PayPal Fraud

[Acousticat]

Here's a Tale of Paypal From Another fourm.

 

Last week Steve was tallking about Pay Pal. If you asked me about PayPal a year ago or even several months ago, I would have told you it was better than gold for transactions. However, things do change.

I lost about $5-800 on PayPal and their policies this week. I sold a Guild guitar on e-Bay and got a lot of nibbles. There were some very good questions from some great bidders. The last two guitars I have sold on e-Bay were trouble-free, so I didn't expect this one to be different. No damage to the Guild--not even pick marks since I don't play a guitar that hard.

This buyer who won the auction asked for UPS Ground and I shipped it, professionally packed to Deleware. On three occasions I told the buyer NOT to open the shipping carton upon delivery, but wait at least 12 hours to open the box and upto 24 hours to gently move the case out of the box into room temperature.

Apparently the buyer opened the box right up and he e-mailed me to say there were small crazing marks around the soundhole. Then, he included that e-Bay catch all phrase "Item not as described." So, either he wanted a significant discount on the guitar or he wanted a full refund. I contacted e-Bay, told the buyer to photograph and prove the damage, but he didn't do anything. He merely sat in Deleware and notified e-Bay of the issue, escalating his claim and thus forwarding it to PayPal.

At this point, I should add that PayPal told me I was under their "Seller Protection Plan" and that I was protected. PayPal told me to wait this out and try to work with the buyer. So, I gave it a try and responded to the complaint. I didn't want a damaged guitar back, but I also asked for a photo of the damage. To make a long story short, PayPal will allow claims to run out of time without any resolution. Why? Because then the buyer can initiate a "chargeback" with his credit card that is connected to his PayPal account. I don't know how many of you have gone up against a credit card company, but those boys play for blood.

I know that some of you think you are safe because you have a credit card tied to your PayPal account and that if you drain all of the PayPal funds on a regular basis, you are safe from their withdrawels. Well, I have found out through research that if PayPal has a claim against you and your account has insufficient funds, they can turn you over to collection for those funds. You signed away certain rights when you joined PayPal.

So, the next time you BUY a guitar online, use PayPal. If there is one string broken on that guitar, you can claim "not as described" for an instant refund. But, if you are selling be careful.

Again, the damage to this guitar is significant. The top is full of spider web cracks in an otherwise perfectly good guitar. There are a lot of things I probably did wrong in this transaction, but I think the rest of the Forum should realize that something like this could happen to you.

I have talked with Unclrob about this before and he has been suspicious of PayPal for many years. I think people who ask for postal money orders on e-Bay might have added protection, but you still have to follow e-Bays crazy rules.

Anyway, I did have a cherry Guild and now I have learned a very expensive lesson! Not to worry, however. I have a plan for the guitar.

Thanks for allowing me to vent, I feel much better now.

(I know, I know, I should have used the forum classifieds)

[Rollie LeBay]

I once heard someone say, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results."

 

And over and over I read utter horror stories of people getting burned by buying or selling guitars between private parties over the Internet. And the beat goes on...

 

Uncle Buck

[ballcorner]

Between 1998 and now, I have sold an average of 20 guitars per year on eBay. They have ranged in value from $400 to $50,000 and I only ever had one bad experience - one that I now know could have been avoided.

 

My secret? Don't take bids from anal people who send you ten paragraph question lists including details like: "Are there any signs of tool marks on the end pin?"

 

The more detail oriented the buyer, the more likely you are to run into trouble. Sell your guitars AS IS and make it clear. Ignore the ten paragraph e-mails by responding with a simple suggestion: "I am confident that this is not the guitar you are looking for" and move on to the next question from another potential bidder.

 

The bad experience I had was selling a 1950s electric that was either a Silvertone or a Danelectro. The headstock had been refinished, and there was not enough information online in those days (1999) to verify the guitar either way. I made the mistake of answering four billion questions from a guy who lived 5000 miles away and sold him the guitar for nine cents more than the previous bidder and that became a seven month fiasco/nightmare that finally resolved itself with me paying $400 to ship the guitar back to my place by overnight FedEx only to find it had been stripped of original parts including the pots and the lipstick pickups. I had to pay a full refund to the buyer of $700 and eat all the costs associated with settling the problem - part of which was a $200+ phone bill.

 

As fate would have it, I was able to buy my parts back three years later from the same guy, and I was able to use PayPal's "item not as described" to get a refund and return the replacement parts to him that he had stiffed me with on the original sale. Further, the guitar was finally verified as a real Danelectro - so I had it restored and sold it for enough to build a nice shed.

 

Always remember the three P's of eBay/PayPal - Patience, Persistence and REVENGE.

[Jinder]

Small crazing marks around the soundhole sound like a bonus to me! Long live Mojo I say. There's no pleasing some people.

[ballcorner]

Small crazing marks around the soundhole sound like a bonus to me! Long live Mojo I say. There's no pleasing some people.

 

Bingo - well said, and so efficiently stated.