New Ebay scheme

SuperDave

Just a couple of days ago, I bid on an item and my bid was rejected by the seller, although I have 100% good feedback and more than 250 transactions. I was curious to find out why the seller rejected my bid. Since I bid TWICE what the item sold for! As it turns out, his auction stated that he "prefered Pay Pal". It did not say ONLY Pay Pal accepted. He told me he had an option as seller to block any bidder that did not have a PayPal account! I have since found that Ebay is encouraging sellers to do this. That gives ebay even more profit from each sale since they own Pay Pal! All money will have to funnel through them. If Ebay has it's way. it looks like good old fashioned cash checks and money orders are going to be obsolete . I refuse to have a Pay Pal account because of past poor transactions with them. They are very incompetant and not responsive to legitimate complaints. Just thought I would give Y'all a heads up on a new trend..Buyer Beware.

Hudonly, Dave W. Fl.

[Deleted User]

Ebay thinks the have the online market cornered...I don't think so. Like you, I refuse to use PayPal, because it's a bitch to pay, and they ain't my "pal"!!! They certainly aren't user-friendly, and it's just another ebay scam (by them!) to get more of the customer's money...and for what in return??? Nothing in my favor, that's for sure!



In fact, the things I've sold on ebay say specifiically that I do NOT accept paypal under any circumstances. If someone takes only paypal, I don't bid. They won't get my money.

50C8DAN

I agree. I had a very bad experience with Paypal two years ago and as a result my account has been frozen ever since. I had purchased 2 computer monitors from a ebay seller. The guy had an interesting scam. He made all type of excuses why he had not shipped and when he did the monitors did not work. He then took them back, at his expense (shipping only), then filed an insurance claim against UPS for the cost of new monitors. Needless to say he did not refund my Paypal payment. I contacted Paypal and they got $9 of my $260! So I contacted my credit card company and claimed fraud and they promptly refunded my $260. So far not too bad. However, then Paypal froze my account and said if I did not pay them the $260 it would stay frozen and so it had been ever since! I told them that they had approved the seller to accept credit card transactions, but they claim they are only a transaction agent. They are not a bank and walk a fine line of legality with respect to banking laws. The story unfortunately did not end there. I gave the seller a 2 negative ratings, one for each monitor. He then made some claim (what I will never know) against me to ebay and they suspended my account. It took a month to get it reinstated (luckily I had kept all my correspondence with the seller). Trying to get anyone at ebay to answer a question as to why is like dealing with the IRS. good luck!!!!

hudsontech

Ok, 3 against PayPal - I've only been using it recently, with my Hudson Service Merchandisers CD sales. And so far, knocking on ma wooden haid, no problems. It was especially great with two buyers overseas - one in Australia and one in Norway. Yes they charge fees - in my case mostly around 75 cents a transaction, the Norwegian one was $1. I can eat that cost without to much trouble - if they get higher, then perhaps I'll have to pass it along to the buyer.

I will admit I was a bit less than pleased to have to go to a different format to accept credit cards, but once I signed up, the transaction went thru with out a problem. Such is life in this day and age. Banks charge fees, and all you can do is pay them. And I find it amazing that gas prices went thru the roof and all anybody did was complain - not many cut back on their driving. Just a point.



Hudsonly,

Alex B

SuperDave

Alex,

I need to clear the air here. I just wanted to give Ebay buyers a "heads up" that they may not be able to do business on Ebay someday without having to pay a fee that at this time is optional. I suspect that there will be a time that the two (PayPal-Ebay)will be integrated. I have no problem with PayPal charging a fee. If they do what they advertise, the fee is worth the service. I used them for a long time and found the service very convenient. I don't like the idea that I can't make a transaction on Ebay without having to subscribe to the service. I'm a big boy and if someone doesn't want to accept my money order, cash or check. That's OK with me. It will be the sellers loss. I would like to know BEFORE I bid, not after it's over. I do have a problem with the trend of not allowing simple cash, check, or money order transactions on ALL sales, and that seems like the way Ebay is leaning. I think, some sellers don't even know that they have sellected that option.

Why am I critical of PayPals intrusion?

I did have a problem with PayPal..a large problem, hundreds of Euro Dollars, with a fraudulent transaction that I DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH.I was under the false impression that if I kept a small balance in PayPal, that would be all that could be lost...WRONG...I didn't buy or sell anything and only had a few dollars in the account. I suspect they had someone internally that was making some criminal actions. they refused to fix it and admitted no guilt. No apology, no explanation. Just "live with it" attitude.At one time they even accused me of giving my account information to someone in France.. No I never "updated" my account information. I'm a bit more savey than that.! After much grief, I got my money back . They robbed my Bank account. They robbed my credit card account. I say robbed because I did not authorize any withdrawls. After contacting my Bank my credit card company, Florida State Attorneys Office, My Sheriffs Dept and the Federal trade commission did I get most of my money back. It was a very large sum. They never apologized or even recognized that THEY had a problem.The basic problem is that if you give them your account numbers they can,and in my case DID, make debits without you authorizing it! I just refuse to give them the chance to do it again. They were involved in a large class action law suit that they settled. I got about $6.00 as I recall. What a joke. That didn't come close to the bank charges for the transactions and bounced checks!They have never made any statements that they accept responsibility in ANY cases or have corrected any problems. Not someone I want to trust my money to. There will have to be sweeping changes at PayPal.. I wish there was.. I liked the service.

