seller's account. And you should do this now because I'm guessing that seller's account gets NARU'd very soon. And you should stop listening to the seller because they obviously don't know what they are doing. And probably drop their name in the eBay block list thread. 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

5 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

9 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

0635468001

Wrong book, oh master of the search.

Make sure you click on the original listing, not the one eBay force feeds you.

Damn eBay!

[revat]

Not a huge deal, but I've got an issue.

I bought a few items from a seller in Europe (I live in the US), non-English speaking country.  In order to combine shipping, I asked him for a total, using the ebay cart thingy. (I pm'd in English him earlier to confirm the shipping price, he was able to communicate effectively in English though not perfectly, no problem).  He sent me back a total in Euros, I applied the 20% ebay code (love these) and paid.  The total seemed a bit low, but with the exchange rate (I don't deal regularly in Euros) and the 20% discount I didn't think too much about it.  He mails out the item with tracking from Europe.  No problems so far.

A week later, he messages me, "Ebay made an error and you paid too little, please paypal me 14 Euro, please check your invoice".  So I check the invoice and sure enough, there was an extra 14 euro discount that I did not ask for.  This accounted for about 10% of the total. 

So I message back immediately "Please invoice me through ebay and I will pay immediately.  I don't want to make an out of ebay payment"

He comes back with "Please just pay through paypal, there's no easy way to do this through ebay.  You're trying to take advantage of my mistake"

I respond "I am actually doing the opposite.  If this is eBay's mistake, which YOU said it was, then you must be working with them to resolve the issue, so that it doesn't happen again.  I don't want to pay you OUTSIDE of ebay and then get hit by ebay AGAIN after the issue is resolved.  Otherwise any seller could just randomly discount any sold item and come back later and collect the majority of the money outside of ebay and keep the fees that should be going to ebay."

 

No response from seller.  I think the item is scheduled to arrive today.

 

So I was I too harsh?  I don't think he's trying to jack me, but I do think maybe he made a mistake and gave me an extra discount while trying to combine shipping, then lied about it because he thought it would be more likely for me to repay him if it was eBay's fault.  But should I reward him for lying?  Do I actually owe him money? I paid the amount to ebay that ebay billed to me.  Ironically if he just claimed he made a mistake initially I probably would have said "Oh I'll pay you when I get the books", but now I think he lied to me and I really don't like that.  Or what if he's not lying and I end up getting double charged by ebay after I pay him on the side?

 

Thoughts?

[Number 6]

14 minutes ago, revat said:

Not a huge deal, but I've got an issue.

I bought a few items from a seller in Europe (I live in the US), non-English speaking country.  In order to combine shipping, I asked him for a total, using the ebay cart thingy. (I pm'd in English him earlier to confirm the shipping price, he was able to communicate effectively in English though not perfectly, no problem).  He sent me back a total in Euros, I applied the 20% ebay code (love these) and paid.  The total seemed a bit low, but with the exchange rate (I don't deal regularly in Euros) and the 20% discount I didn't think too much about it.  He mails out the item with tracking from Europe.  No problems so far.

A week later, he messages me, "Ebay made an error and you paid too little, please paypal me 14 Euro, please check your invoice".  So I check the invoice and sure enough, there was an extra 14 euro discount that I did not ask for.  This accounted for about 10% of the total. 

So I message back immediately "Please invoice me through ebay and I will pay immediately.  I don't want to make an out of ebay payment"

He comes back with "Please just pay through paypal, there's no easy way to do this through ebay.  You're trying to take advantage of my mistake"

I respond "I am actually doing the opposite.  If this is eBay's mistake, which YOU said it was, then you must be working with them to resolve the issue, so that it doesn't happen again.  I don't want to pay you OUTSIDE of ebay and then get hit by ebay AGAIN after the issue is resolved.  Otherwise any seller could just randomly discount any sold item and come back later and collect the majority of the money outside of ebay and keep the fees that should be going to ebay."

 

No response from seller.  I think the item is scheduled to arrive today.

 

So I was I too harsh?  I don't think he's trying to jack me, but I do think maybe he made a mistake and gave me an extra discount while trying to combine shipping, then lied about it because he thought it would be more likely for me to repay him if it was eBay's fault.  But should I reward him for lying?  Do I actually owe him money? I paid the amount to ebay that ebay billed to me.  Ironically if he just claimed he made a mistake initially I probably would have said "Oh I'll pay you when I get the books", but now I think he lied to me and I really don't like that.  Or what if he's not lying and I end up getting double charged by ebay after I pay him on the side?

