A valuable lesson - eBay fraud + options

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by drcy

I wouldn't have phrased it so harshly, but your point has merit.

I am not very elegant with my words and don't beat around the bush too much.

Kinda like my comment that got me banned from the BST section. With all the buyer protection of eBay it is very hard to get scammed on there. On here there is absolutely ZERO protection. I have never to my recollection ever been scammed on eBay. I have been on here several years. With all the Fly By Night people we have come and gone on this forum I have had some bad transactions.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by bnorth

Are you referring to illegal gambling pools?

Depending on the state, I believe it is not normally illegal if all the income is returned as prizes. Now if the organizer keeps $200 as his fee for operating the pool, it normally would be illegal.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Depending on the state, I believe it is not normally illegal if all the income is returned as prizes. Now if the organizer keeps $200 as his fee for operating the pool, it normally would be illegal.

I know here several places/people stopped doing them a couple years ago because they are illegal here. The company my wife works at changed how they do them. They use these pools and other things to help pay for special activities for the mentally and physically challenged people they take care of.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I am not very elegant with my words and don't beat around the bush too much.

Kinda like my comment that got me banned from the BST section. With all the buyer protection of eBay it is very hard to get scammed on there. On here there is absolutely ZERO protection. I have never to my recollection ever been scammed on eBay. I have been on here several years. With all the Fly By Night people we have come and gone on this forum I have had some bad transactions.

You never told me once about any BST issues. You are almost the only one I EVER hear bitch about the BST. So, I am sure I did you a favor. No more agony.

[Tyruscobb]

Originally Posted by bnorth

This will not be popular.

These type of posts are fricken insane. The OP started out by screwing eBay, then he screwed PayPal. Now he is acting like a spoiled child because he got screwed.

OP put on your big boy panties and take the loss as a learning experience on how not to try to screw others, because nothing's better than a scammer getting scammed.

Yes, the poster attempted to save money and skirted the rules. However, it is sad that an alleged reputable eBay seller would take full advantage. He/she also benefited - no eBay or PayPal fees.

A good reminder that the hobby has some bad apples. This is especially sad that folks would take advantage of others during a pandemic. I wish you the best of luck. May be a hard lesson learned.

[mechanicalman]

For f&ck’s sake. “Skirting the rules?” “Stealing from eBay?” “Cheating PayPal?” Some of you are so holier than thou you must not need toilet paper to wipe your ass. Must be nice.
I don’t blame the OP for trying to minimize transaction costs. When the seller took his money and sent him something fake, that’s what theft is.

[mrmopar]

Just guessing here, but the OP mentioned the seller getting a recent negative for something similar. I would assume that the feedback we see is that other transaction. If OP bought his item off ebay, there was no ebay transaction/item number and therefore no way to leave feedback. I don't think that feedback we can see is from the OP, based on what I have read.

Originally Posted by Rascal1010

My question is if he didn't buy the card on Ebay why does he say Ebay fraud in his post title? Shouldn't the title be A Valuable Lesson - Private Sale Fraud - Options?

And rereading this, I thought I saw mention of the ebay feedback. I was wrong or quoted the wrong comment.

i agree that this is not an ebay fraud issue at all. The perpetrator just happens to sell on ebay and this is where the connection began between the two parties, but no transaction was completed via ebay.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by mechanicalman

For f&ck’s sake. “Skirting the rules?” “Stealing from eBay?” “Cheating PayPal?” Some of you are so holier than thou you must not need toilet paper to wipe your ass. Must be nice.
I don’t blame the OP for trying to minimize transaction costs. When the seller took his money and sent him something fake, that’s what theft is.

Quoted.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Quoted.

Why?

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Leon

Why?

Prevents editing. Maybe useful for board readers in the future.

[MikeGarcia]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Prevents editing. Maybe useful for board readers in the future.

..I'll bet Archive wishes he'd had thought of that....

..

[Republicaninmass]

Gee was anyone's dad/family member in law enforcement?

They seem to Take it upon themselves to police message boards, email PSA with what they think might be a good course of action, etc.

Boy, they'd be proud of you.


Our very own Junior message board police

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

Gee was anyone's dad/family member in law enforcement?

Yep. I'm sure he's looking down from heaven proud of me. Thanks for the kind thoughts.

[mechanicalman]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Prevents editing. Maybe useful for board readers in the future.

Nice work, Cap’n John!

