Paypal and Ebay suck

[Mo2vation]

Looks like you're sort of taking it on the chin, rajambarnett from some of us with good intentions, but poor bedside manner.

Yeah - you may need a refresher course on the ins and outs of doing business on eBay these days, but as far as gear goes, Mvrick is right: My regs are 1999 and they're great. Get it all checked out by your LDS, pay is price for the check up, tip him (I do when I buy on-Line) and you should be OK.

Back to PayPal & eBay - as someone with well over 500 auctions sold and probably half as many purchased, I can't just sit here and not provide the other side of this discussion. Lets separate the two, for clarity:

All of you know my stance on eBay - The Internet is the most significant event of my lifetime, eBay is simply the best site on the web and the single best thing that's ever happened to the Internet. It’s changed my life, no question. But, like anything else, there are nuances to the game.

eBay is not for the risk averse. Its like PriceLine for air travel...sure you get great rates, but you give up something for those rates, and that is flexibility in your schedule. You can't get it all: great rates and your choice of dates and times.

eBay is much the same - there are treasures, absolute treasures (and scuba treasures...you've read about a few of mine, with 90% of my rig coming from eBay) but what you give up is pre-sales inspection privileges, demo privileges, return privileges, and often payment options. If you're OK with giving those up, then rock on. What you get in return is name brand merchandise for incredible savings (my DUI and Halcyon stories) OR, maybe name brand merchandise for immediate availability (my recent Turtle Fins story) and sometimes both. If you prefer to retain those privileges associated with traditional retail shopping, then shop elsewhere.

eBay makes no bones about it....this is peer to peer, baby. There is some cursory "insurance" available ($200 per transaction minus fees....) and they take their steps to police themselves and their community, they have outside quasi 3rd party services (Escrow, Arbitration, etc.) to offer peace of mind, but the bottom line is there is always a trade you make on eBay - you trade price and availability for risk. As a buyer, you reduce your risk by checking feedback, by eMailing the seller and feeling them out, by assuring the contact information in eBay is current, where is the seller located, how long have they been a member, etc.

As a Seller, I reduce risk by leveraging the product as hostage until payment clears, I accept only instantly negotiable funds for larger purchases, etc.

Know the eBay risks going in and you won't usually get burned. Be wise about this - buying a BMW on eBay is simply not wise. Buying 2 and 3-digit items on eBay makes moire sense. Will you still face disappointment when something arrives and it's not just as you had hoped? Sure. It happens. Contact the seller (most of us are reasonable) and if you can't find resolution, to through eBay's buyer complaint resolution process. If nothing works, flip it.

PayPal is another story. Its expensive, its invasive, its not at all user friendly to first time users. But I can't sell without it - its too convenient and timely. I get paid faster. I pay normal merchant fees to take the credit card (about 3%) from the buyer, but its a trade off - that 3% equals speed. PayPal buyers pay me, on average in 2 - 3 days. Non-PayPal buyers pay me, ON AVERAGE 8 - 15 days. Sometimes longer. If I want my money now, I use PayPal.

As a Buyer, its a tough one. Again, it’s not for the risk averse. There is no protection. But I buy with PayPal because it SAVES me money and time. I can pay from my desk, it’s free to buyers. I don't need to schlep down to the bank and pay for a cashiers check, then go to the post office and wait on the bluehairs. The trade off is speed.


Lets try to keep a little perspective of both sides.

eBay and PayPal aren't for everyone...few things are. But they do not suck. eBay delivers great deals and great merchandise, and enable me to off load my excess inventory quickly and efficiently (yard sale, please. I can have 30 people walking on my grass on a Saturday morning or put my stuff in front of millions for a week while I sleep in.... tough choice). PayPal has become the de-facto standard for payment - its also fast, not prohibitively expensive (although expensive) and free to sellers.

 

[Big-t-2538]

Mo2vation once bubbled...

The Internet is the most significant event of my lifetime, eBay is simply the best site on the web and the single best thing that's ever happened to the Internet.