 

Thoughts?

I would think if it was eBay’s mistake you’d have received a message from them. 

It sounds like he goofed on calculating your combined shipping discount and is trying to shift blame to eBay, perhaps hoping you’d be more sympathetic than if he just said ‘I screwed up’

Idk, I’ve made a couple of mistakes when selling on eBay. If the mistake was in the buyers favor and the books had already left my hands I think I’d just punch myself in the nuts and try and move on. 

Trying to go after the buyer at that point just seems a little tacky, but maybe that’s just me. 

Edited June 12, 2018 by Number 6

[CKinTO]

23 hours ago, revat said:

So I was I too harsh?  I don't think he's trying to jack me, but I do think maybe he made a mistake and gave me an extra discount while trying to combine shipping, then lied about it because he thought it would be more likely for me to repay him if it was eBay's fault.  But should I reward him for lying?  Do I actually owe him money? I paid the amount to ebay that ebay billed to me.  Ironically if he just claimed he made a mistake initially I probably would have said "Oh I'll pay you when I get the books", but now I think he lied to me and I really don't like that.  Or what if he's not lying and I end up getting double charged by ebay after I pay him on the side?

 

Thoughts?

If you think he made an honest mistake trying to calculate combined shipping, I'd probably wait until the books arrived (and assuming they're in good shape and as you ordered), refund it to him outside Ebay. In terms of the whole "lying" thing to make it seem like Ebay's mistake, I agree that's not ideal, but I'd also say there could be some cultural nuances from wherever he's from in Europe (eg. where most "buyers" are also probably not as honest, and so he may just be doing what he can to recoup this, which may entail "stretching the truth" or what I'd call a somewhat innocent "fib" than a straight up "lie").

[Bird]

3 hours ago, CKinTO said:

If you think he made an honest mistake trying to calculate combined shipping, I'd probably wait until the books arrived (and assuming they're in good shape and as you ordered), refund it to him outside Ebay. In terms of the whole "lying" thing to make it seem like Ebay's mistake, I agree that's not ideal, but I'd also say there could be some cultural nuances from wherever he's from in Europe (eg. where most "buyers" are also probably not as honest, and so he may just be doing what he can to recoup this, which may entail "stretching the truth" or what I'd call a somewhat innocent "fib" than a straight up "lie").

I agree about refunding if you underpaid. People are stupid sometimes and maybe this seller slipped up but if you know what is correct, why not just make it right? Maybe even send along a note that says something like "I am not sure what happened and I am not sure you were 100% honest about how the mistake happened but it was indeed a mistake, so here's your silly foreign money". But I always sleep better taking the high road. (I rarely sleep well taking the low road, even though I can really do that very effectively.)

It isn't like you;re losing anything, just paying what you expected to pay.

[01TheDude]

found this amusing listing on the bay---- which led to their website called beattocrap.com http://tenangrypitbulls.com/beattocrap/

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Strange-Tales-Annual-1-Marvel-Sep-1962-Ditko-Kirby-Lee-Diablo-Beat-to-/142831067068?hash=item2141651fbc:g:JAEAAOSw0iFbH9hW

excerpt from the listing:

Quote

As a child in the 1960s, David Hammond read comic books. And read them, and read them, and read them. He loved his comics. Your mom threw yours out? Not David's mom. Now, decades later, David has unearthed the collection from the attic and is offering these well-read comics to you, so you can read them. The comics have been graded using our proprietary DBD™ (Destroyed By David) grading system. The higher the grade, the more David read the comic ... and the more damage that comic suffered. Visit beattocrap.com to see some of what will be auctioned in the future.

 

[ygogolak]

On 6/12/2018 at 6:15 PM, revat said:

Not a huge deal, but I've got an issue.

I bought a few items from a seller in Europe (I live in the US), non-English speaking country.  In order to combine shipping, I asked him for a total, using the ebay cart thingy. (I pm'd in English him earlier to confirm the shipping price, he was able to communicate effectively in English though not perfectly, no problem).  He sent me back a total in Euros, I applied the 20% ebay code (love these) and paid.  The total seemed a bit low, but with the exchange rate (I don't deal regularly in Euros) and the 20% discount I didn't think too much about it.  He mails out the item with tracking from Europe.  No problems so far.

A week later, he messages me, "Ebay made an error and you paid too little, please paypal me 14 Euro, please check your invoice".  So I check the invoice and sure enough, there was an extra 14 euro discount that I did not ask for.  This accounted for about 10% of the total. 

