Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

I recently had funds in my Paypal account withdrawn and held when a buyer started the claim process.  It screwed my ability to use Paypal until it was resolved.  The buyer claimed he had not received the package (Canada to Australia via ground - to keep the shipping costs down) quick enough for him.  I ended up issuing a refund and ended up losing my money and the item.  For all I know the guy was lying and got a free item.  This process hangs the seller out to dry and gives no course of action to release the funds in your Paypal account.  I have been on eBay since 2000 and am now considering never selling anything on it again.  My perfect feedback is now gone and I got screwed.  On a side note, if you are a Canadian seller, I don't recommend selling outside the USA and Canada as the shipping takes forever and the buyers don't understand about duty and import fees.  Ebay also charged me the eBay fees for the item I issued the refund for.  I lost a pile of money in this transaction.  When I got screwed years ago with a transaction, eBay and Paypal were zero help.  They sure hung me out to dry this time when the roles were supposedly reversed even though I actually shipped the item.  I am sure some clown will chime in about tracking and insurance but that translates to huge shipping costs for a buyer which I don't like paying when I buy....so save you comments.  No wonder its hard to find sellers with perfect feedback.  They take the neg so they don't loose all their money to sellers trying to scam free items.

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Sigh. Surface to Australia can take up to 3 months to arrive. The mail containers will not leave Canada until they are full, no ifs, ands, or buts. This is from CP at the 800 number. First class air to anywhere is pretty quick and reliable. If you have been on eBay as long as you say, then you should know better by now. I made that mistake once, but only once. Fortunately for me, my buyer was understanding about it.


 


"   I am sure some clown will chime in about tracking and insurance but that translates to huge shipping costs for a buyer which I don't like paying when I buy....so save you comments."


 


I'd say that a statement like that one makes you the clown as you did nothing to protect yourself, and now you blame the buyer, and eBay for your problems.

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

To lose even a dollar here sucks for a seller, but such is the game sometimes.  You had me thinking it was a huge sum of money in question, plus a negative feedback and star dings to ruin your score. Ok, so with fees and shipping factored in it was roughly a $75 transaction, but you only got a neutral and your feedback score is still at %100.


 


Just wondering what your purpose for posting this was. I am assuming just to rant,  seeing as you declared that anyone daring to state the obvious is a "clown" and told everyone to "save you comments".

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Never try to sell something internationally that can not be shipped for a reasonable airmail rate. Never mention surface rates to a buyer outside of North America. The service is slow and despite what a customer may say about being ok with waiting for a cheaper surface shipment they will start complaining about slow delivery. The stamps I sell can go into an envelope and they are on their merry way at a relatively low cost. When we were shipping fine china and glassware overseas it was nothing but a headache, slow delivery, breakage, etc. We now sell the china and glassware in an antique mall and get about the same $ fisgure that we got from Ebay with almost no hassles.

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Why ship by ground at all? Yeah, air is expensive. I get that. But shipping by ground to almost any international country is promising you at least a two month wait time. Buyers have 45 days to open a Paypal claim against non-delivery. Let's say one month has 29 days * 2 =58 days. 99% of ebay buyers won't wait past the 43 day mark.


 


All you can do is message the guy that purchased and ask if he would kindly resend the money once the item is received. Some do, you'd be surprised.


 


Never ship by surface. Even if the buyer asks for it. It's dumb to expect any buyer to wait that long. Would you?

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

I know how you feel! Robbed basically!


 


You have a lot to learn about shipping and ebay. Rule #1 Never ship surface mail anywhere! Rule #2 Never lose your cool, always respect your customers and their complaints. #3 Refund customer immediately when they have been waiting more than 3-4 weeks for their item no matter where they are.


 


If a customer has to wait 3 weeks or more for their item, you'll be the one to blame in that case. Especially if you ship by surface mail. You made that mistakte, and now they make you pay.


 


Please be patient and understanding, and you'll make it in this harsh business if you can do that.


 


Best of luck to you!

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

I feel for you.


 


I made the same mistake: sending a designer jacket to Australia from Canada by Surface mail. That was a mistake. The buyer was informed at the beginning that it will take 6 -8 weeks to receive the item, but she still decides to file a case after 3 weeks.


 


I lost both the item and the postage, but I've learned a good lesson - Never send surface to international locations.


 


In fact, I no longer send expensive items or high postage items internationally, the only exception is that the buyer is willing to pay by cash or direct bank wire transfer. (Note, Money order is not a good idea, as the buyer can still stop payment on their end.)

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

relic
Community Member

Yep, me too. Shipped a lamp to Thailand, $76 for ground, $220 for air. Got royally screwed, 45 days, 178 bucks stolen from me!  Tracking number, insurance figured I was safe. Three weeks just to leave Canada. NEVER AGAIN, no more international sales Never, no way. Disgusted

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Last thing I shipped international was a $200 boxset and The buyer paid $90 and change for XXpresspost...