[drmondobueno]

Originally Posted by mechanicalman

for f&ck’s sake. “skirting the rules?” “stealing from ebay?” “cheating paypal?” some of you are so holier than thou you must not need toilet paper to wipe your ass. Must be nice.
I don’t blame the op for trying to minimize transaction costs. When the seller took his money and sent him something fake, that’s what theft is.

lmao. +1

[bmcnutt]

You need to reach out to Robert McCall. People know him as "The Equalizer". He will set things straight for you.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by rats60

These aren't remotely close to the same thing. Paypal doesn't make its money off fees. When they started out, everything was free and they said their profit came from holding people's money. With the increase of rewards credit cards, credit card fees became an increasing expense and so they moved to collecting that fee back from the user. When you pay with paypal friends and family, you have to pay from your bank account, which costs paypal nothing, or the sender pays 2.9% + .30. .30 is the swipe fee which goes to the credit card company. The % is negotiated between paypal and the CC processor. I don't know what if paypal pays that, but they do pay most of it on rewards credit cards. I have a CC that gives me 3% back on paypal, so if I pay with F&F and add 3%, it is a wash. If I pay with goods it is still a wash. Paypal is out very little if anything and on F&F they don't have to worry about fraud. If Paypal does away with F&F, I could care less, I am never paying the fee. It is Paypal charging me 3% to cover the charge from the CC company for the CC company giving me 3% for using their CC.

Ebay is a completely different matter. They make their money off final value fees. Most people are getting free listings, getting to advertise their cards for free, doing a deal off ebay is costing them all of the income from you using their platform. For the seller, they should price their item with the fees built in. I pay 9% (some pay less) Ebay and 3% Paypal. The buyer should be getting 1% Ebay bucks + 5% CC rewards or 6% off at a minimum. By doing a little work and timing, the buyer should be able to recoup the 12% plus more from ebay bucks, CC rewards, ebates, store rewards, etc. So why would anyone do a deal off ebay and assume all the risk and deny ebay income for using their platform?

The real money is in the customer data and being able to figure out what percent of people that buy X also buy Y. That way they can more effectively target ads and coupons. Target does lots of data work**, and prints coupons on the back of the receipt. When the kids were small, the coupons for formula always was there just before the supply we'd bought before ran out. It kept us coming back regularly because the discount was very good. We started going to Market Basket for groceries after they decided to seasonally stop carrying bacon. (And save probably $50-100 a week. )

Any large company that's successful does that now.
Paypal probably sells that raw data with no customer specific info to another company that can use it.
Using F+F removes that data from them.

**
Other examples of this data gathering.
Coke put soda machines that let you mix your own flavors in Wendys and a few other places, then after a couple years was able to select flavors to test in retail based on how popular they were in the machines.

Another Target one. From a friend who works there, but not at the exact store.
Mom comes in with teen daughter, very angry about her daughter getting an ad in the mail for baby registry stuff. After much yelling and carrying on "how dare you send my kid baby registry info!!!" while the daughter is mostly quiet, eventually
"Ummm Mom.... they aren't wrong"
The registry ad was sent right near the end of month 3... when chances of early problems were less.
The computer had figured it out based on previous purchases, which included among other stuff, a pregnancy test followed by certain vitamins within a particular timeframe. Both a bit scary and cool all at once.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Marchillo

Explain this -

My buddy runs an annual NCAA basketball pool at $5 each with around 200 people. For a couple years everyone would pay friends and family. Then PayPal caught on and wouldn’t allow it anymore. Why is that?

Because gambling, illegal or not, is banned on PayPal. Undoubtedly they figured out what was going on.

[chalupacollects]

I've done quite a few purchases on the BST and usually start with PPGS, maybe with CC back-up and paying the fee but after a good deal or two I usually consider them friends, even if we have never met and will go PPFF...

Is that wrong?

[KaiserCurt]

Originally Posted by chalupacollects

I've done quite a few purchases on the BST and usually start with PPGS, maybe with CC back-up and paying the fee but after a good deal or two I usually consider them friends, even if we have never met and will go PPFF...

Is that wrong?

I don’t think it is, but paying FF for goods and services is technically against the rules. I usually send FF because after a while 3% adds up 🤷*♂️

[Republicaninmass]

When In doubt, just 2.5% to the price. So it ends up "net to them "

You wont regret it in a time like this.

I also believe asking for an FF payment is against pp rules.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Republicaninmass

When In doubt, just 2.5% to the price. So it ends up "net to them "

You wont regret it in a time like this.

I also believe asking for an FF payment is against pp rules.

I know pictures of famous dead people work great as payment and nobody has complained so far.

[Republicaninmass]

I never complain, nobody listens

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[Bram99]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Because gambling, illegal or not, is banned on PayPal. Undoubtedly they figured out what was going on.

Gambling is illegal at Bushwood...