My rant for what it is worth.

[coolthings123]

You know the old story of the person banging their head against a brick wall and being asked, "why do you do it?"  The reply being, "because it feels so good when you stop."   That is exactly how I feel about my recent dealing with the automatons at eBay and PayPal over an INR dispute.  I don't want to spend a lot of time on this as I have spent far too much already.  Suffice it to say:

1)  Confirmed PayPal addresses are meaningless.   

Buyer's confirmed PayPal address shows a location in Quebec.   Buyer states he has no idea who the confirmed address belongs to as he resides in Thunder Bay, Ontario.   Buyer's PayPal address and eBay address are identical.  Buyer opens an INR with eBay.  eBay says this seems suspicious and will look into it.  eBay gets back to me and says buyer has escalated to a PayPal dispute so they are washing their hands of the matter.  Thank you very much for your concern eBay.  I am advised I should contact PayPal.  PayPal says this seems unusual.  But wait,  the buyer has two addresses attached to his account.   One in Quebec and one in Ontario.  PayPal says it is possible the buyer is trying to game the system but, too bad, the shipped item wasn't sent with tracking so we have refunded all his money.  I say, but the buyer claims the confirmed Quebec address that shows up on the payment confirmation is not his.  The Ontario address is nowhere to be found on the payment confirmation notification.   PayPal says, we will of course record your displeasure with the outcome of this review (WHAT REVIEW??)  but you cannot verify the shipment because you have no tracking so we stand by our finding and have refunded the buyer.  

2)  eBay and PayPal seller protection is a broken system.   The people working at eBay and PayPal who are supposedly the stewards of making this a safe platform for sellers to conduct business transactions don't care about sellers.   They care about tracking numbers and they care about the money the seller has available to refund the buyer.  

3) PayPal needs to bear responsibility for ensuring the shipping information they are providing is as accurate as possible and if their is a discrepancy the onus should be on the buyer not the seller.   

I am going to go now and give my head a rest from all that banging.  

[retroman_studios]

That is sadly the cost of not having tracking. I've had to refund over the years for lost packages.

I've noticed a decline in the number of sellers who sell usefull electronic items that can travel letterpost probably for this very reason, that if a customer wants to cry fowl, it's an easy out for PayPal/eBay to just wash hands as there was no tracking. Your customer likely knew what he/she was doing and counted on the fact that you used economic shipping to play the game.

Block this buyer, leave factual feedback and move on.

[ricarmic]

This is exactly what "cookie jar insurance" concept is for. It makes it so much easier in our head to just think of it as a prepaid cost of doing business (or selling stuff online) when it happens.

The more stuff one sells the more likely bizarre and crazy stuff like this happens, and when it does, having "cookie jar" prepared our minds for the fact something like this was going to happen makes it a lot easier to move past it.

The online selling world seems to be getting more complicated and harder which will also increase the likelihood of strange stuff like this happening.

Stuff like this is frustrating and emotionally draining but hopefully the CJI concept helps make it less so when it does happen.....

[coolthings123]

I get the concept of CJI. It just irritates me that it is needed in the first place. At the end of the day you are using your own money to protect yourself against an unscrupulous buyer who has in fact just ripped you off. eBay and PayPal don't seem to want to do anything to prevent this from occurring.

[ricarmic]

Yep I understand! From what I know of the B&M world these days, we have it a lot better than they have..... it is just more noticeable to us because we see it when it happens as opposed to when B&Ms take inventory and stuff isn't there!

[ricarmic]

I do think in ebay/PPs defense, they have told us what we need to do to avoid this kind of situation, we have to send it with tracking, then they eat the loss in these situations.

In this situation, if it was sent with tracking you would have been covered/fine.

You, like me and many other folks here sell stuff that does not make marketable sense to send tracked. In this situation we're making the decision to sell something without tracking which means we've chosen to take the risk and then rely on CJI to cover us in these situations.

Just as we are frustrated with problem buyers,  and although all of us here are 100% honest folks, ebay and PP are probably constantly hit with unscrupulous sellers trying to game the system from the sellers perspective too. The sad fact is they can't take anyone at their word because some % are lying each time, same as is the case with problem buyers we experience.....

[coolthings123]

I understand there are good sellers and bad sellers as well as there are good buyers and bad buyers. And I am guessing the percentage of good far outweighs the bad. However, when you provide eBay/PayPal with information that a buyer is doing something that is truly suspicious and they choose to fall back on the "no tracking" argument, instead of actually investigating the matter, concerns me. Sellers should be protected as much as buyers and if eBay and PayPal are truly as committed to making their platforms as safe as possible for all involved they need to step up to the plate when circumstances dictate they should do so. IMHO

[ricarmic]

Yep I hear you and I understand.

I gave up on them the time I called them to tell them a buyer was going to burn them for $600 (I was covered because it was tracked) and they chose to let the cards fall where they may.

The problem is, PP isn't a "person" like us, its a large corporation, the CSR on the line with you's job is to help as many people as possible in an hour, getting as postitive feedback/survey results as they can as proof they're doing a good job. Saving PAYPAL or you $$$ isn't in their direct job description. When enough people burn the corporation the same way, something gets put in place to stop it from happening more (normally this is more restrictive rules of some sort, of which if you want to be covered you have to send tracked is one).

None of us like it but sadly it is how it is....

[coolthings123]

You are absolutely correct. The buyer contacted me for the sole purpose of requesting a tracking number. When he was told there was no tracking is when all the fun and games started. Buyer has been blocked.

[ricarmic]

Yep my rule is "burn me once shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me" - I have ways to catch folks trying to burn me the 2nd time....so far my ways have worked pretty good!

I am so glad this site lets us block. Some other sites I belong to do not, which is a major pain.

[coolthings123]

One last quick thing on this and then I will stop. The buyer undoubtedly got the item for free. I am out the FVF on top of the cost of the item and I got a defect because eBay closed the case while they were "looking into it" and it was escalated to a PayPal dispute. Yahoo