 


I Never ship ground and I never let anyone buy international unless they understand that I don't make  rules of the shipping rates and I always send them the proof of the crazy shipping rates..


 


I get dinged by US buyers more then anyone .. I got  a netral last week stating 8 days was to long of shipping which hurts because I charge $2 less then what it cost me and ship fast ..


 


This week 3 Us buyers it's been a week where is my item AAAAAA like do people honestly think Canada post flies a jet right to there door for $4...


 


One buyer wrote me all mad saying it has been 3 weeks and this is just ridiculous yada yada .. then I pointed out some stuff like it has only been 9 days aka 7 business days aka 12 days shy of 3 weeks ...


 


i find i either have issues in Canada or the US but never ever international ever sense my first mistake like everyone shipping ground..


 


most of my issues are caused by slow delivery which i understand but the date shipped is always on the parcel and then the other is from people with stupid expectations...


 


I am for the most part crazy nice and a good guy but once in awhile after a night shift i can't deal with stupid comments and about a month ago I had a US buyer ask me 5 days where is my parcels it's been too long .. I wrote back said I am sure it will be there soon though but  the $4 you paid they probably ran out of gas before they made it around the corner let alone another country ...


 


Luckily they laughed and thought it was funny and said sorry LOL

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

OMG LOL


 


I wrote back said I am sure it will be there soon though but  the $4 you paid they probably ran out of gas before they made it around the corner let alone another country ...

Janet and Paul
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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Please realize that there are sincere buyers who mean it when they say it's okay to take longer as long as the item gets where it's supposed to, if it means a lower shipping rate. I tell my sellers that when I'm buying stuff like Star Trek fanzines or other books that I've been searching for. In some cases I've been hunting these items for over 30 years, so what's a few more weeks?


 


BTW, the ONLY time I never received an item and the seller not only refused to refund my money, but wouldn't even answer my emails, was for a pair of earrings from Asia. I was more patient than usual because it was around Christmas last year, and naturally the postal system is clogged that time of year. The earrings never arrived, and all I could do was to leave a scathing negative feedback (shame we can't leave negative amounts of stars in such cases).

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Anonymous
Not applicable

I have about 20 buyers in France, Italy and other countries begging me to ship them by Surface to save them shipping costs and even claimed that they would never complain but I refused.


 


I did lower the value on the package (not supposed to) and he claimed that he wouldn't file a dispute against me and guess what he did and I am out of $$ and the item and he never resend the refund.  He just turned out to be a scammer and is no longer registered on eBay as he has scammed the other sellers too. 


 


So no to Surface and to lower the value. (I couldn't claim for the full value, my biggest mistake). 


 


It is sad that the scammers had to do that and in process making us not to "trust" anymore.  It seems to be "it is a fact of life" on eBay.  eBay/PayPal are haven for those scammers nowadays as eBay/PayPal are more and more not on our sides as sellers lately.

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Sometimes I wonder what ebay really does about these buyers.. I once had about 14 sellers report one buyer because I knew they were a scammer check there feedback and messaged all the seller and we ganged up on him they ended up wioth 13 follow up feedback stated he was a scammer and was reported 14 times and still to this day the buyer is on ebay buying and selling everything he scams ... Sense the buyer bought off me about 1 year ago they have changed there id 4 times ... The buyer actually bought and tried to scam 4 more items but I wrote him and told him I know your the same user as this other user and I have been getting all the seller you scammed to report you and leave follow up feedback and if you want me to stop you need to accept the 4 cancellation not leave me feedback and never buy from me again anddddddddd it worked they accepted the cancellations and never came back even though they couldn't anymore at this point they were blocked


 


I know ebays says they will look into that but it is a bunch of croc .. They don't care if sellers get scammed they only care if buyers get scammed...

Message 13 of 21
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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

A lot have made that mistake Collectors.


 


I always shipped surface overseas. Even though i never had a problem, the law of averages was bound to catch up with me.


 


Saw too many horror posts in regards to ground shipping overseas that i changed my mind & started shipping overseas via air. 

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Solution is simple, just don`t ship outside of the us and canada. This can be arranged in your shipping preferences. I used to sell internationaly when I first started selling on ebay, then I got screwed out of my money and item a few times...and now, never again. 

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

It's not only the buyer though, it's the ebay 45 day policy to open a case. A buyer is stuck with the decision of either getting a refund now or risking getting screwed. I would like to see a system where the funds could be held in escrow rather than refunded to allow additional time. That step alone would put alot of buyers at ease.


