[Ayub]

I thought i would post this here and hope it helps people.

A friend of mine sold a new mobile phone on ebay. It was sold for £180 and the buyer had a rating of 110+ . The buyer bought the phone by paypal and insisted he picked it up as he was only local his location was only 5 miles up the road in Bingley/BRADFORD. My friend agreed and the man came pick up the unit and all was good.

After a week or so he was sent a email by paypal stating the account had been hacked and they took their money back. He pleaded his case but as paypal are paypal thre did not give a damn. They insisted he should of sent the phone via recorded del to his address and they would of "considered" his case. He logged the complaint with the police but they said they were not staffed to "chase" every paypal scam!

[sinizterguy]

I had a very similar experience.

I sold a phone on ebay. Buyer had relatively low feedback and although I was worried, I sent the phone out via Special Delivery after receiving immediate payment via PayPal.

About 1 week later, the money was reversed out of my paypal account and I was never able to recover it. It was a busy period for me at that time with exams and millions of deadlines to meet and so I gave up in the end.

I had immediately transferred the money out of my paypal account to my bank account. But my paypal account went negative. After a month or so they told me that they would start to charge me interest, try to recover money from bank account etc. End result was I paid into paypal to zero the account as I was concerned whether my credit rating would be affected.

Other people have told me that Paypal would never have followed through trying to recover the funds except for more emails. I was also advised to close my bank account to prevent paypal from taking the money. Again this was something that was completely impossible to do at that point.

End result - I followed every rule laid down my PayPal and ebay and yet lost out £230 even though I had proof of delivery of item (A special delivery receipt).

From then I only use paypal for low value purchases and actively go out of my way to not receive funds via PayPal.

[Ayub]

The reason i'm ranting, you would think its safe via paypal. Cash on collection is me now. I mean who is to say they dont you an empty box too its very hard to trade or its getting harder to trdae with people. Honest people are becoming quite rare

Do we have any pay pal experts here who would advise and comment?

[Knyght_byte]

i wont use ebay or paypal or the like....

i've used the forums here twice to sell subwoofers, both times i made it clear i really only wanted to do a cash for sub transaction in person....and both transactions went nicely.....no hassle, no stress.....

its bad enough when you know you cant always buy from a registered company online without there being problems, nevermind joe public who could just as well be a scam artist!

[MI55ION]

It's sad really but neither paypal or ebay give a damn!

You could get screwed by them as a buy or a seller, it makes no difference.

People have the misconception that Paypal is a 'safe' method of receiving and making payment but that's far from the truth. Paypal buyer protection is flawed and I'd be very careful how you interpret their terms and conditions. If you go to this site paypalsucks.com and read through some people's experiences then you might wisen up a little and be better prepared.

Yes, the use of common sense does come into work when dealing on ebay but that isn't always enough and if things go wrong then you'll find yourself in situations as some of the guys here have experienced.

When selling, my advise would be that if collection in person is made, accept only cash - no exceptions. If you're sending via courier, RM, etc always obtain proof of postage for low value items and take out adequate insurance for high value items. If accepting payment via paypal from buyers with only few feedback, withdraw your money instantly and wait 3-5 days until payment is made into your bank acc before dispatching the item. This also applies with higher value items regardless of how much feedback the ebay member might have - this is because if the credit card etc that the buyer used to pay into your paypal acc turns out to be fake then Paypal will immediately take your money without even telling you so you're then left with no item and no money (it's in the small print when you sign up with em).

As a buyer, be very careful when purchasing from sellers who are abroad e.g. Hong Kong, US, Australia, Europe etc becuase if something is wrong with the item e.g. not as described then paypal/ebay will expect you to cover the cost of return postage, which could sometimes be a lot more than the item itself. Always use common sense, if it sounds to good to be true ...... etc. Always check the sellers feedback and read the listing thoroughly, a lot of scamers get away because the buyer fails to read properly. Never take it for granted that since a seller has 30000 feedback, he must be legit, again always use common sense.

I'm going on a bit here aint I? ....so I'll stop myself right now before I get all worked up about it... just hate seeing good people getting screwed, be that by scammers or companies like ebay and paypal..... I need a cigarette!

[Gliese 581c]

Originally Posted by MI55ION

It's sad really but neither paypal or ebay give a damn!

Snip

I'm going on a bit here aint I? ....so I'll stop myself right now before I get all worked up about it... just hate seeing good people getting screwed, be that by scammers or companies like ebay and paypal..... I need a cigarette!