I'm going to have to disagree here...outside of scubaboard, I think it is more like http://www.jayski.com/ simply the best racing site out there, and since I love racing, it is the best site on the web IMHO

 

[rajambarnett]

Just not going to buy from anyone with less than 20 or 30 positive feedback. That's unfortunate, considering there are a lot of honest people with feedback less than that. New means new to me. When I was comparing this guys price to another reputable online retailer, one thing was left out--the age of the product. That is a detail that is pertinent in every other purchase we make. The details about the innerworkings of Ebay are immaterial. I've used it and generally like the service that Ebay provides, in fact showed multiple others how to use it. Ebay alone does not "suck." But, it's affilitation (it now owns) with Paypal is an absolute monopoly and you have no choice but to use Paypal's service. Furthermore, I'm telling you these facts:

--Paypal has a backlog of over 100,000 buyer complaints
--The general public using Paypal has no idea that their money is not protected...Once the balance of knowledge shifts from the scam artist and Paypal to the general public, that will change.
--If you do a lot of business on Ebay, why don't you get your own credit card machine, for God's sake you can pay for your cotton candy at the local fair with a credit card.
--Any reasonable person on Ebay should allow returns, if the buyer is unsatisified with the product. It was going to cost me two-way shipping, by the way. If the seller is cofident in the quality of their product, they can relist and sell again. Doing business in general is a risk, obviously. But, clearly the seller has the upper hand on Ebay...They don't ship until the money is received and they have an 800lb gorilla, Paypal, in their corner. If there's a problem, just say oh well and Paypal will agree. I understand Paypal's predicament, but they do need to be upfront about their policy--"THE ATTRIBUTES AND QUALITY" of products shipped is immaterial, that is truly incredible, considering it is the single most important thing in determining the price of anything that we buy.

Anyone few on details is hiding something, end of story. In reality, the $400 is about five wipes on my cheeks...it just burns.

Don't get hostile, very reluctant to read your replies. I know that I screwed up buying from someone with virtually no feedback. I know that there are honest sellers out there, like mo2vation. Hopefully, anyone who does a search on this site about buying gear on Ebay will at least learn from my experience...buy from someone with a reputation, and try not to use Paypal. I will actively seek out large sellers who have their own store and have their own credit card machine. At the end of the day, I have to protect myself first.

 

[Mo2vation]

Hate to disagree on some of these things, but:

Actually - NEW means unsold. New does not mean current year model. We can debate this for days - but the core issue is the intent of the buyer. I've had this happen twice to me from LeisurePro - they sent me the OLD model. I was miffed for sure. it was new (unsold) but it wasn't current.

Actually - there are a zillion other payment options other than PayPal:
* Western Union (old school...)
* BidPay (Western Union new school)
* All forms of bank check
* All forms of money order (from 7-11 to USPS)
* Personal Check
* Cash / Pick Up
* I'm sure I missed some...

Actually - my company is a $20 million specialty retail company, and we're paying about, on average 2.7% to take a credit card. PayPal costs me, Joe Citizen about 3%... No machine hassles, no tracking this myself, no separate account requirements, no incremental hassle. I get on-line tracking of all transactions, confirmations, end-of-auction correspondence and payment requests, and a lot more stuff than I get from having my own machine. As a seller with little time and a keen on-line aptitude, PayPal is the bomb.

Actually - Returns can ruin a perfectly good product. Simply shipping a perfectly good product puts it at risk. Freight damage and road rash, handling damages the shipping box (if you don't overbox) clam-shelled items cannot be re-closed when opened, and can't be re-sold as new - even if they've never been used. There is a chance the consumer (and this happens OFTEN) has opened the manual (damaging that package) or forgot to send it back. Nobody in their right mind would take back something you breathe into - like a regulator, for any reason. You can't take back a $20 harmonica...no way you can take back a regulator.

Actually - Buyers are not PayPal's customers, Sellers are. No offense, but there are millions of auctions on eBay that don't take PayPal specifically because of PayPals fees...that's 3% off the top of the sale. Solution - don't buy from sellers who prefer / require PayPal.

However -
You are 100% spot on in your closing remarks about protecting yourself first. This goes for sellers as well as buyers. I've always said, eBay is a great place to sell, its not a great place to buy - although there are treasures out there.

I got burned one time - a Camcorder purchase. I should have known better (I'm still stinging a year later...what a dolt I was), as Camcorders are the riskiest thing to buy. Small, expensive, desirable, etc. I blew it and lost a lot of money.

If you'd like assistance unloading your stuff (if you're at that point in frustration) PM me and I'll gladly put it up for you, or walk through how to get max $$ for it. It sucks not getting everything you expected when you open the box - but the beauty of it is this: if you got a good (even a decent deal) you can always flip it and get your money back...or maybe a little more.


ken

 

[dvleemin]

rajambarnett once bubbled...
And most importantly, as of 1/1/03, NO credit card company can reverse charges to paypal because they are considered a third party biller.

