Bill, it's been over a month. How much time do you think is necessary? They are in So Cal, so nothing should take a month to get to me. When you repeatedly try to give them a chance to communicate, and they simply don't respond at all that is when I have zero tolerance. If you keep lines of communication open, I'm as patient as Job.

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.

Any online transaction carries risk, that's not the issue, the consumer protections (or lack thereof) are. Someone steals your CC number and buys a bunch of stuff, you are protected 100% by law. Someone gets your paypal password and buys a bunch of stuff, paypal has every right to tell you to pound sand - you have no legal protection. Or worse, you sell an expensive item to someone who pays via a stolen account - paypal debits your account reclaiming the stolen cash, but does not help you recover your expensive item. I know a number of people who have lost $thousands as paypal victims. I don't know a single person who has lost money from CC fraud - the bank erases the fraud 100% every time.

Paypal is risky for sellers as well. A buyer using paypal has six months to file a claim. And the burden of proof is non-existent for the buyer. I personally know someone who sold a $3500 car part via paypal, and exactly six months later, the buyer fraudulently filed a claim saying the part was "not as described". The buyer shipped a cinder block back as their return, and provided the tracking number to paypal as "proof" of having returned the item. My friend the buyer lost the $3500 and his expensive part as a result of this scam. Paypal refused to help him in any way. All he has to show for it is the cinder block and a police report.

Google "paypal scam" and you'll find tons of similar stories.

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1998 E300 turbodiesel

America's Rights and Freedoms Are Not The Enemy!

You've hit the nail on the head; only one problem, many people seem to believe the scenario you share would NEVER happen to them. Thus, they continue to screw themselves over by using Paypal and Ebay. They must enjoy getting screwed out of time, money and merchandise.

Welcome to the United States of STUPID.

Last I read, Ebay supposedly has 700 police officers working to "stop auction fraud". Good to know we can all trust Ebay auctions to be on the up and up.

We use PP at work. Great for a buyer, horrible for a seller.

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617 swapped Toyota Pickup, 22-24 MPG, 50k miles on swap

First of all, let's talk about it from the buyers viewpoint. If it's a card transaction, the customer has various rights. It's different for credit (stronger) vs debit card (much weaker), but in either case, your rights to claim fraud expire at 60 days. So if Paypal gives you six months, that's better, no? If Paypal fails to honor the complaint, the odds are the complaint isn't honorable anyway. I understand you have no recourse after a decision, but you're piling what if on what if. In my experience, Paypal has been sensible in their decisions.

From the merchant's point of view, the risk of "friendly fraud" as you've described is exactly the same. Maybe Paypal will accept a claim at six months. But a CC allows 60 days after the 30 day billing period ends, and the bank has an additional 30 days to accept the claim. So it can take a long time to hit the merchant either way. Whether it happens in a week or five months, the burden of proof for the buyer is minimal. All they have to do is claim. The money is sequestered from the merchant's cash flow, and the merchant has to prove his case. I've found it's about the same effort of proof with either credit card or Paypal. And since the merchant bank will fee the merchant for chargeback processing, most small CC reclaims are slammed without investigation. Any merchant who accepts any form of non-cash payment has to be prepared to accept a certain level of fraud as the price of doing business.

If you use Paypal heavily, there are some keys to avoiding the sort of locked account problems you hear about. First of all, keep no balance in your Paypal account. Transfer cash to your bank ASAP. This is good hygiene anyway, as Paypal has limited FDIC protection. On the bank side, keep a bank account just for paypal transfers. Fund it for purchases and sweep excess balances to your regular account. That way, Paypal will only have direct access to a zero balance account. And yes, keep your password strong, change it often, and don't give it away. Just like your online banking ID.

My experience with PP has been less than better making my resolve not to have an account ,let alone, link it to by bank account even stronger.

( This one took 5 years to figure out without a real solution. )
One day on e bay, PP suddenly stops accepting my CC as a guest with no explanation " We are unable to process this transaction, use another card " Card works when using " Cards processed by PP " or through merchant CC system. Card works fine anywhere else on the net or real life.

Calls to PP net, reboot your computer , jiggle the cable, is your computer on. . . Eventually " Cards processed by PP " stops working as well. Calls to PP net nothing.

I don't buy anything from e bay for a number of years. Later an in person transaction at a small company fails to go through, I pay cash. After further digging, it turns out that small company uses PP to process cards.

More calls to PP, this time I get a US based person, they say that 5 years prior my card was used in a fraudulent transaction. Issue here was the specific transaction was initiated by me, the upstanding still in business vendor delivered, no buyer / seller claims were ever filed. PP refuses to clear my CC number.

To counter this I started getting prepaid debit cards. PP now freely accepts this on e bay until, , , , I run a non e bay personal transaction with known reputable person, transaction goes through no problem. A month or so later in an e bay transaction PP refuses this card even though it still works everywhere else. More calls to PP. Finally PP says they won't clear the CC or debit card because my _e mail address _ does not have a real name as part of it.