Good post MI55ION

[Jeff]

Even when there isn't a scam involved sometimes Paypal can withdraw or withhold funds. I never keep a paypal account open, if I need to pay for something by Paypal I close the account immediately afterwards. I never accept payment via paypal.

[fourfoot]

You should withdraw the amount from your paypal account as soon as it is paid in, then if they recover it your balance will just go into minus figures, in which case you change the card details to crap so they can't attempt to recover anything from you, then close the account and open a new one.

Only accept paypal payments from verified paypal users - if i ever take a payment via paypal now, i always withdraw the money from my account, so if people want to pay with paypal it takes 10 days to clear the funds.

[Baron Von Doom]

my friend is expecting problems with paypal. a buyer wasnt happy with a purchase so he told them to return. they claim they have posted it back but he has not recieved anything.
does anyone know how long they have to claim through paypal.

[Steven]

I have never used Ebay - or intend to, but I do have a paypal account that I have used to make small money payments for cables and the like from forum members (not this forum ) (that have had decent feedback)

You only seem to hear about paypal problems when used on Ebay? I've not heard any issues with using paypal on commercial online stores or even in private dealings. Any thoughts?

[suniil]

Thanks to this thread, i never know this kind of scam exists!

[fourfoot]

Originally Posted by xelallah

if i ever take a payment via paypal now, i always withdraw the money from my account, so if people want to pay with paypal it takes 10 days to clear the funds.

That's how it should be done in my book. But, people see the e-money in their paypal account and take that as cleared payment. Most don't realise that it's not guaranteed until it is in your bank account, so paypal could take it away whenever they like, for whatever reason they like.

[stealther]

Originally Posted by fourfoot

That's how it should be done in my book. But, people see the e-money in their paypal account and take that as cleared payment. Most don't realise that it's not guaranteed until it is in your bank account, so paypal could take it away whenever they like, for whatever reason they like.

Except it not guaranteed then either as has been mentioned. Paypal are a law onto themselves and will just reverse payments regardless whether your funds are there or not.

I try to avoid using paypal when ever possible and I am afraid my ebay purchases have to be limited to the thought of “can I afford to lose this money” If the answer is no then I don’t buy it from ebay.

[dUnKle]

Used paypal for couple of years for loads of ebay purchases

Never a problem until shortly before xmas when I used my other halfs laptop to buy something and pay using paypal

Within the day someone had then hacked my account and done a xoom cash transfer for over £150

Have to say paypal where rather good on this - never took money out of my bank account but just my paypal account and credited it back a few days later

However ......

Trying to get full access to my account is now prooving a pain - have faxed them documentation as asked but guess xmas and new year has messed them up a bit - real shame is they also have given me the money back I paid legit for a product so that poor guy is out of pocket

Its a shame that these flaws exist as I find ebay a good way of getting things that I can never find in the shops (or get time to go look for due to working shifts) and paypal should be a good way to pay - perhaps its not them but the scammers who have ruined it

[mjn]

Originally Posted by Ayub

I thought i would post this here and hope it helps people.

A friend of mine sold a new mobile phone on ebay. It was sold for £180 and the buyer had a rating of 110+ . The buyer bought the phone by paypal and insisted he picked it up as he was only local his location was only 5 miles up the road in Bingley/BRADFORD. My friend agreed and the man came pick up the unit and all was good.

This should have sent alarm bells ringing.... If the buyer was picking the phone up in person, you should have got him to pay cash.

[fourfoot]

Originally Posted by stealther

Except it not guaranteed then either as has been mentioned. Paypal are a law onto themselves and will just reverse payments regardless whether your funds are there or not.

Once it's in your bank account they can't touch it. They can make your paypal account show minus figures, whoppie doo, close the account and open a new one. They don't actually bother chasing people up

[Silver Arrow]

BBC watchdog have featured e-bay/paypal recently. Some power retailers have been shown to be selling forgeries and neither e-bay or paypal can be arsed doing anything about it. Trading standards have also been involved but still e-bay have not removed the retail;er from their site. The inference is that e-bay and paypal get a percentage on each transaction and therfor won't shut down the big players and harm their own pocket.

I won't be buying from them, you makes your own choices!

[partyweb]

As was briefly touched on earlier in this thread, also watch out for the other ebay scam:

Item is sent recorded or registered post. The box arrives and you sign for it, only to open it up and find it's empty. Now the seller has proof that it was delivered and only your word that the box was empty. This happened to a friend of mine who buys & sells expensive watches on ebay and he said no-one was interested in helping him recover his money.