E-bay rant

[poppo]

Generally speaking I have not had much of a problem with e-bay. However, a recent situation has gotten me a bit steamed. I'm not going to mention names, but it would not take long to figure out who I am talking about. I saw a set of Double Diamond Deluxe reel strips. Not the best price, but I learned after my Haywire Deluxe incident that it is good to have a spare set. However the listing had them as Double Diamond. So I asked if the picture was wrong or the description was wrong, since there is a difference. He said the picture was correct and he would correct the listing (which he never did). So I ordered a set (he had multiple sets) and I paid immediately since it was a buy it now. So after waiting some time, I ask if they have been shipped. I was told that they were had a problem locating them and a tracking number would be coming shortly. Problem locating them?  Ok, so I wait a few days and no tracking number. I send a few more e-mails (through e-bay) and get no response. Finally I get an apology and am told I will get a refund. Why a refund when they are still listed? So I reply that I expect to get the refund asap. No reply and no refund.  And what will also suck is that when/if I ever do get a refund, PayPal will sit on it for 4 or 5 days before releasing the funds.

I know things happen, but IMO there is no excuse for lack of communication. And I'm still baffled as to why the item is still listed if it could not be shipped (or found).

[jay]

I think you are simply dealing with a Turkey
 - unless you report the problem to Ebay they are not going to take any action as they certainly don't police their communications.

It gives me a great idea though. Anytime I am short a few grand I could put up a Ebay listing for something highly desireable at below market cost.
I receive payment use the money interest free for a month or two, and then issue a refund when its convienent to me.
(yes this is scarcasm)

I doubt this ebayer is either that smart or that sinister. You can draw a line in the sand and say that you need your refund by xx date or you will report him to Ebay & Paypal as a bad seller. I agree that there is no excuse that the refund wasn't immediate and the listing should be taken down.

In my opinion Ebay could do a bit better in managing transactions but under the current system this is not Ebays fault its just a bad member.

Thats my 2c  - take it for what its worth.

[poppo]

- unless you report the problem to Ebay they are not going to take any action .....

This is true, but e-bay requires you wait a certain number of days before you can open an issue. And I'm not sure if this is new or not, but now you have to wait until after the 'expected delivery date' before taking any action. I thought it used to be x number of days after payment was made. And some sellers are finessing that date with 'handling time' to be out a month or more regardless of what shipping method they claim they will use. So your 'scam' (while I'm sure is not the case here) could work.

[StatFreak]

- unless you report the problem to Ebay they are not going to take any action .....

This is true, but e-bay requires you wait a certain number of days before you can open an issue. And I'm not sure if this is new or not, but now you have to wait until after the 'expected delivery date' before taking any action. I thought it used to be x number of days after payment was made. And some sellers are finessing that date with 'handling time' to be out a month or more regardless of what shipping method they claim they will use. So your 'scam' (while I'm sure is not the case here) could work.

That may not be true in this case. You have two possible goals: To get a refund, and to report the seller and/or item.

Regarding the refund:

1. The item was misrepresented.
2. Seller was evasive after the purchase.
3. Seller has already agreed in writing to refund your money.
4. Seller has not refunded your money.

I would check PayPal's policy on how long a seller has to refund money after agreeing to do so. You might want to contact them either way.


Regarding the ongoing sale of the item and/or the seller. Deal with it through eBay afterward if that is your choice.


Just my 2¢ (So now you're up to 4¢ )

[stayouttadabunker]

It gives me a great idea though. Anytime I am short a few grand I could put up a Ebay listing for something highly desireable at below market cost.
I receive payment use the money interest free for a month or two, and then issue a refund when its convienent to me.
(yes this is scarcasm)

Reminds me of the stimulus package joke...
Compliments of Buzz...lol  >>>


THE STIMULUS BILL:

-Stimulus

It is a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle and streets are deserted.
Times are tough; everybody is in debt and living on credit.

A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a
$100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and
runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute,
who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the
counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms
are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything...
However, the whole town is now out of debt and looks to the
future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a "stimulus package" works

[Buzz]

Bunker  WHAT makess you think this is a JOKE. Besides I got it from another member.

[stayouttadabunker]

I thought it was pretty good really...
I can see it working with business people but not so much for those that do not have a business.
I would never get the original money back because I'm basically
a "consumer" or a "buyer" in the whole economy machine and nobody owes me anything...

or everybody owes me nothing...

