Just made Alienware sale.. something seems fishy

Yea lol, its quite rare the gtx 260m's on ebay. Trust this one to got for about 200-250, even used. Its already sitting at $160 with 6 days to go. Who knows where this is going!

 

Yep, take all fund out of your Paypal asap is what I've learned. Paypal is a good service but is abused beyond belief.

 

Taking your funds out of paypal does no good because they just send it to collections.

 

ill sometimes do this to save some money for the both of us, but i usually call the person so that we can speak so that were clear and im comfortable and they are as well. usually i only do this is its something i can drive to pick up as well. its same as if you sold it here imo.. ebays fees are rediculous, your going to have to pay not only to list it, but a Final value fee + 3% to paypal.

 

Paypal won't recover money from a collection agency unless the seller willingfully accepts to pay them back. Here's why.

1) If the buyer makes a claim to Paypal, before refunding him, it's in Paypal's best interest to secure the funds, hence, recovering them. If there are unsufficient founds in the seller account, there's no point for Paypal taking the whole risk of "advancing" that refund.

2) Assuming they took the risk, as stated in 1), they could try to intimidate the seller, by sending an infamous collection letter, which basically asks him to send Paypal "x" amount of cash in a timely manner.

3) Paypal means of pressure stop with the collection letter. Technically, nothing prevents them from threatening the seller of "legal actions" if he doesn't pay back. Reality is there's nothing much Paypal can do, beside terminating the seller account. They could use an attorney and sue the seller, but they won't, since it's too costly and there's no point sueing a guy for a 1000 or 2000 $ transaction.

4) Provided that the seller lives outside US, Paypal cannot take any legal action against him. Period.

By the way, I live in Canada, and in order to convict someone of fraud, the fraud victim (or the government) has to proof with no doubt that the guy actually commited that fraud. In that case, the buyer would have to proof that he hasn't received the laptop or that the box was empty. The seller, with a proof of delivery, would be discharged.

 

Point #4 is nice and well if you live in some third world country that doesn't enforce laws. If you sign a paypal agreement in say UK, I'm fairly certain you're bound to UK's credit laws. Paypal has and continues to enforce collection of debt. They send you a warning and then they charge off the debt on your credit file and send it to collections, thus effectively screwing your credit. Look up all the paypal horror stories, it's happened to many power ebay traders.

I'm surprised the SEC hasn't come down hard on eBay/Paypal for essentially running a double charging business. And now the former head of eBay wants to be the California governor, what a joke.

 

Actually Paypal has quite a racket going lol...one popular tactic they like to use is to hold other peoples' funds for six months and collect the interest.

 

You've got a good point, Joker. If you don't pay that collection, they Paypal will most likely send a flag to the bureau of credit, hence impacting your credit score. Many people would be scared from that. I know for a fact that credit bureau is not the same in Canada. Having a good/bad credit in Canada doesn't have any impact on your credit score in US and the other way around is true usually.

Bottom line, as a seller, I would avoid using Paypal for anything costing more than 100 $!

 

Funny! I wasn't aware of that. So, they freeze the funds for up to 6 months? My goodness!

 

I would be wary of even shipping an empty box to the scammer, yuou could find FedEx or UPS etc if thier shipping was paid for with a bogus card, they would come after the Seller for the fees.

I had my share of Scams from Ebay / payPal

I also tend to hold all shipments at least 24 hours when paid for by Paypal to make sure its not a scam, I had a payment made by a confirmed buyer with confirmed address that was apparantly a hacked account.

 

Search the internet and there are plenty of cases where paypal went after consumers in countries such as the USA, France, UK, Germany basically everywhere Paypal is big and has the means to pursue legal action.

 

I know paypal has an official office in Canada so they can definitely take legal action here

 

Yup, I've seen those cases, like the ones in UK. They all refer to are related to collection agencies, threatening people of bad things if they don't cooperate. I know laws differ from country to country, but I have enough knowledge of criminal laws in Canada. Assuming Paypal charges me and bring me to court, they would still have the burden to prove without any doubt that you committed fraud. In that case, that would be very hard to prove anything without any doubt. It would be too costly and risky for them to sue someone in Canada for fraud. Most of the time though, the collection agency gets the work done by intimidating those customers. That's why so many people are asking on forums thing like "what should I do in regards to that collection agency letter?". Reality is if they send the collection guy at my door and this guy doesn't have any warrant issued by police authorities (which is pretty much unlikely), I will simply turn him away. If he tries to break in my place, I will restrain him until the police comes and they will charge him and the collection agency for breaking in. Obviously, this is unlikely to happen.

Like I said, laws are different from country to country and even from state to state so what applies in my situation could not apply to someone from another place. And still, my credit score would probably be impacted by that anyway (refusing to pay), which is bad, and I could not do much about it. That's the problem. But, that's a judgement call too. If the amount is small, it's sometimes better off just paying then shutting down the account. That way, you can avoid other issues when applying for credit in the future...

 

Hm yes good point from all.

As for another side, i'm not able to re-list for free till the 25th because eBay is stupid.

I'd rather wait than pay another $12 on top.

 

I guess there are plenty of ebay stories. I once bought a sound card for my desktop from a powerseller (1000+ feedback, also with that item). I bought it from a US seller living in the UK. After 2 weeks of waiting for the item, suddenly the seller had its account removed.

 

Yea, I had something similar. I actually got the item though, but I recently got an email from eBay saying protect yourself, ebay user has been removed etc etc etc..

Least I got my item.

 

I got like 2 more messages asking if I could send things to people's parents in Nigeria... why the fk.. is ebay so ?

Seriously.. worst control ever.

 

Well, you know... Just tell these guys to get and fuc. themselves!

 

What i have done on my Ebay account is set the buyer requirements so that new bidders, people with no feedback or negative feedback, or new accounts can not bid on my auctions

it does not get all of them, but it gets most of them

 

I did that too.. here's the problem.. the guy had a feedback score of 100% and 17 buys/sales. I deleted it right after reporting.

So annoying.. that guys account could possibly have been hacked.. or he's just upping his score so he can pull the whole nigerian prince thing. Why do they still thing the Prince thing works.. sure it might every now and then.. but seriously... get a new line.

 

< Yea, I had something similar. I actually got the item though, but I recently got an email from eBay saying protect yourself, ebay user has been removed etc etc etc.. Least I got my item. >
Ditto here, got a form email about my sellers account being deleted, and beware, etc. but I too got the item (a memory card).

 

I got the same thing last time.... dont trust it.... I ignored the email and re-list my item. Waste of my time and listing money.... stupid scammers.... I bet those are nigerians because that guy ask me to ship it to nigeria...