SELLERS BEWARE do you really know paypal's policy?????

[houseoconfusion]

After paypal ripping me off 3 times in the last month as a seller, I deceided to investigate paypals seller protection policy boy was I shocked!

1st rip off- Buyer bought a 4 wheeler part, even though when I shipped it, it was exactly as pictured, had upclose pictures taken day of sale I sent to him and had posted on ebay auction, he said item was damaged when he got it. Even though HE DECLINED insurance, and I had stated in my auction, "I am NOT responsible for items once they are shipped without insurance" and "ALL ITEMS SOLD AS IS", I had to refund his money, paypal literally took it from my account.

2nd rip off- Buyer wanted to combine shipping to save them money. They paid for one auction on Sat., 2nd auction didn't end until Fri. 6 days later, they paid for the 2nd auction on Fri. evening. On Monday they wanted proof of shipment, I didn't have it yet as my post office is not open on Sat. or Sun. and I hadn't been to the post office yet monday, as I was still packing and address my sales from the weekend. The buyer immediately, THAT DAY, filed a complaint with paypal, (mind you this is MONDAY and they did NOT pay for 2nd item until FRIDAY EVENING AFTER POST OFFICE WAS CLOSED) but since the first item was paid for more than 7 days ago paypal immediately (without contacting me) locked up all my money from the sale of this first item! After days of fighting with paypal, and running up a huge long-distance phone bill with them, they refused to give me my money back, saying I had to have ANY item paid for shipped within 7 days regardless of if I buyer wanted to combine shipping. ONLY after I informed buyer I WOULD NOT ship crap to them until they fixed this with paypal did I get my money back.

But by far my 3rd run in with them has been the best:
I sold 3 vhs movies on ebay on 3/10. On 3/10 I sent the buyer an invoice, they wrote me back from an aol email address saying, "I will be paying for my ebay purchases by paypal and it is with existing paypal funds. I have to add a credit card to my paypal account in order to send money and I will be doing that later today and I will pay as soon as I do that. Thanks" I got paypment on 3/10 from a CONFIRMED paypal address. On 3/24 I emailed them (again to their aol email addy) asking if they got the movies, they replied yes.
On 4/12, YES, 33 DAYS LATER, I logged into my paypal account to see they had locked up over $25 worth of my money. It seems this buyer is saying that they did not authorize this purchase. Welll, I again set out to deal with another paypal venture, I have run up countless more long distance calls, and informed them that since they confirmed the address, I should be covered. NOT the case they said. I pointed out that the buyer is using an aol email address which is easily trackable as you must have it linked to either a phone bill or checking account, so they should easily be able to see who emailed me saying they were sending payment and later that they received the items, but they said they weren't sure if that would be "sufficent proof" as to who received the items!?!?!?! And best case possiblity is [b]EVEN IF I WIN, PAYPAL WILL STILL CHARGE ME, THE INNOCENT SELLER $10 TO WIN IT FOR ME!!!!!!!![b] Why are they not getting this money from the person who is trying to commit fraud!
And if they deceide that the trackable aol email address is not enough proof to find the person who is trying to scam me, I will be out the $25 for the auction, my items, MY shipping money, and a $10 charge by paypal to do this investigation!

As I seller who accepts paypal, I see I am now open to anyone who is dishonest enough to read paypal's fine print which is very easy to twist around to give the buyer back his money for about any reason. So i've now taken to fighting back! Let sellers see what paypal is really about, i've now got listed on ANY of my auctions or bbs sales:

Sorry, but I will no longer be accepting paypal payments for any
purchases unless you meet the following criteria, these are paypals
policies, NOT mine. Paypal has made it impossible for us sellers
to safely or economically accept paypal unless you meet these
stipulations, if you do not meet them all, I will regretfully not
be covered under paypal rules and will have to return your paypal
payment to you and you will need to pay by money order or bank check.
Below are just a few of the reasons, phrases in quotations are
directly from the paypal website!:

1) This statement on paypal is why I have to have these strict
guidelines.
Paypals reasons why:
"Buyers will have 45 days after a Paypal payment to file a claim
(an increase from the current 30 days)." that they did not authorize
the purchase and paypal will charge us (sellers) $10 even if we prove
they did purchase it themselves and win the case! Quoted directly
from paypal website:
"If a chargeback dispute is won, the “Temporary Hold” will be lifted
and the seller will be free to use those funds, but the seller will
be charged the $10.00 USD chargeback fee if the transaction does not
qualify for Seller Protection"
so I end up paying $10 even if I win and prove I was being scammed,
how fair is that?!?! especially if the sale was only a $3 or $4 sale,
I end up coming out $6-$7 BEHIND because someone tried to scam me!!!


