<VV> More on the eBay bum

Tue Dec 23 04:20:13 EST 2008

I was staggered recently when someone bought something from me, paid by 
PayPal, I sent them the item and forgot all about it, and then three weeks 
later I received an email from PayPal saying that because they suspected the 
transaction had been paid for fraudulently they had returned the guy's money 
to his account (so I was $50 down). I emailed and asked them what I should 
do, as I had lost out on the transaction through no fault of my own, and 
they replied (I am not making this up) that I should contact the guy and ask 
if he would return the goods to me.

Now, what kind of planet has someone got to be living on if they think that 
someone who has paid for goods by fraud is likely to roll over and give them 
back to the seller? Predictably, all my efforts to contact the guy have met 
with no response, and as the transaction took place before 1st Oct 2008 I am 
not covered by PayPal's seller insurance. So I can just go hang.

But the worst bit of all is that we had already exchanged feedback (and 
sellers can no longer give negative feedback either), so there is no trace 
of the fraud having happened and I can't warn other vendors about the guy. 
And he is still continuing to trade on eBay and still has a 100% positive 
feedback record (but what's that worth, if he can get away with doing what 
he did to me? He could have done it 50 times for all I know). After a 
protracted exchange of emails with PayPal customer service I have finally 
resigned myself to the fact that I am not going to get my money back, but I 
am unhappy that they won't do anything to penalise the guy - after all, it 
was PayPal who told me that the transaction was fraudulent!!! The reason 
they can't or won't act appears to be that the organisation that uncovered 
the fraud is PayPal, and they are technically separate from eBay.

So he can continue to trade with impunity, and I have been defrauded out of 
$50, and there is nothing I can do about it. O.K., so $50 isn't the end of 
the world, but the amount wasn't the crucial factor - as far as I can tell 
the effect would have been the same with any transaction up to 1000 GBP 
(which used to be $2000 but is now down to $1480, and sliding...).

So I hate to contradict JR, but I don't think the dispute resolution methods 
offered by eBay and PayPal are worth a row of beans. Caveat emptor (and even 
more so, caveat venditor). I have been doing eBay since 1999, and every year 
that passes the deal for sellers becomes worse and the deal for buyers 
improves.

I can understand that this is a) because there are a lot of crooks out 
there; and b) eBay needs to protect its buyers because that's what sets it 
apart from other auction sites (according to The Economist magazine, what 
sets it apart is that most sale sites have lots of vendors and few buyers, 
whereas eBay has both). However, I feel that if eBay continues to worsen the 
deal for the small seller much more, they will destroy the business model 
they started with (because they are also, according to The Economist, moving 
towards an Amazon.com style model, where they want to attract high-volume, 
business, retail sellers, rather than the 'flea market' style of vendor that 
they started with).

Corvair content here is that the item  had sold the guy was a set of NOS 
1960s 'E-Z Eye' 5-inch headlight eyebrows, which fit a Corvair well 
(although I think he had bought them for a Brit car). And as an aside, I 
spent years wondering why someone would call their product 'Ee-Zed Eye', 
until someone pointed out to me that it wasn't pronounced like that in the 
USA...

Cheers

Alan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J R Read_HML" <hmlinc at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Charles Lee" <Chaz at ProperProPer.com>; "'Grant Young'" 
<gyoungwolf at earthlink.net>; <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 11:51 PM
Subject: Re: <VV> More on the eBay bum

> Well, that told me that he's (she) has had the same ID since July, 2001.
> Looks as if the boys need to work it out between themselves using the
> appropriate dispute resolution methods provided by eBay and PayPal.
>
> Later, JR
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Charles Lee" <Chaz at ProperProPer.com>
> To: "'Grant Young'" <gyoungwolf at earthlink.net>; <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 5:23 PM
> Subject: Re: <VV> More on the eBay bum
>
>
>> What did this guy do ?
>>
>> I only see him selling an old Mustang GT, and some Corvair prts that no
>> one
>> bought, with a rating of 528.
>>
>> http://myworld.ebay.com/teenapa
>>
>> Is there something else there that I don't see ?
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
>> [mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of Grant Young
>> Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 9:51 AM
>> To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
>> Subject: <VV> More on the ebay bum
>>
>> <<Being as how the world is so small how about you post here his address,
>> any
>> other information.>>
>> The guy (crook) is in Struthers, OH, so beware of anything you buy from
>> there. It looks like he might change his ebay id regularly, so the 
>> address
>> is more important.
>> Grant
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