[poppo]

Well, after opening a dispute with PayPal, I finally got a refund issued. But since I used a credit card, PayPal will refund the money to that. So now I will have to see how long that takes.

Speaking of scams, I think the whole refund thing with PayPal is just that. When someone issues a refund, they put a hold on it for 4 or 5 days. I called them once and asked why. They said it is because they 'front' the money on payments and need to make sure they get the money. I call BS on that, because whenever I make a payment whether from my bank account or credit card, the money is taken nearly instantly. It ALWAYS shows up by the next day as being taken out of my account. So basically PayPal does what jay said and sits on probably millions of refund dollars for several days collecting interest before releasing it. 

[stayouttadabunker]

hmm...so what's the difference us doing that and Paypal doing that?
There must be a fine line drawn in the sand somewhere...

[jay]

IF PP says they issued a credit and it goes back to the credit card - you can probably check your online-CC account and see that the money was "posted" within 24hrs. The reason for the credit back to the credit card is that the CC company insists on this as part of the merchant agreement.

Credit card companys charge a merchant anywhere from 0.5 - 3% of the transaction value. Depending on the size of the merchant they may even be charged a min fee of $0.50 per transaction. So sometimes you see small businesses saying - min $10 purchase for cc use. That is because they have to pay 50c regardless of the amount and if you buy something for a buck then 1/2 of it goes to the credit card company.  With Visa the actual percentage changes depending on the type of card used. If you have a travel Visa or a cash back card these are called premium cards and the merchant pays a higher percentage for the privledge of you buying something.

The reason for the credit back to the cc card is that if you return something then the CC company also wants to reverse any perks as well as credit back the merchant correctly. It is also a way to prevent you from using your credit card for a month long free loan.

Ie you buy an item for $100 ----> Visa charges $100 gives you 10 airmiles, keeps $3 and pays the Vendor $97.00,
   you return an item for $100 --- Visa credits you back $100, takes away 10 airmiles and charges the Vendor  $97.00

If you could buy something for $100 on Visa and then refund it for $100 cash the vendor is out $6.00. The $3 they pay you in cash and the $3 they already paid to visa.

If I could buy something for $10k on Visa then return it for Cash. It would be cool. As I could invest that money and earn interest and then pay back the $10k before the end of the month and pocket the interest. Even better I could do one transaction before the cut off date and one after. I would use the after money to pay the first loan so I would actually get >45 days before I had to pay back the second amount. Get enough transactions going and this might actually be worth my while.

There are however laws against this and it is technically known as "kiting" Kite - ing. 

Kite-ing got its start as early as the 1920s where it would take the banks upwards of 7 days to clear a inter-institution cheque. You would knowing write a bad cheque, turn the cheque into cash and then use it pay for the bad cheque before it clears using the delays in the banking system to cover the spread. Get enough cheques going and you would have a sizeable amount of money in limbo that people used to run numbers-games, loan sharking etc.

What would even happen is that Mr. John Smith simply opened up bank accounts with 15 different banks. He would write huge cheques as opening deposits and then the moneys would show up. Making John Smith look like a legitmate business man. Bankers would take him out for dinners give him gifts all vying for his business which would appear to follow. One day Mr. John Smith withdraws $100k and goes back to being plain old Bob Jones and its then weeks before the cheques don't clear.

The latest manifistation of this are the Craigs List Scams you get a fradulent money order that gets deposited in your account - the item is long gone. USPS or whoever devalidates the money order as being bogus, the bank reverses charges on your account and you are out the item and the money. Only it takes 7-10 days for this to occur.

To answer bunkers question. There is NO reason why you can't hold onto a refund until you your merchandise back or even a reasonable "clearing period" but to do this fradulently ie - sell a non-existant item, promise a refund and take 30 days to make it. This is just another form of Kiting and overall scumbag thing to do.

[StatFreak]

...
If I could buy something for $10k on Visa then return it for Cash. It would be cool. As I could invest that money and earn interest and then pay back the $10k before the end of the month and pocket the interest. Even better I could do one transaction before the cut off date and one after. I would use the after money to pay the first loan so I would actually get >45 days before I had to pay back the second amount. Get enough transactions going and this might actually be worth my while.

There are however laws against this and it is technically known as "kiting" Kite - ing. 
...

That, in addition to the other reasons you mentioned, is why merchants are required to refund all purchases using the same method that the customer used to pay. I suspect that it is also the main reason that they started treating casino credit card transactions as cash advances instead of purchases several years back.