If you are not happy with the terms below please tell it to
paypal, they should be out penalizing the scammers not the honest
sellers.

2) Sorry no out of country paypal:
Paypals reason why on their website:
Paypals doe NOT cover ANY out of country transactions (for U.S. not even
to Canada or U.K.) "Please note that while sellers outside of the
U.S., U.K., and Canada may meet the following conditions of the Seller
Protection Policy, they do not qualify at this time."

3)Please excuse my slightly higher prices, paypal is eating 2.9%
of all the money I get from you..
Paypals Reason why on their website:
"The seller has a Verified Business or Premier Account" trust me I'm
not happy about that because when you do use a business or premier
account they take 2.9% off the top of the payment [b]including the money we
get to give to the post office, etc. for shipping. SO we DON'T EVEN
GET THE FULL SHIPPING MONEY WE NEED TO SHIP THIS TO YOU, some of
it comes from my pocket as my policy is "I only charge you actual
shipping costs." SO I'm penalized for not jacking up my shipping
costs to you.

4) If for any reason your payment does NOT show up to me as
"Seller Protection Policy Eligible" your payment will be immediately
refunded to you and you will need to pay with a money order or bank check.
Paypals reason why on their website:
Policy Conditions: "The payment is listed as "Seller Protection Policy Eligible" on the
Transaction Details page."

5) Sorry, but I can only ship to YOUR confirmed address
Paypals reason why on their website:
"When shipping to a US buyer, the seller must ensure that they ship
to the Confirmed Address of the US buyer for the transaction to be
“Seller Protection Policy Eligible”."

6) You MUST purchase insurance
Paypal reason why on their website:
"The seller provides reasonable proof of delivery from an independent
shipper. The delivery must be trackable online." It used to be proof
of shipping (delivery confirmation which was only $.45) Paypals words:
"“Proof of shipping” is now “proof of delivery”".
Now to be covered we must have proof of delivery or if it gets
lost in the mail we are responsible for it. So either
we pay for signed receipt or insurance either way $1.30 extra!

7) IF paying with paypal I will only be able to combine shipping
costs for items paid for at the SAME TIME!
Paypals reason why:
"The seller ships the item(s) to the buyer within 7 days of receiving payment."
If you are paying for items separately, days apart, I will not be able to
guarantee that by the time you pay for the last item, the first item
is not past the 7 day mark.

Once again, PLEASE ACCEPT my apologizes for this hassle, I wish
I could just accept paypal as easily as a money order but paypal
is making these rules and I, as a seller, have no choice but
to follow them.

If you would like to verify any of the above items please:
1) go to your paypal account and log it

2)click on the Help button on the top right corner of the page.

3)click on the protection policies tab on the left side of the page

4)Click on the seller protection policy tab on the left side of the page

5)click on "What is the Seller Protection Policy?" on the middle of the page

6) on this page after it gives a general guideline it will say:
"To view the specific terms and conditions of Paypal's Seller Protection Policy, click here."
and that is where you will see I got my terms of paypal use from.

ONCE again I apologize for all this hassle, but I felt I owed an explanation
to buyers why I have these seemingly ridiculous rules and a warning to sellers
"Beware paypal is not as secure of form of payment as we thought."


PLEASE everyone, let anyone you know who accepts paypal as a form of payment exactly how vunerable they are to losing their payments up to 45 days later! and MORE!

Dawn houseoconfusion@yahoo.com

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[Njean31]

wouldn't simply getting delivery confirmation on all packages cover cases where people say they didn't get their auction?

[Njean31]

You are making me nervous. I just started selling on ebay.

don't be nervous, just follow the rules...............GET CONFIRMATION DELIVERY ON EVERYTHING.........and you will be ok. for paypal, all you got to do is be able to PROVE you sent your end. it is not rocket science. and for paypal..........keep up with your user id and password............this is money we are talking about. i have never understood why people forget their password to something that has their money. would you forget your debit card pin number??????????? it's the same thing. it's your cash. i have never had a single problem in 5 years withe ebay or paypal. yes...........i've had few questionalbe transactions with ebay but that is a given with dealing with the public, all i had to do was let them know i had PROOF i sent thier stuff which i did and they SHUT up.

[KeliMom]

But the whole point is that PAYPAL can do whatever they want with your money, and then you have to fight to get it back. This is why I closed out my account years ago and will never have another one. They did this to me too often, and even withdrew funds from my bank account, causing checks to bounce and it was a big nightmare!

Why would you even want to take the chance at something like this happening? Just because "It hasn't happened to me yet"? Like I say, PAYPAL SUCKS and I will keep repeating that to everyone.... lol