 


It's such a common problem and eliminates so much potential business for Ebay. My brainwave personally would be to open Ebay depots , an actual physical location where Ebay sellers can ship items via surface mail, buyers come in and pay cash on delivery and everyone is happy. Just making the service only in big cities like major shipping destinations to see how it goes would be worthwhile, better than just sitting idle,

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay


For all I know the guy was lying and got a free item.



 


That's could be, but not likely.  From the tone of your diatribe, you're so angry that you're not seeing the possible solutions to this issue. 


 


Although the buyer only left you a neutral, and you still have a 100% FB rating, if that neutral upsets you to such an extent, have you tried asking the buyer if he'd revise his FB, assuming it's not too late?  To get that done, you'll have to drop your anger, sympathize with him completely (even if you don't, just pretend), and explain how important your perfect reputation has been to you.


 


Ask him if he'd consider it as a sort of "all's well that ends well" scenario.  Suggest that he doesn't need to make effusive comments.  He could change his FB to a positive and simply write something like: "Transaction concluded satisfactorily - refund given for postal delay".  Try it, you might be surprised. 


 


Getting successful revision of FB will depend on how you've treated him so far in communicating, and how important it is to you to remove that neutral.


 


I'm also going to be a "clown" and say I would never ship to Australia, or elsewhere overseas, by ground, for any reason.  That's the simple solution in the future.  As one poster says, buyers won't let the 45-day point get too close before acting on a claim, so you're going to get caught with this issue again sooner or later with ground shipping. 


 


Yes, overseas shipping and tracking is outrageous -- you have to decide if (and what) you're willing to sell internationally.  I find my Australian buyers accept that because they're at the far end of the world, air shipping will be expensive.  If you list a $50 item with overseas tracked shipping at, say, $40, chances are you're not going to get too many overseas buyers anyway!  And the ones who do buy will know up front what they'll have to pay -- if they really want the item, they'll accept the shipping cost.  With higher value items, obviously the logic of using a premium trackable shipping service increases.


 


For anything over about $75 in value, I show only Expedited (or sometimes Xpresspost) for overseas shipping (I have flat rate shipping, so my international buyers see only the one option).  Tracked Packet may work best once they discount the rates through Paypal.


 


By the way, I would never ship ground to the US either -- there are a lot more shipping options that I find there's usually a good one to fit each type, size and value of item.


 


And American buyers are impatient, that's true!  Knowing that, every time I make a sale I send a thank-you note along with a (generous) estimate of delivery time, reminding the buyer that the delivery estimate does not include processing time by US Customs (I'm convinced a lot of Americans assume everything sails straight over the border from the Great White North).

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

To add to my previous comment even if the item was shipped to the receiving country, then the buyer paid  when it arrived in their country and the item was then shipped by their national postal system if they could not pick up due to distance would be a huge step forward. If a buyer used this service and then failed to make good on 2 or 3 transactions then they get banned from using it and have to return to paying super high international shipping. The logistics wouldn't be that difficult to set up. I'm convinced if Ebay continues to treat sellers as 3rd class citizens it's only a matter of time until their profit growth stalls and they have to implement some creative measures to win sellers back.

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Hello,


 


 


  Just to give all the sellers out there a heads up, there are still decent honest buyers out there.  At least in canada anyways.


 


I recently purchased a golf club from a seller in california, im in ontario, for 11 days the tracking simply said that my item had been processed and was onroute to canada, after about 9 days i messaged seller just to simply find out if they had heard anything from there end, seller replied quickly and said no but if i did not receive item by expected delivery date to let them know and they would refund me my money, then magically the day it was supposed to actually be delivered the tracking updated to say my item had reached canada and was being reviewed by customs, fair enough for me, so i have advised the seller that it appears to still be coming and there may be no need for the refund, still havent received it but i understand that this is not the sellers fault, just part of shipping.  Hopefully i receive it soon cause its startng to warm up here lol.  And to all buyers who happen to read this I must say we should all be a little more patient, if people are gonna continue to complain and scamm these sellers, sooner or later there will be no more ebay and we will all be forced to go back to paying crazy prices in huge corprate retail stores that like to mark up everything by %300 then offer it for $20.00 off making you think your getting a sale 

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Held ransom and robbed by Paypal and eBay

Just to give all the sellers out there a heads up, there are still decent honest buyers out there.  At least in canada anyways.


Thank you for sticking up for the buyers. I was starting to feel very unwelcome here. I value honesty on both sides of a transaction. I have never lied to a seller. I have had a few problems over the years; everyone does, I should think. Only once have I been burned by a seller who refused to make it right when an item never arrived. I've been gouged on shipping a few times; once or twice the seller was absolutely unwilling to refund the difference.


 


Lately I encountered a seller who is as honest as the YEAR is long, never mind the day. Will I buy from her again? Absolutely!


 


To the sellers here who have been burned by dishonest buyers: You have my sympathy, but please do NOT tar all of us with that brush. We don't deserve it.

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