Where did you hear this? Do you have a link from a credit card company that shows this?

Darryl

 

[rajambarnett]

After Discover Card informed me of this new policy, I checked with both Mastercard and Visa. These three issuers are all unable to dispute these charges. All three companies told me exactly the same thing. Check with your issuer, and not some nitwit rep, but a manager in the dispute department...they will tell you. Paypal states that they will investigate all complaints internally.

This is Paypals policy, which I received by email...

"PayPal's Buyer Complaint Policy only applies to the shipment of goods, not to disputes about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we cannot reverse this transaction or issue a refund. We encourage you to continue to work directly with the seller to amicably resolve this dispute."

At least make buyers aware of this policy, I had no idea that Paypal didn't take "the attributes or quality of goods" into mind when investigating a dispute. I thought that was paramount in any pricing. Not to these guys, they just want their 3% (supposedly around $20million/month) without any hassle or customer support.

 

[Genesis]

There used to be disparate relationships between PayPal and the credit card companies. That is, with some types of credit card syou could reverse (charge back), and with others you could not.

This created MAJOR problems for people, as you can imagine. Some scam artists figured this out, would order things, "pay" with PayPal, reverse the charge, and abscond with the merchandise.

HUNDREDS of PayPal merchants got burned this way.

Many of them had their accounts locked up for nearly-interminable times during these disputes, and more than a few of them were blatently ripped off by "buyers".

Now, is the current system any "better"? Well, maybe.

(BTW, Amex may still permit reversals.... not sure on that one. American Express is a funny company....)

PayPal offers buyer's insurance. YOU DECLINED IT! You could have taken it, which would have allowed you to decline the item FOR ANY REASON and receive a refund (less the insurance cost, of course). Why is that offered? To cover the exact issue you ran into.

If the item was MISREPRESENTED, say the seller said "2002" and you got "2000", you'd have a claim for fraud, and I bet both PayPal and eBAY would have gotten involved.

But it appears he did not do that.

Therefore, you got EXACTLY what you negotiated for. You were, later, unhappy with the transaction, but that's not the seller's fault or responsibility.

I hate to be harsh here, but I don't see how you got "screwed".

Merchants have NO legal requirement to offer a right of return UNLESS they misrepresent something (that is, fraud is committed again.) YOU do not have the right to charge back a purchase willy-nilly either. Oh yes, people try it, all the time - but that not only doesn't make it right, it does not obligate the merchant to accept the chargeback.

I used to run into this all the time when I ran my internet company. We'd have people that would try this constantly - buy an account, use it for a month, then call, claim it never worked (or worked right) and reverse the charge. We won EVERY ONE of those contested charges, and we NEVER accepted them. Over the several years I ran the place we had this very scam (or some variant of it) attempted well over 100 times.

We had a 14-day "trial period" during which we would refund your money, no questions asked - and only once per person. Beyond that - nope. It was a clearly stated policy, and you had to SIGN an agreement indicating that you understood this policy and agreed to it. We had people sign up for an account, cancel on the 14th day, sign up for another one, try to cancel a second time, when it was refused by us they'd go to the credit card company and reverse the charge.

It got the point that I actually considered SUING a couple of these people - not for the $20, but to make an example out of them.

Merchant accounts are a two-edged sword. For card-not-present transactions merchant's options are SEVERELY limited in protecting themselves. PayPal has given them SOME protection (they would otherwise have NONE!) and at a reasonable price.

I don't particularly care for their new policy (just recently shoved down people's throats) and will probably cancel my PayPal account as a consequence. That means that if I want to eBAY something I have to take a check or money order, or send one.

But my issues are not with this particular part of the policy. They are with the fact that they did this to buyers, but STILL reserve the right to "lock up" anything you get via them for 180 days, including going into any other assets (bank accounts, etc) they can find, on the strength of "their" dispute resolution policy, along with a number of other procedural changes.

If they're going to treat the transaction as cash from the buyer's perspective, then it should be cash. End of discussion.

BTW, they DO disclose this in the "new" policy, in that they are the "merchant of record" for the transaction. That is the exact wording in their agreement.

 

[mddolson]

So why are you disatisfied with the Mares Abyss?
How much do you want for it?

Mike D

 

[domino22]

never used paypal but bought a zeagle ranger was a 2003 model but did not come with the inflator hose, read the small print. I thought that was part of the bc is this not the case?