Gamblers used to be able to buy chips using a credit card, but the transactions would appear as purchases. The gamblers could then cash out the chips without playing, or only playing a little, or after winning, and keep the money interest free.


However, there is a legal way to do what you suggest, and I've done it. I'll leave it to the everyone's creative imagination to figure out how -- and to be accurate, you can take the funds once (without using your scenario of multiple cutoff date transactions) and use them for up to 50-55 days interest-free.

[knagl]

However, there is a legal way to do what you suggest, and I've done it. I'll leave it to the everyone's creative imagination to figure out how -- and to be accurate, you can take the funds once (without using your scenario of multiple cutoff date transactions) and use them for up to 50-55 days interest-free.

Is that a creative enough answer to how you've done it?

[StatFreak]

Very colorful ! 

[jay]

The other thing that sticks in my craw is those "convienence" cheques my CC company sends me offering me a low interest rate of 2.9%.
When you read the fine print they charge a flat 1% of the balance or a min of $45 as a service fee.

1% of the balance = 12% annual interest + the 2.9% = 14.9%
This is simply criminal.

[slotsteve]

I have the same bullshit with paypal  A guy ripped me off ebay got my money back which came from my cc card , but ebay sent the $$$$ to paypal who won,t let me have it or refund itor use it unless i get a paypal cc, I have been on the phone for hours trying to clear it up , the guy was a dot head  and was very hard to understand, .He also told me there would be a charge for them  sending refund  Back. I wonder how much $$$ paypal is holding of poeple like me? I don,t want or need another cc

[jay]

I am sure you can get it refunded to your credit card. They can't force you to get theirs.
Call your credit card company and tell them what is going on. They will deal with Paypal for you.

[poppo]

I am sure you can get it refunded to your credit card. They can't force you to get theirs.
Call your credit card company and tell them what is going on. They will deal with Paypal for you.

By default PayPal will deposit the refund into your PayPal account unless payment was made using a credit card  (vice your checking or existing funds in your PayPal account. The problem is that PayPal will 'hold' the money until it clears on the senders end. I sort of understand that, but it does not take 4 or 5 days for that to happen, especially if the sender already had money in their PayPal account. So even though PayPal has a transaction showing that the refund was made by the seller and that PayPal is refunding the money to my credit card, it still has not shown up on my credit card. So again, PayPal is just 'floating' the funds and collecting interest. I'll get the refund, but it won't be until next week some time.

[StatFreak]

The bottom line is that Paypal is and has been acting as a bank for years without being subject to banking regulations. I know you right-wingers like to call for less government regulation, but in this case I think it's long overdue.

[brichter]

The bottom line is that Paypal is and has been acting as a bank for years without being subject to banking regulations. I know you right-wingers like to call for less government regulation, but in this case I think it's long overdue.

David, this has absolutely nothing to do with left or right wing politics, but that was a nice red herring... 

Paypal is offering deposit accounts as well as lines of credit, so they're functioning as a financial institution would, and should be regulated as such. It's a failure of the regulators to do their job enforcing the existing regs, not a need of the legislators to write another ten thousand regulations.

[StatFreak]

David, this has absolutely nothing to do with left or right wing politics, but that was a nice red herring... 

Paypal is offering deposit accounts as well as lines of credit, so they're functioning as a financial institution would, and should be regulated as such. It's a failure of the regulators to do their job enforcing the existing regs, not a need of the legislators to write another ten thousand regulations.

Yes, it was a cheap shot, but the left gets bashed a lot on this site and I was in a mood.  

In this case, regulators can't enforce regulations against Paypal until Paypal is subject to the regulations.

[brichter]

They are regulated under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and the Patriot Act.
If I was having an issue with them, I'd start reading up on the EFTA and see if I could find a violation.

[poppo]

So I had finally got my money back.  Fast forward to today. I see an item I'm interested in and without realizing it's the same seller, I find that I have apparently been put on his blocked bidder list. So because of his screw up (not having the item he listed), false information (about sending a tracking number), and lack of follow-up (on the promised refund), I get blocked. What a 

[brichter]

Glad you got your $$ back.

Please PM me the name of the seller so I don't ever get caught up in some BS like this...

[Op-Bell]

Why PM it? This sort of thing ought to be public.

[brichter]

Why PM it? This sort of thing ought to be public.

I agree, but it was the original poster's wish not to make it public:

I'm not going to mention names, but it would not take long to figure out who I am talking about.