So I message back immediately "Please invoice me through ebay and I will pay immediately.  I don't want to make an out of ebay payment"

He comes back with "Please just pay through paypal, there's no easy way to do this through ebay.  You're trying to take advantage of my mistake"

I respond "I am actually doing the opposite.  If this is eBay's mistake, which YOU said it was, then you must be working with them to resolve the issue, so that it doesn't happen again.  I don't want to pay you OUTSIDE of ebay and then get hit by ebay AGAIN after the issue is resolved.  Otherwise any seller could just randomly discount any sold item and come back later and collect the majority of the money outside of ebay and keep the fees that should be going to ebay."

 

No response from seller.  I think the item is scheduled to arrive today.

 

So I was I too harsh?  I don't think he's trying to jack me, but I do think maybe he made a mistake and gave me an extra discount while trying to combine shipping, then lied about it because he thought it would be more likely for me to repay him if it was eBay's fault.  But should I reward him for lying?  Do I actually owe him money? I paid the amount to ebay that ebay billed to me.  Ironically if he just claimed he made a mistake initially I probably would have said "Oh I'll pay you when I get the books", but now I think he lied to me and I really don't like that.  Or what if he's not lying and I end up getting double charged by ebay after I pay him on the side?

 

Thoughts?

I don't think you can charge someone more after the sale is completed. They could have sent you an invoice through PayPal though.

[revat]

8 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

I don't think you can charge someone more after the sale is completed. They could have sent you an invoice through PayPal though.

They could have, but it still would have required some type of explanation.  He did contact me about it first instead of invoicing directly, which I think was the right move.  But my first instinct was that if its an 'ebay problem' as he claimed, he should resolve through ebay.  So my thought was that if it was an 'ebay issue' he for sure would want to resolve it with them so it doesn't happen again.  And when that happened, ebay would certainly come after me for the money.  So I didn't want to take the risk of double paying and/or having a problem with ebay.  After all, why should I be put at risk when I did nothing wrong in the first place?

Only after some back and forth and the seller ACCUSING ME of taking advantage of him, do I now think he was probably lying initially and made an 'honest' mistake before that while trying to combine shipping.  But to the extent where I was first lied (probably) to then accused, and still not sure if he's trying to work it out with ebay, I'm not in a hurry to pay him.  But I'll probably just pay him about a week after I get the items (I thought it was already gonna be here, but the notice I got earlier was just that it got through customs) and short him a dollar for his tactics.

I will say it would still go smoother if he just admitted it was mistake and that he lied initially and then apologize.  I could honestly understand that.  But here we are...

[SOTIcollector]

Just a quck note of thanks to @entalmighty1@ pontoon, @kav, @lizards2, and many other boardies for the posts about All_Things_Comics.

Now that my SOTI collection is complete, I don't buy a lot these days.  I know who some of the good guys are, like Ted Van Liew.  But I don't typically know who the sellers are that I should be avoiding. 

This week I was bidding on a bunch of eBay auctions by All_Things_Comics.  It's an account with 100% positive feedback on eBay, so what could go wrong?  Then I checked the boards and found out I need to be really careful buying from that seller.

So then I started thinking, "hmmm.  If the seller is known for restored books, but is claiming the books I want are fully unrestored, and I do a thorough resto check when I get the book... what could go wrong?"  For just a few moments I considered continuing to bid.  Then I caught myself.  Even if the books are legit.  Even if they really are untrimmed/unrestored... Even if they sell for a seeming bargain price...  Even if these sales that seem VERY LIKELY to have problems somehow go off flawlessly.... Do I really want to spend one penny of my money with somebody who has such a reputaton as a scammer?

http://comic-book-information.blogspot.com/2012/06/scammer-named-aram-shirinyan.html

I don't need any books that badly.  Walking away, with "no thank you" to All_Things_Comics and a big thank you to the boards!

[Poka]

On 6/13/2018 at 6:15 AM, revat said:

Not a huge deal, but I've got an issue.

I bought a few items from a seller in Europe (I live in the US), non-English speaking country.  In order to combine shipping, I asked him for a total, using the ebay cart thingy. (I pm'd in English him earlier to confirm the shipping price, he was able to communicate effectively in English though not perfectly, no problem).  He sent me back a total in Euros, I applied the 20% ebay code (love these) and paid.  The total seemed a bit low, but with the exchange rate (I don't deal regularly in Euros) and the 20% discount I didn't think too much about it.  He mails out the item with tracking from Europe.  No problems so far.

