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Rant:

I learned this lesson the hard way. After over 100 eBay transactions over the years, I think I let my guard down a bit too much and trusted people. I figured a buyer with a 99% positive feedback rating was good enough to not have to worry about being scammed. My mistake, and it cost me an iPod.

I sold a 5th gen video iPod for $120, and shipped it via USPS First Class Mail. I've done it this way before many times without incident. This time, however, the buyer is conveniently claiming that I took too long to ship it (even though I shipped it next business day), and that I ignore her emails despite replying promtly to every message she sent. In one email she asked how I shipped the iPod, and I replied with the USPS First Class Mail info. At that point things took a turn for the worse. Now she has filed a complaint with PayPal, saying the thing was never received. Seems that there is this nice little loophole in eBay and PayPal where if an item is shipped without a tracking number, the buyer can simply claim to have not received it and get their money back, while also keeping the item. So when I told the buyer that I shipped it First Class (meaning without tracking), that opened the door for her to contact PayPal and get her money back.

The worst part is this: When a claim is filed with PayPal, the money is instantly transfered from the seller's account. Then the seller must prove that they shipped the item (which is impossible to do if you send something First Class), and within a few weeks the buyers gets their money back. Case closed. Too bad, seller. You're crap out of luck.

So the harsh lesson here is this: While I wish I could continue to trust people and give them the benefit of the doubt, the fact is that people on eBay are generally scum, and will steal the shirt off your back first chance they get. I have to assume the worst and always ship things with tracking. Which screws the honest people since I have to raise my shipping costs to cover this added expense, and they are the ones who really pay for it.

What is most amazing in the whole ordeal is how little PayPal and eBay do to help sellers. They make it so difficult to protect yourself, in any dispute they side with the buyer by default unless there is undisputable evidence to the contrary, and they have recently removed the negative feedback rating feature for buyers. So after all this, getting ripped off, I can't even leave negative feedback for this buyer to warn others of her scam. She gets away with it and moves on to her next victim, and no one can do a thing to stop her.

One other little tidbit for any ebay sellers out there that might save you some money: If you think tracking info is enough to protect you, think again. If your item sells for over $250, you need to have tracking info AND have required a signature at delivery. If it's left on a doorstep, you're not protected.

It's seller beware at ebay, and it's open season for crooks to steal at will. All they need to do is shop for auctions that ship via non-trackable mail and it's an unstoppable crime.

what about paypal protection program? they can give your money back, if you payed via paypal.

I got over 100 things on ebay (including Canon EF 70-200 f4L IS and Canon EF 100 f2.8 MACRO lenses), without any problems. Only once package was lost and seller gave me refund.

both ebay and paypal are crooked - don't even get me started on paypal the thieves .... my blood boils over with fury at the mere mention of the name ... so my heart goes out to you Helix7 ...

i agree the new system is much much better and is getting rid of a number of dodgy sellers. 1800+ transactions on ebay, about 1 in 100 are bad with me as a buyer (6 bad ones with powersellers ), haven't had a bad one with as seller as yet, but thankyou for the info I will keep this in mind for future sales.

Rgds Phil

both ebay and paypal are crooked - don't even get me started on paypal the thieves .... my blood boils over with fury at the mere mention of the name ... so my heart goes out to you Helix7 ...
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hoi ha - what problems have you had with paypal?  Yikes!

again... what Paypal problems so I can be on guard in the future??

I don't know much about that, but, reading this thread,  I wonder... Why if you sell with tracking number and the the buyer claims that the box was empty, or that there was a brick inside instead of the bougth article?

I'm a customer, too. I'm a customer of eBay. I'm not an ebay powerseller, I'm a casual user just trying to get rid of some stuff I don't need anymore. It seems that as far as eBay is concerned, though, powerseller or not, it's my problem to protect myself, whereas buyers have all the protection measures by default.

You are right that I don't know for sure that I was ripped off. But I'm pretty confident that this is the case. The buyer has been lying through the dispute process to make it look like I completely flaked on the deal. They lied about when they made payment, lied about me not answering questions, etc. I've defended myself in the dispute claims, explaining my side of the story, and she has now just stopped communicating with me and PayPal. And according to PayPal's policies she has every right to not explain her side. She can just file the dispute, claim some bogus accusations and she gets her money back. She hasn't even responded to the lying even though there is clear evidence in the PayPal records of when payment was sent and I still have copies of the email exchanges to prove communication took place. Even caught in a clear lie, it doesn't matter and she knows it. All she has to do is sit and wait for the dispute deadline to pass, and she gets her money back. She also has some negative feedback from when sellers could still leave feedback for buyers. I have a flawless feedback record, 107 positives and zero negatives, but that doesn't mean anything. She'll get her money back, and keep the iPod, and there is nothing I can do about it.

I'm not saying I'm blameless here. More disturbing to me is that the unaware seller has no recourse, no protection, and no way to warn other sellers about buyers now that we can't leave negative feedback anymore. This buyer had some negatives, but not many, not enough to make me worry (obviously my instincts on that one were wrong). And now, in a situation where I should be able to leave some negative feedback to warn other sellers about this scammer, I can't even do that. But I bet she will leave negative feedback for me.

My situation isn't fixable, and I just need to accept that I lost this time. Learning from that, it won't happen to me again. But it will continue to happen to many many more sellers who are as unaware as I was just a week ago about these con-artist buyers and how easily they get away with theft.

I really appreciate you telling the story - especially as I'm sure you realized you'd get some folks telling you it was all your fault.

That old saying about it's better to learn from others' mistakes than your own - I appreciate the opportunity to learn from your sad story. Sad, because there's a lot of decent people and some real scumbuckets. As you said, the honest folks have to pay for tracking and signature confirmation (which can be inconvenient to the buyer if they'd prefer the package to be left on their porch) because of the scam artists.

Well i use  Ebay alot both buying and selling and  in the three years i have been a member no trouble whatsever.Touch wood/Jlocke's left leg...oops sorry another secret revealed.

in US tracking is avaialble for ANY class of mail -- i use delivery confirmation all the time w media mail.  paypal accepts that as a tracking method -- though amazon doesnt

steve