Considering that buyer protection is provided by Ebay, how is it "worked around" by a "skillful crook?"

There are ways. Buyer protection is not always given either. Back up your pay pal account with a credit card. That way if paypal refuses your credit card company will refund the money.

Before bidding look over the vendors feedback. Also his feedback ratio for the last 12 months. Below 98 percent no buyer protection at all the last time I looked at paypals requirements.

Most people that have been stung do not leave negative feedback as they feel they will get the same. So any negatives on vendors ratings have to be considered seriously.

Condition an item is recieved in is subjective as well and may not recieve a favorable ruling for example from paypal on a complaint. Plus you will have to mail it back on your dime. Many people got so sick of all the games they will not use paypal. I will not get into the more serious fraud areas but they exist even as ebay is trying to stamp them out the crooks keep changing their identities.

Again most people are fundementally good. Just do not assume paypal will always be there on your behalf if you get involved with a crook. Overall I too have saved a lot of money on ebay and found hard to source items.

There have been the few random issues though as well. Three to four of them paypal helped. A couple I lost on. The basic problem is if the crook clears your money out of his account right away. Paypal does not like to use their own money to keep you happy.

Paypal has started quite some time ago to keep your money in their hands longer before releasing it to the seller. In the mercedes world a vendor called generally bigaboo on ebay but has many other names cut quite a swath through our members several years ago. As far as I am aware he got away with it. Look up bigaboo in the archives on site. There may still be lots of posts.

I find no basis for that claim.

It is not currently possible to receive a negative feedback rating as a buyer.

With rare exceptions, Ebay requires sellers to accept Paypal. It's not optional any more.

That is Ebay's problem. It has no bearing on the outcome of a buyer protection case.

Bottom line: all of your complaints, while perhaps valid years ago, have been addressed by changes to Ebay's policies.

It appears that paypal has been extensivly changed rule wise then when I heavily used them on ebay. I no longer use ebay as much as I once did. .
Why I felt paypal was still troublesome is in reviewing all the scams posted on another non ebay site where paypal was the medium of payment.

So paypal buyer protection is obviously enacted more on ebay to protect their venue I suspect. They do own paypal as well. I actually am happy with those changes mentioned.

There are many warnings of how to disqualify the validity on buyer protection when used off of ebay. Filing rules and activation seem to be one issue. Paypal seems hardly as responsive off of ebay.

It is so bad on one site that unless a seller has a sterling existing feedback profile members suggest not to purchase from them. Especially new members selling items with no feedback.

Some of those members with combined action have managed to put some fraudsters in jail. The posting from so many people still more or less left hung out to dry by paypal are enough to be of concern. To me off ebay paypal is more inclined to stiff you if they cannot recover the funds from the seller. They are trying a little harder at retaining the buyers funds longer now before release to the vendor .

So sellers are doing things like shipping boxes with proof of delivery and getting it. Yet there is something totally worthless in the box that is certainly not what the buyer purchased. The seller insisting they shipped the right item and the buyer stating otherwise. Or the package was tampered with in the mail for an example. This is usually reserved for high value items incidentally.

This is all present in the trader ratings section of rcgroups. Complains galore about scammers and warnings of their alias and methods. The law can put them out of business but it is a long road usually. When paypal can identify them using alias identities. I suspect they will not transfer money to them at all. . Some scammers have been at it for a long time.

It makes interesting reading and negative feedback from the seller is allowed there. The reality being paypal should really have a more universal protection system for their own venue. I can from a business perspective understand their fear of damaging their parent company ebay though. Personally I do not want any hassel if it should arise so for some time have backed up paypal with a good credit card company. It may still be unwise to link paypal to your bank account though in general.

I should correct my statement to exercising more caution when using paypal off ebay and make sure you have backed it up with a good companies credit card. I do not want to get stung again or see anyone else experience it.

One simple rule is never pay as a gift when the seller requests it and states he will have reduced fees that way ever. This automatically disqualifies any claim against paypal. A still fairly common scamming method off of ebay.

Lot of good points made here. Back in the early ebay years I used to buy cars, 5 of them. The 5th finally cured me of that, a Volvo that I couldn't even get rid of by donating it. On the other hand, the old 220s in my sig was my first ebay car purchase and was actually better than described and came of without a hitch. More than 10 years ago though.
I've rarely had parts issues and paypal credit card is your friend. And, YES, I forget I have the parts already a lot of times. Right now I had TWO idle air control valves, brand new in boxes for a 1989 Mazda 929. I'm going to use one just to make myself feel like I'm not totally senile,but TWO. Oh boy.

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1985 300D 197K - Semi-Daily Driver Diesel
1998 Volvo V70 AWD 226K - Daily Driver 2
1998 Volvo S70 140K - Wife's DD
2003 GMC Sonoma ZR2 Option - Rusty Truck
THE BABY 1958 220S Sedan 66K All original, never restored and never will be.

Thanks for that. I had no idea that policy existed when the payment was marked 'gift'.

The overall problem with eBay and PayPal, when something goes awry that isn't covered by their automated services like complaints about non-receipt, item not as described, etc., is the near-impossibility of communicating with a human being who can actually do anything.

I recently had a case where I DID find the email form to report a possible security breach on a buyer's account -- a request to ship an item to an address not even in the account holder's country -- and it took SEVEN DAYS for me to get a reply with a PIN number I needed to actually call and speak to what I was told would be a client service agent. This after explaining the complaint in detail via email.

When I called I got a level one call center op who was very obviously offshore, and who was reading off cue screens and had no ability to do diddlysquat and in fact had trouble understanding my Canadian 'accent'. (I never even said 'eh', I promise.)

For the size of eBay/PayPal and their business volumes, the lack of any personal service is near incredible. I applaud how well their automation does work, most of the time, but the levels you have to go through to find a human are beyond ridiculous.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22