A week later, he messages me, "Ebay made an error and you paid too little, please paypal me 14 Euro, please check your invoice".  So I check the invoice and sure enough, there was an extra 14 euro discount that I did not ask for.  This accounted for about 10% of the total. 

So I message back immediately "Please invoice me through ebay and I will pay immediately.  I don't want to make an out of ebay payment"

He comes back with "Please just pay through paypal, there's no easy way to do this through ebay.  You're trying to take advantage of my mistake"

I respond "I am actually doing the opposite.  If this is eBay's mistake, which YOU said it was, then you must be working with them to resolve the issue, so that it doesn't happen again.  I don't want to pay you OUTSIDE of ebay and then get hit by ebay AGAIN after the issue is resolved.  Otherwise any seller could just randomly discount any sold item and come back later and collect the majority of the money outside of ebay and keep the fees that should be going to ebay."

 

No response from seller.  I think the item is scheduled to arrive today.

 

So I was I too harsh?  I don't think he's trying to jack me, but I do think maybe he made a mistake and gave me an extra discount while trying to combine shipping, then lied about it because he thought it would be more likely for me to repay him if it was eBay's fault.  But should I reward him for lying?  Do I actually owe him money? I paid the amount to ebay that ebay billed to me.  Ironically if he just claimed he made a mistake initially I probably would have said "Oh I'll pay you when I get the books", but now I think he lied to me and I really don't like that.  Or what if he's not lying and I end up getting double charged by ebay after I pay him on the side?

 

Thoughts?

I have had this issue as a seller before. In certain situation for foreign sellers there is a bug. Ebay’s response is “we don’t encourage people to invoice” but they have also advised me to tell buyers to pay directly via PayPal. So in short, in don’t think your seller is scamming you

I now know tha the issue arises when seller inputs the combined shipping discount under discounts instead of changing the shipping amount directly in the invoice.

 

 

[Poka]

On 6/12/2018 at 4:46 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

Right. Good luck on getting it resolved. Don't let this scumbag get away with it. Hopefully, it's some colossal mistake. 

Saw your feedback. Have they replied? Check the weight on the box, too, and see if you can get the initial scan weight at the PO. 

Agree. If seller don’t address it then if an empty box it should be pretty straightforward to contact the courier and ask them to verify the weight and with that info demonstrate to eBay/PayPal that the box could not have contained the itemThe difficulty arises when seller puts something of equal weight in the box.

Good look. Cannot imagine what I would have done in that situation with a $4k book

 

[justafan]

Ok I've kind of got a new one here.  I referenced it a while back but this is kind of bizarre and not sure how it's going to work out for the seller so this is a cautionary tale for both a buyer and a rapid growth seller as both ended up as victims of a dispute between ebay and paypal with paypal pretty much holding all the cards on this one.
 

TLDR version:

Seller unable to ship comics due to their paypal account being restricted and $40k in sales funds being withheld by paypal despite meeting all previous requirements.

One of the requirements was for the seller to begin shipping comics to receive funds once delivery was confirmed.  They claim to have done this for $4k in comics but never received funds from paypal

Seller has already incurred thousands in forced refunds from their own bank account (not from the withheld funds) before they shut down the bank account.

Paypal claims seller's account is restricted due to too rapid growth/sales/transaction amounts for a relatively new account (less than 100 transactions).

Paypal won't release ANY funds unless the seller ships ALL comics and ALL buyers confirm delivery.

Seller has instructed buyers to request refunds directly from paypal which is siding with buyer, rather than ebay since ebay has no control over the funds Paypal is holding.

I submitted and received a refund from Paypal for the full amount.

eBay is the seller's only advocate in this fight with Paypal and as such has instructed the seller not to sell ANY of the comics outside of an ebay transaction until the matter is resolved.

Buyer is made whole but doesn't get desired comic.

Seller is stuck between a rock and a hard place with losses and inventory they can't sell.

ebay has little leverage here and faces potential losses in FVF depending on whether an agreement is made.

Paypal is still holding funds earning interest until all refunds are given.

 

Spoiler

 

I purchased 2 presale items from a relatively new seller (feedback between 50 and 100) who is affiliated with an actual BM LCS.  The seller was selling 15 of these presale comics among other presale listings for multiple items and already had a number of previous orders. (it should be noted most of these were for the more expensive variants)  The seller's listing included a description of the presale and release dates (about a month).  I submitted an offer and the seller accepted my offer on 2 of them and I promptly paid. 

