New Policy Change at Paypal? Why would anyone use ebay/paypal going forward.

[ctownboy]

My question is, if a buyer buys a piece of crap, how does eBay/PayPal know they destroyed the piece of crap after they get their money back?

What keeps the buyer from holding onto the crap for some period of time and then listing it on eBay? Better yet, what keeps the buyer from selling it at a local auction?

If I were shady, I could make a LOT of money with this new policy. I could search eBay all day for known crap, buy it then, once I get it, file a complaint with PayPal and get my money back. After that I could take the items to local auction houses and sell them and whatever I get would be pure profit.

David

[sports-rings]

my biggest concern when I posted these links was that someone selling a legitimate item could get robbed by an unscrupulous buyer.

All the buyer has to do is "claim" it's not good and basically would be able to keep the item, free of charge. If the buyer is 1,000 miles away, what recourse would a seller realistically have?

[DaveH]

Imagine if Coaches Corner used Paypal. They would be out of business in a month.

dh

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by ctownboy

My question is, if a buyer buys a piece of crap, how does eBay/PayPal know they destroyed the piece of crap after they get their money back?

What keeps the buyer from holding onto the crap for some period of time and then listing it on eBay? Better yet, what keeps the buyer from selling it at a local auction?

If I were shady, I could make a LOT of money with this new policy. I could search eBay all day for known crap, buy it then, once I get it, file a complaint with PayPal and get my money back. After that I could take the items to local auction houses and sell them and whatever I get would be pure profit.

David

If you were shady, you could make a lot of money buying known good material, file a complaint with Paypal and sell it wherever you wanted.

After all, being shady doesn't limit you to only ripping off bad sellers.

Fortunately I tend to think this falls in the Urban Legend category. I've seen this rumor floating around the internet regarding Ebay and Paypal for years now.

[thecatspajamas]

Both of those articles were in relation to a single instance (the second article actually commenting on the first) of Paypal requiring a buyer to destroy the supposed counterfeit item (a violin). They do not address whether the violin actually was counterfeit or not, but refer back to a From Paypal's T&C:

"If an international buyer purchases an item, the buyer will be instructed to provide PayPal with evidence (documentation from a 3rd party) that the item is counterfeit. PayPal will validate the documentation and then ask the buyer to destroy the item and attest to this action by signing an affidavit."

The original blog post that they are referring to is here:

http://www.regretsy.com/2012/01/03/from-the-mailbag-27/

I'll preface the rest of this by saying I know zilch about violins: My guess is that the seller's description was misleading (whether intentionally or not) as to the origin/authenticity of the violin, and their statement of "They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world” seems to point to that as well. I have encountered very few items valued in the thousands of dollars that someone somewhere hasn't tried to fake. I think the "labelling issues" that the blogger/seller refers to are what most others would call "authenticity issues."

Regardless, even if the seller was 100% in the right and truly taken advantage of by the situation, I really don't think this is a rampant issue or that one blog post and two articles referring to that blog post are evidence of an epidemic. Paypal and eBay alike have plenty of other loopholes that allow crooked buyers to take advantage of sellers (and vice versa) to get bent out of shape over this one instance. I for one won't be closing down my eBay selling over this report any more than I would shut down a brick and mortar store because I found out someone had been shoplifting.

[sports-rings]

thanks for the clarification Lance.