Many of the problems described with handling disputes have for some time now been updated, and actually offer more protection to the buyer than the seller. So much so that I no longer worry about anything I buy on ebay, as I know by following the proper procedures, I am protected against bad sellers and/or fraud. I worry a lot more as a seller, because I have fewer protections against fraud by buyers (yes, this does happen, and much more so recently due to the dispute resolution changes).

I have had to initiate a number of disputes with sellers in the past year over items that were not as the seller had described. I have never lost a dispute, and have always gotten my money back, on a disputed transaction. But again, this does require a basic knowledge of the proper procedures for filing a dispute with Paypal. But it’s not complicated once you understand how it works today.

To J.D.: Whether you knew it or not, you had full protection when you made your purchase using Paypal. The minute you discovered your purchase was not what the buyer said, you won. Let me explain. All you had to do was file a claim with Paypal (ignore the newer procedure that ebay is pushing, to file with them instead. You can file with either, but it’s faster if you file directly with Paypal). The moment you filed that claim, an amount equal to the money you paid to the seller was frozen in their Paypal account, and they lost access to it, until the matter was resolved. At that point, the seller could either refund your money, or insist that you return the goods that you stated were not as described in the listing.

Once you sent the item back, with tracking to prove that it was received, within a few days your full purchase price would be refunded. This does not depend on the seller “cooperating” or even “refunding” you. At this point the refund is completely out of the seller’s hands, and is handled by Paypal. It doesn’t even matter if a seller has “emptied” their account, in such a case Paypal would cover the amount (you would never know anyway whether the money came directly from the seller, or from Paypal, as that info would not be revealed in your refund details).

I say all this not as a fan or proponent of ebay or Paypal. It is what it is, warts and all. But the balance has shifted in the past 2-3 years, and protection is heavily weighted in favor of buyers.

There won’t be any sort of resolution for several days. I shipped the comics back on Thursday, and eBay wants me to call back after seven days…

How is it even possible for a seller to defend themselves from this?

So, after two weeks of emails with customer, attempts to call PayPal (by me and my customer), customer gives up. I print out everything and send it off to the New York State Attorney General’s office. BINGO! PayPal suddenly can communicate with me again, stopped demanding my money, and “forgave” a fine they had decided I owed them. Bottom line, PayPal and eBay are just too much trouble to deal with.

I’ve mentioned this to other PayPal users and the usual response is, “Oh I haven’t had any trouble with them.” Right. You don’t have any trouble with them until there’s a problem and then they’re almost impossible to deal with.

I would go after these people with everything I had. My main weapon was the threat of leaving negative feedback. I would warn the seller about my future feedback, while simultaneously reporting them to eBay. Every single time I managed to get all my money back, shipping costs reimbursed, and payment to ship the item back. I also reported the seller to Coach. Shortly after my incident I noticed many of these sellers would end up kicked off eBay. (Not sure if I helped with that or not.)

Now I tend to shy away from sellers that don’t seem to have much eBay experience.

On another note I will NEVER hook up my checking account directly to PayPal. Once I almost fell for a phishing email, but thankfully noticed in the nick of time. I have a friend that had his account hacked and it took him months to work it out with the bank. Banks do not provide the same protection credit cards do. Not only do I feel safer using a credit card, it is also much easier to file claim against a bad seller. I have found credit card companies to be much more proactive with getting my money back.

This is actually a great example of the “risk/return” spectrum. When buying on eBay, items listed by sellers with low reputations, or poor feedback, have lower prices than the same items being sold by reputable sellers. You’re taking more of a chance with the new users with poor grammar, but if he turns out to be legit, you get a bigger “return” (savings). You can reduce your “risk” by going with Amazon instead, or even a brick-and-mortar store, but at each stage, you’ll pay a little bit more, for a little less risk. In your case, you took a higher risk, and could’ve made a nice return, but unfortunately, you got burned.

It’s fascinating to notice how broadly the risk/return spectrum can be applied in life. I’m a little suprised you didn’t highlight this angle on your “Personal Finance” blog.

Great story, I hope you get your money back. Keep us posted!

eBay support itself isn’t great, but the community is–eBay’s discussion forums are a great place to start when you run into a problem like this and aren’t sure the best way to approach it. Hang out in the appropriate forum for an hour or so reading posts describing problems similar to yours, and if they don’t clarify what you should do, create your own post. The posters there are really savvy about the eBay and Paypal dispute processes.

The listing showed a beautiful, southwestern-style entertainment center and had a really long description of all its amazingness (with a tiny little link in the middle that I did not click on) and I received, literally, a box full of wood pieces that did not match and did not fit together. The company, based in Phoenix, had a number but calls/e-mails were never answered EXCEPT for a form letter saying buyers should have clicked on all links in the listing. I pulled up the listing, clicked the link in the description and found a warning, saying, “Items in listing may not be as pictured, this is an overstock company selling overstock items, blah blah blah.” I was out nearly $300, and I started to panic!

Luckily in this case I HAD used a credit card, so I called them and they didn’t buy the seller’s “link” story so they told me to ship the items back and they froze the payment. Thirty days later I got my money back.

In the meantime, I did try to contact eBay, and it took me an hour to reach a real person EVERY TIME. You just don’t know how things like this will be until it happens, but it soured me on eBay quite a bit. This seller left terrible feedback for the buyer if the buyer left negative feedback, so most buyers, it seemed, caved and left good feedback, which gave them a really good rating…

Anyway, after a 3-4 year hiatus I did use eBay recently to buy some cassette tapes (hard to find in real stores) for kids. The guy sent me 9 tapes as mentioned in the article, but 5 were duplicates. This time I let it go — I was only out $15 — but I think it will be a while before I use eBay again. I wonder if some competitor will rise that has better protections for people in place? That would be nice.

I’ve had better luck with Craigslist — local people are generally less likely to try to pull something like that — but yes, all the “check” scams are really, really annoying.