I have tonight lost a dispute with paypal which I thought I couldnt lose!!

I shipped a turntable to belgium fully insured with DHL in the description I stated collection only postage at buyers risk.

Shipped and the buyer changed the delivery address with DHL after the item was attempted delivery failure x2. 

10 days after the eventual delivery he contacted me to state it had arrived damaged. I contacted DHL as it was fully insured but as it was over 1 week they would not cover the item for damage. The buyer complained to paypal and to cut a long story short I lost.

I am flabbergasted !! A SELLER HAS ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE!! I thought that as he changed the delivery address to a non verified paypal address he would have breached paypals terms and conditions but oh no!!

As a result £300 lost and I will never send an item again collection only and im sorry for all the genuine european buyers but its just not worth the risk it seems that a buyer can do anything to the item and if they complain to paypal within 40 days they will get a refund!

Be warned!! If I was a millionaire I would take them to court and fight this but im not and I cant.

My sympathies Andy. It is a frustrating and often fraut way of accepting money. It definately works pro buyer and for that reason most buyers insist on using it. I too have had a couple of bad expiriences with selling this way. Problem is without accepting it them there is not much chance of selling, certainly abroad.

Jonnie

Ive sold for 6 years on ebay and only this year ive had problems x3 all very similar. The system offers a better return policy than John Lewis! If they dont want it say it is faulty or smashed in the post and hey presto paypal gives you your money back. Im sure ive had people swap items??

Im not a business seller just like finding things fixing them and selling them on. From now on with anything slightly post vulnerable it will be collection only and cash! The frustrating thing is the last two problems have been from delivering to Europe the auctions were UK only but these people pursuaded me to send abroad. Im too soft!!

Ebay has lost some of the fun I have to say, it is now focused on the pro seller. Perhaps its time for a new site that offers a fairer system that protects both buyer and seller.

There must be some hotshot lawyer that would have a field day with paypal?????

The problem is that as a buyer, Paypal is wonderful. I have never returned anything or made a claim (though I should have done once - crooked US seller never sent anything and tried to con more money out of me) but the ability to pay instantly is a huge bonus. There are good sellers and good buyers but there are also dishonest sellers and buyers. If the feedback system worked, it would allow both to be identified easily. The present system is still ridiculous.

PayPal is a great system for buyers and also a great way to send money abroad for any purpose. Think how expensive/ risky it was before PayPal. As long  as 30 years ago banks would want a minimum of £15 in charges for you to send any small amount of money abroad.

The fault with fraudulent claims against sellers is not with PayPal but with the rogue making the false claim. As Peter says, the feedback system is pretty useless. There is a tendency for everyone to steer clear of negative feedback for fear of having their own 100% feedback record destroyed (and if I'm not mistaken eBay no longer allows sellers to give (retaliatory) negative feedback.) In some cases the claim of damage or postal loss will be genuine.... don't forget that the buyer has no control over how well an item is packed by a seller.

There is no easy answer to this problem, because even if you put clear sales conditions on your eBay entry that the buyer must insure against postal risk, this will conflict with the standard PayPal conditions/guarantee.

I feel for the OP and a loss of £300! I think I would pursue DHL for not returning the item as undelivered rather than allowing someone to change the delivery address. (Don't their terms allow for a limited number of delivery attempts before return to the sender??)

Graham

Back in the day we used a company called Nochex, who offer cashback protection to sellers and immediate payment for buyers.

They were brilliant, but now we are forced to use the notorious Paypal.

I'd rather move my money by bank transfer!

Everything is slanted against the seller...

eBay was once great.. a joy... now it is something I approach with trepidation.

vikinger:

The fault with fraudulent claims against sellers is not with PayPal but with the rogue making the false claim.

Paypal's system attracts fraudsters. They make it easy for buyers to submit a false claim and get away with it.

To continue the saga of paypal. I decided to take on paypal and file a complaint against them. Using the complain about paypal button. Within one week of making the complaint my account was closed. They say I am a risk to paypal security and closed it forever. The money I have in there is frozen for 180 days!!

The problem is now I cant sell anything on ebay because you require a valid paypal account. I am completely stuck my ebay account is virtually useless unless i can pay by cash or cheque! Has anyone experienced similar paypal bullying tactics?? Something really needs to be investigated how can they have such control and steal my money??

That is absolutely disgusting!

Surely if they close your account they have a duty to give any money in there to you immediately. Unfortunately they aren't subject to Banking legislation so they can do exactly as they want.

Chris.

Apparently its in the terms and conditions!! They can hold onto it for 180 days. So they have nearly £250 which legally belongs to me but I cant access it. I have been to the banking ombudsmen as you say they can do nothing.

Perhaps i will try my MP they should understand about someone keeping money that doesnt belong to them!

Ebay dont care particularly I personally think they are going down the line of supporting the big power sellers. The smaller "hobby" sellers like me are a problem to them.

There needs to be a rival site to initiate competition and prevent this monopoly getting bigger and more unjust.