Fast forward to the expected ship date and I had not yet heard from the seller nor received a tracking notice despite seeing some of these variants hit other seller's ebay listings with actual photos rather than the pre-sale stock photo.  I PM'd the seller through ebay requesting a status.  The seller responded later that day informing me that paypal is withholding all of their funds and not releasing for any of the sales.  As they explained it, paypal has restricted their account due to growing too rapidly for a relatively new account.  If you research paypal restrictions they typically can choose to hold funds for up to 21 days but should release funds by then or when a delivery is made.  It had been 24 business days by the time I began inquiring. They stated paypal first required that they provide information on their bank account and status as a seller which they complied but still held their funds.  Next paypal wanted them to supply them with invoices for the pre-sale items which they were to deliver by a certain date to release funds for which they complied but paypal still held their funds.  Lastly, they required the seller to purchase shipping labels for the items and apply tracking before releasing funds.  But still paypal held the funds.  Finally paypal required that they ship the items to the buyers before releasing funds.  They explained that they went ahead and started shipping comics to a few buyers.  After a week and several calls still paypal did not release any funds.  By that point buyers had begun requesting refunds through ebay but since ebay does not hold the funds and the seller is disputing the issue with paypal, ebay cases were not getting buyers anywhere.  Ultimately the buyers had to go directly through paypal to get a refund.  However, instead of taking the refund from the withheld funds, paypal took the refunds from the seller's own bank account.  The seller explained that before they shut down their account they had over 4k withdrawn from their account with no reimbursements from paypal. Furthermore, they still have not released the funds for the comics they have already shipped.  They had shipped out up to a few thousand in comics and still had not received anything from paypal.

Suspicious but concerned I went ahead and contacted paypal and referenced the transaction ID and seller.  It took me 3 calls and 4 different reps to verify that their account has had a restriction placed on it. They said numerous buyers had called in with the exact same issue. Furthermore, they stated that the seller has been instructed to ship the comic to me and for it to show up as delivered before they would pay the seller.  I explained the situation from both my point of view and the sellers and that the seller had already tried this but since no funds were released they would not be shipping out any more comics.  After a brief hold, the rep informed me that they were informed that the seller would need to ship all comics and only until all paid for items were delivered they would have their funds released.  They said if the seller is unwilling to do that the only recourse for me would be to request a refund via paypal.  She also informed me several buyers had already requested refunds.

I was able to get back in touch with the seller directly to their cell phone and also confirmed their affiliation with the BM LCS.  I informed them what paypal told me and asked that they confirm back with paypal. I further inquired why their account was restricted.  They explained rapid growth since they executed over 30-40k in sales in such a short time they were flagged and funds held until they could provide further documentation and details which they already did. The seller had tried resolving with paypal one last time and told me they received the same ultimatum but that they would not be doing that.  The reason is that they have no reason to trust paypal at this point since paypal has repeatedly said they would release funds if they complied with their previous requests and after each request they never got the funds released.  So they simply cannot afford to ship out $40k in comics and not have any leverage at getting their funds from paypal.  They instructed me to call paypal back and process a refund (now that their bank account is no longer linked, paypal has to pull the money from the restricted funds). Once a refund is given they said I could call them back and buy the comics directly from them. 

I initiated a refund and waited for the 10-day seller response period to expired before the refund could be processed.  Fast forward a week.  I reached back out to the seller and informed them that I requested a refund and would like to purchase the comics directly from them.  They then informed me that they have since escalated the issue with ebay and have been advised by ebay not to sell any of the merchandise outside of ebay that has already been covered by an ebay transaction as ebay is working to resolve the issue directly with paypal.  ebay has escalated this case and the seller informed me since ebay is the only advocate on their side in this dispute they don't want conduct any action that would violate ebay's issue resolution in this case against paypal.  They informed me this is the last time they'd ever accept payment with paypal.  They also mentioned that since the split between ebay and paypal, and the fact that ebay will be offering it's own payment processing service soon, relations between ebay and paypal have become sour and they believe this dispute may be one of the final levers paypal holds over ebay.  Not sure about that as that was the seller's thoughts on the matter.

 

Is it still possible that the seller could be lying about this whole thing?  maybe, but it's pretty crazy if they are and to what end.  In any case, I received my full refund this week.  I checked on the seller's account in ebay and it had a ton of negs from buyers who had to get refunds.  that account is pretty much toast.  I feel bad for them.  Seems like they got royally screwed and they still can't sell their comics until this gets resolved.  The way I see it is buyers will continue to get refunds until those funds held by paypal are depleted (minus the 4k in sales where they shipped the comics already). 

Has anyone else as a seller ever encountered this?