I just sent a check for your CD's It would have been quicker an easier to PayPal. too bad they choose to be so unresponsive to customers legitimate complaints.

Hudsonly Dave w. Fl

Unknown

Whenever I see something I want to bid on, I always contact the seller, to see if they will accept a moneyorder, if I'm the winning bidder. Only AFTER they respond, do I bid. I have not, and will never use Pay-Pal.

Unknown

Once again, I seem to be in the minority here. I love pay-pal and have never had a problem after 77 transactions. Go figure, just my experience. I find it a pain in the butt to go get a money order and feel it is better protection against fraud than sending a complete stranger a money order in the mail. Either way you are taking a chance, but I find this way much more convenient....no trip to the bank and everything is documented electronically. Works for me.

rambos_ride

Dennis in NY wrote:

Once again, I seem to be in the minority here. I love pay-pal and have never had a problem after 77 transactions. Go figure, just my experience. I find it a pain in the butt to go get a money order and feel it is better protection against fraud than sending a complete stranger a money order in the mail. Either way you are taking a chance, but I find this way much more convenient....no trip to the bank and everything is documented electronically. Works for me.

SuperDave - I feel your pain!



I have to side with Dennis in NY - I've yet to have an issue - but I self police myself to only use paypal with smaller amounts - that doesn't protect me from the scenerio SuperDave went through but makes me feel warm and fuzzy enough to use the service.



I also understand why someone would make their auction PayPal only - there are just as many, if not more, horror stories about bogus money orders and cashiers checks - and they might feel they have more recourse by forcing PayPal only.



I reluctantely decided to list my CJ on Ebay - but no PayPal option for this one and I also stated the vehicle would not be released until FUNDS clear and that a cashiers check would have to be drawn against a local verifiable source.



Other things I do are to frequently monitor the PayPal account for bogus transactions, DON'T RESPONSE DIRECTLY TO ANY PAYPAL EMAILS - I get several emails a month in the junk bin that say "someone was added to my account" and to respond to allow the change - these are bogus emails and clicking on them will give the scum access to your account and I routinely change the password.



We'll see what happens...

[Deleted User]

The "inconveinence" of getting a money order trumps the "conveinence" of PayPal, any day.

hudsontech

rambos_ride wrote:

SuperDave - I feel your pain!



I have to side with Dennis in NY - I've yet to have an issue - but I self police myself to only use paypal with smaller amounts - that doesn't protect me from the scenerio SuperDave went through but makes me feel warm and fuzzy enough to use the service.



I also understand why someone would make their auction PayPal only - there are just as many, if not more, horror stories about bogus money orders and cashiers checks - and they might feel they have more recourse by forcing PayPal only.



I reluctantely decided to list my CJ on Ebay - but no PayPal option for this one and I also stated the vehicle would not be released until FUNDS clear and that a cashiers check would have to be drawn against a local verifiable source.



Other things I do are to frequently monitor the PayPal account for bogus transactions, DON'T RESPONSE DIRECTLY TO ANY PAYPAL EMAILS - I get several emails a month in the junk bin that say "someone was added to my account" and to respond to allow the change - these are bogus emails and clicking on them will give the scum access to your account and I routinely change the password.



We'll see what happens...

When I recieve ANY, Repeat ANY, emails from PayPal I simply fwd them to PayPal at spoof@paypal.com . That usually gets me a reasonably quick (within 1-3 hours) reply telling me (usually) that the email is, as I figured, not from pay pal. Problem solved.

As someone else pointed out, I also keep my amounts small - I use it mainly for my CD sales. For overseas, as I pointed out before, it's great. And if somebody hacks paypal and gets into my bank account they ain't gonna get enough out of it to buy a tank of gas - I have two bank accounts; the one I use for pay pal and my regular checking account. My Pay Pal account has less than $50 in it most of the time. Pain in the butt keeping track of two accounts - not really. I have online banking so can check my accounts from my computer. And there isn't usually all that much in my other account either. Rich and famous I ain't!!!! Well, I ain't rich. LOL



Hudsonly,

Alex Burr



PS - that spoof email address also works for ebay ( spoof@ebay.com )

Unknown

I use both so its no biggie to me but i mostly use a M.O. they only cost me 50 cents only drawback with a M.O. is that it usally takes longer for my item to arrived because of the transit of the M.O. in the mail.

rambos_ride

EBay to buy Internet phone firm Skype

Deal initially valued at $2.6 billion in cash and stock



On the AP wire this morning



I predict if ebay continues raising fees and making poor business decisions like wrapping VOIP into it offerings that in 5 years or less they will be a bit player in the online auction industry



Anyone got a couple of million bucks extra they want to invest? I would take it and build a rival online auction site - make it more secure - and charge 1/2 of the fees that ebay does and still make a killing!



Ebay has forgotten what got them to where they are - simple online auction capability and customer service! Now they're falling into the mode of doing nothing well and everything half-assed!

Jon B

C'mon guys, enough is enough!! LOL!