I have signed up for Moneybookers after Paypal forced me to pay for a transport damage
that even the shipping company agreed was their fault.
So the package receiver could actually get two refunds, one from me and one from the shipping company.
Plus he could keep the item.
Paypal has their own set of rules and as soon as a buyer choose Paypal as the method for paying,
you can forget all about Ebay trading regulations and the Ebay protection programme.
Or any other agreements made by the seller/buyer.
 - And Ebay don't care.

Martin

Thats just a typical problem with paypal. The main issue now is that you cannot sell anything without a paypal account ebay just wont let you!

Only so in the UK. You can still list on the other Ebay sites.

Moneybookers seems to storm upwards and forwards, no doubt fueled by Paypal digging its own grave
with their silly policies.
I no longer consider Paypal safe and will only use them for small amount transactions where no
other alternatives are possible.

Martin

You may want to check this link.........it may be useful:

http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Paypal-problems-winning-your-case_W0QQugidZ10000000005914527?ssPageName=BUYGD:CAT:-1:SEARCH:1

Welcome to Beoworld !

Thanks for your input, greatly appreciated !

The main problem is that Paypals legal user agreement changes
once in a while and what I experienced is actually in thread with their
current regulations.
In other words, make sure to read the whole thing very thoroughly and especially
when they make changes. Don't just accept them.
If you accept the user agreements, you will have to live with their rules,
that, by the current agreements, pretty much puts all your money to their disposal.
And if they decide that you have to pay for what is clearly a transport damage,
and your Paypal account doesn't hold enough money, they will simply draw from
your credit card automatically.
As a Paypal member, you have given them that right.

Anyway, I will give it some more thought.
It could be fun to ask what they have on record about me and actually, the
danish ombudsman warn publicly against using Paypal as a buyer.
I was the seller so neither part is safe, it seems.

I also have the whole story ready for the danish and eventually UK newspapers.
Not to put Paypal in a bad light - they did nothing wrong - but simply to
make Paypal members aware of their policies. I'm sure not many of their members
realize what they have signed.

Advertizing Paypal as the safer way to pay is a lie - at best.
There are alternatives. I can recommend Moneybookers
and they are also accepted by Ebay though they obviously don't speak much about it.

Thanks again.

Martin

Excellent information I will explore further re: ombudsman. Thanks Martin I will sign up to Moneybookers. 

As my ebay account was opened pre 2007 I dont have to use paypal when listing. Obviously now its collection only and cash.

Dillen

Many thanks for the welcome note, I was in such a hurry to post the information I forgot to introduce myself.  Another eBay change that you guys may be interested in, if you haven't already, is to opt out of eBay using your photo's as part of it's catalogue!  You can do this under Account, Site Preferences then Share Your Photos.  You need to opt out by 28th March 2010 to make sure any photos up to this date are not included!  Hope this is of help to someone and looking forward to reading up on the forum!

Kind regards

James

Andy :

As my ebay account was opened pre 2007 I dont have to use paypal when listing. Obviously now its collection only and cash.

Afraid not. Regardless of when you opened your account..

"eBay requires all sellers listing on eBay.co.uk and eBay.ie to accept PayPal in their listings with the exception of listings in the categories of cars, motorcycles, aircraft, boats, caravans, trailers, trucks (commercials), services and property categories."

Furthermore...

"Sellers who state in their listing that they accept certain payment methods must not selectively offer those payment methods to buyers or discourage buyers from using those payment methods.

This means that sellers must always accept payment from buyers through the payment methods they have selected in their Payment Details section of their listing, including PayPal, and must not act in any way to discourage buyers from paying by these methods."

You are not permitted to offer something for "cash on collection" ONLY, you must always offer Paypal as an alternative payment method, and you may not discourage the buyer from using Paypal or decline payment by Paypal.

eBay monitor very closely for anything deemed to be Paypal " discouragement ", and pull listings and reprimand sellers who do this.

To summarise - if you are selling something that needs to be collected, be prepared to accept Paypal and the consequences that may bring.

Yes, and be prepared to say goodbye to all agreements made regarding the deal, including Ebays
buyer/seller protection program and general trade regulations.
If Paypal is the chosen method of payment, Paypal alone will rule.

Worse than the legal issues Microsoft face occasionally.

Martin

In the UK at least what happened to caveat emptor? These PayPal rules are a load of old b£ll%cks designed to reassure nervous people like my mum who have the fear that 'the computer' will store all their personal details and somehow massively defraud them. I always buy with caution - why do we need these elaborate buyer protection policies anyway? I bought a Beolab 5000 amp off eBay.de where the seller would only accept wire transfer of cash. I stumped up the fee myself and had to send in Euros, but ended up with a lovely item that was bought, from my own point of view, with a degree of risk that I was prepared to accept. Why can't others do this too???

I have suffered at the hands of PayPal as a seller (they refunded a buyer claiming "not received" despite giving PayPal a copy of the delivery receipt signed by the buyer, claiming my fax to the first number they gave was not acceptable, and the fax to the 2nd number they gave was received too late (about 2 minutes after their email refusing the first fax)) and as a buyer (hopelessly "not as described" items were, in their opinion, acceptable).

Their bullyboy tactics of forcing PayPal onto Ebay users are frankly disgraceful, and are killing everything that was good about Ebay in the first place.  Sadly until more people vote with their feet, it will stay the same.   Until there's a real alternative...