Buying and selling stuff online can be stressful, since you’re always guarding against getting ripped off. Luckily, intermediaries like PayPal are in place to mediate disputes. Which apparently means having your antique violin smashed open to see if it’s fake, then not compensating you in any way.
A reader named Erica wrote in to Regretsy with her story about selling a French WWII-era violin to a buyer in Canada. There was a dispute about the violin’s label, which is apparently common in the violin selling trade. Erica had had a luthier inspect the instrument prior to the sale, but PayPal decided to have the buyer totally obliterate the violin just to be sure.
Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world.
The buyer was proud of himself, so he sent me a photo of the destroyed violin.
Apparently there’s a clause in the buyer’s agreement with PayPal for being refunded that says PayPal can “require you to destroy the item in question, and provide evidence of its destruction.” So now Erica’s out the $US2500 and the violin and (presumably) the fee for the initial inspection. Great. Reddit users have chimed in with their own PayPal horror stories as well.
Making buyers destroy some items might make sense, like, if they cost less than the price of shipping it back to the seller. But for an item that even claims to be an antique or historical gem, can’t PayPal do better than this? [Regretsy via Reddit]
DarthDVD
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 8:45 AMthis is sooooo wrong!!!
Cameron
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 8:51 AMThere’s a pretty logical reason behind the destruction, that is it’s illegal to knowingly distribute counterfeit goods. So imagine for a second this isn’t a violin, but rather a pair of jeans, the seller claimed they were Levi’s jeans but when the buyer got them, they were cheap knock off’s, PayPal can’t get the buyer to send them back because they’d be knowingly sending counterfeit goods. Not to mention the fact that by returning these goods to the original seller just allows them to try and sell it again.
The real problem here is PayPal’s identification process of “counterfeit”goods. Something this expensive, and specialised, shouldn’t be left up to some guy claiming it’s counterfeit, there should be some form of independent arbitration and REAL appeals processes.
Titsnass
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 9:47 AMI’ve had my own issues with Paypal, re: eBay and they really need a kick in the ass. This is just ridiculous, the lady should sue the sombitches! Maybe we need a movement against Paypal, like the Godaddy war. Every body that purchases something through eBay, pay via bank deposit, that’s what I plan to do!
Sean
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 9:51 AMThe real problem here is that Pay Pal is a giant ball of “Fuck you” to it’s customers on a whole lot of fronts. There needs to be a realistic competitor to them for it to change.
Noddy
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 10:47 AMProblem is, Paypal does the majority of it’s work through ebay!
Ebay is a giant ball of “fuck you” too!
Mike
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 10:26 AMI bought a computer part of Amazon once through PayPal and it was a scam. They attempted to get money from the PayPal account but the person had taken it all.
They never went any further or replied to any of my contact further on the matter. I wish I never had to use them but still do with some eBay purchases. But yeah they are a really terrible company who could’nt give a flying eff about any of its customers.
Daniel
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 11:10 AMYes, Sold an item on eBay and they paid through paypal. After that i withdrew the $100 from my paypal account and into my back account. 1 month latter, no fund in the bank and no funds in paypal. Emailed paypal about it and they say that because there log said it had “sent” they ant going to do anything about it.
F*ck you Paypal!!
digitalus
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 11:36 AMThe real problem is that Paypal is an authority of its own making and therefore is accountable to no one. Complaints and criticism to Paypal about its own behaviour often goes unheard and even ignored as they do whatever they believe is right and proper for their business and its bottom line. And this is when you can even find the correct way to contact them and actually manage to get through to a person.
Until some independent regulating agency or greater authority steps up and holds them accountable we’ll continue to hear Paypal horror stories.
Jay
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 11:53 AMMy credit card was defrauded by PayPal in 2005. They took a large sum from my account without permission and wouldn’t pay it back. I’m glad to say Visa did though. I cancelled my credit card and never touched pay pal again. It’s not safe! Pay pal is the scam if u ask me.
Graeme
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 12:41 PMI’m not wishing to jump to Paypal’s defense, just to give something to balance out the above (probably justified) rants. I bought a DSLR from a buyer with good feedback over several years. Some days after paying for the camera I checked on the progress and all items the seller had for sale had disappeared, I could get no response from them and the tracking number I was given was invalid. I contacted Paypal, who waited a week just in case the camera turned up. After that it was clear the seller was iffy (probably a hijacked account) and I was refunded my money.
Jason
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 6:47 PMI am a uni student, working casually to make ends meet who relied heavily on my iMac for my studies. I decided that I needed to switch to a laptop so I sold my iMac on eBay and received payment through PayPal. PayPal determined that I was a security risk, was fraudulent because I offered pickup-only and have held the entire sum of the purchase price locked down. I appealed to PayPal on numerous occasions stating my situation, however was told rudely on multiple occasions that they no longer wanted to conduct business with me! I returned the compliment and am now without a personal computer struggling through my degree. I will NEVER use PayPal again.