I get a 2nd prepaid debit and it goes through. Since then cards 2 and 3 have run $ 1,000 through without issue _using the same e mail address_. As a test, near the end of card 3 I run a personal transaction , same thing happens, person is paid, PP blocks my card from further transactions.

The trigger is a personal transaction will kick a card but a business transaction won't. I think the personal transactions are held to a higher standard because PP has less of a recourse to claw back money where a vendor on e bay is required to use PP making it very simple to claw back $.

My measure of a company isn't how well they do things on a regular basis as anyone can get it right most of the time. My measure of a company is how they react when things go wrong.

Um, can we say this thread has taken a wild turn off topic???

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.

I've been very happy with Paypal, excepting the fees are pretty expensive. I've gotten refunds when asked for .

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

It has slid over to a related topic. Starting a new thread would have less context and probably traffic.

I was selling on eBay. Seller filled a claim for non-receipt. He had asked that package be left on porch. Address was in NY city. FedEx said they delivered. Buyer ate that one since I had documented his specific instructions.

Supplier offered me free shipping on any parts. I loaded fenders and hoods since shipping is more than parts cost. Supplier renigged on free shipping. I had a cluster **** on my hands and gave a bunch of refunds.

PayPal was always on buyer's side. I have a personal PayPal account but always pay for ebay purchases with a credit card.

My cards have been jacked. I order new cards and use them until something goes wrong then replace them again until the next time. I never have a bank account with a significant amount of money connected to a card or PayPal. Set up a special account with a minimum balance if you need something connected to PayPal.

Bank fees are all discretionary and not required by law. Consequently, I've been able to get them waived the few times fees have been incurred.


Regarding the original topic, eBay, PayPal, card companies all have time limits. A claim needs to be filed timely. I'd rescind the claim if fixed but bad service and time limits mandate the filing of a claim to protect your money.
Keep good records including screen shots. Always pay with a card.

Paypal's transaction fees are actually quite reasonable. A bank merchant service account (for CC processing) would probably have transaction fees that are nominally lower. But they would add program fees (which finance the CC points everyone likes), statement fees, FX fees, and gateway fees.. In the old days, banks would not only require you to rent a terminal, they would require you to buy paper and ink from them. So PP will look mighty good to anyone who has dealt with commercial card processing as a small merchant.

As for getting banks to waive fees, it could happen but this is not a dependable strategy. In today's environment, banks can't survive on the spread: fee revenue is not optional. In a typical bank, each branch manager is responsible for a bizarre report called the P&L. If he has P, he gets to keep his miserable job. If he has L, he's ruthlessly tortured before being humiliated and dismissed. The significance of this is that fees don't typically count to the branch manager's P&L. His P has to be made on the spread. But since refunds are at his discretion, fee refunds do count as his L. So if you ever find yourself arguing with a branch manager over a fee, understand that the fee went to the bank, but he would need to dip into his own pocket to refund you.

Also let's be clear that credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards are all different instruments, with different costs and consumer protections. Credit cards are addressed by truth in lending laws. Debit cards by electronic finds transfer laws. Prepaid cards are cover by a messy collection of state laws and Dodd Frank. Debit and prepaid are fee monsters for the banks. They fee in ways that are obvious and direct, and in ways that are opaque and buried on the merchant side. Debit cards are payday loans in disguise: bank nirvanna is suckering the customer into revolving overdrafts. Prepaid cards are somewhat more benign: they are checkless checking accounts with a fat fee structure. Credit cards are more obvious: the idea there is to get you to borrow money at high rates. Compared to any of these payment methods, PP is cheapest for the buyer.

If there's interest in how this stuff works, I'll explain.

@MX: I never pay bank fees on personal accounts. I don't care about the bank's business model. I don't pay fees and will move the account if necessary. This position has worked for the last 40+ years.

That said, these are simple personal accounts and don't include selling accounts where I'd have to deal with Merchant Services as a vendor.

Branch managers quickly become resistant to pleas for fee reimbursement because they are brutalized by their supervision when they pay refunds. So as a strategy to avoid punitive fees, begging or leaving means leaving.

But banks will give you ways to waive recurring fees, usually by either maintaining a target balance or by performing a certain number of debit transactions monthly. So let's say you get a "free" account if you maintain a $25,000 savings balance. Genius. You're getting .25% interest and getting free checking. Meanwhile, the bank is using your deposit to fund it's lending program. So instead of directly paying the bank $4.95/mo for your checking account, you're allowing them to make $100/mo or more on the spread. Some banks give free checking or even pay interest on demand accounts if you perform a certain number of debit card transactions each month. The average debit card user gets three overdrafts per year, and the number of OD's increases in direct proportion to the transaction rate. Anything that makes your checking account busier makes the bank richer. So you'll probably end up with two or three hundred bucks a year in OD fees in order to avoid that $4.95 monthly fee. Like it or leave. This may not have been your specific experience, but the bank, like any casino, has the odds on it's side.

You just have to pay attention and watch out for the rat holes. More scams will continuously occur with time. As for the guy that did not ship the item or items. Try to get his phone number.

Screw ups for lack of a better description are more likely today. A lot of people just get your order and have it drop shipped by a third party. Or only purchase the item after the sale.