A few years ago I got scammed on eBay. I sent a payment, and never received the item. Filed a complaint well within the timeframe recommended, but the scofflaw had closed the Paypal connected bank account and disappeared into the ether. Paypal basically said to me, too bad, so sad, nothing we can do, and I was out a couple hundred dollars.
Fast forward, this week I saw a laptop I was interested in. The seller had zero feedback, but I have bought things plenty of times from people with low or zero feedback. But then there was what appears to my eyes a shill bid that drove up the price, and was then retracted. The seller also had several other items for sale, all at least a couple hundred bucks if not more. But none higher than 500.
All of this raised red flags for me. So I asked the seller if we could do an escrow at eBay’s recommended escrow partner, escrow.com. He said no, since it doesn’t pay him through Paypal. Hmmm. Another red flag.
SO my question is, am I right to be paranoid? Or has eBay solved the problem of people closing linked bank accounts and disappearing. Or can I be offered some form of guarantee that the money will be accessible if the seller does not come through.
I have been trying to find somewhere that states exactly that, but I have been unable to. It only says “When some sellers receive payments” it doesn’t go in to how “some” is determined.
My dad received a refund to paypay from a transaction. He’s used it sucessfully for other transactions, but this is the first time he’s tried to get a refund transferred back to his account.
The refund arrived at the beginning of April - Dad’s still trying to get the money out of Paypal and into his account. Each time he rings up, he’s told a different excuse why the payment hasn’t transferred through. He’s given a whole new set of hoops to jump through and wastes another hour of his time.
They’ve rejected accounts because they’re not linked to the credit card he had to sign up with. They’ve rejected accounts because they are linked to the credit card he had to sign up with.
They’ve rejected the credit account, the debit account, the cheque account and the savings account.
They’ve rejected the information from his bank, sent directly to them, they’ve rejected the holding account sent from his bank.
And every freaking time he calls them, he’s subjected to the message about how their excellent service is excellent and if he has any problems their excellent service team will decide if they’ll excellently get off their collective arses long enough to give a shit.
They’ve now convinced him that as soon as he actually gets the money back, he’ll close his account and never deal with them again.
You should never buy anything from a zero feedback account. Only an idiot or scammer would even try to sell from a 0 feedback account because you will get less money because people are suspicious. So just don’t.
Paypal & Ebay are somewhat more buyer friendly than in the past - to the point where as a seller, you basically are relying on the buyer being 100% honest, since if they claim any problem at all you will certainly lose the case unless they have scammed many other people.
My intention was to note that if you pay a merchant via a Paypal transaction funded by VISA or MC, you have more protection against shenanigans than if you had used an existing Paypal balance or funded the transaction by means of a draw against a checking account.
The OP wasn’t actually asking if we think buying from the seller is wise, but I will note in passing that I would not buy fast-moving electronics from a zero feedback seller.
Even if Paypal and/or your bank were to side with you in a dispute with a seller that is not playing by the rules, you stand to lose:
the shipping money to return the item
hours of your time
Unless this seller was selling an item that literally hasn’t been sold in the last 5 years and may never be available again, I would find another seller or wait for this item to come to market again, later.
I had an item I won, sent payment and was then told it wasn’t available, did I want a similar item? I said no, please refund. I did not hear back from the seller despite a few more attempts. I complained to Paypal and got a refund. It was pretty painless, but it does take some time, so if that money is life or death, don’t do it.
You’re nothing but a peon to eBay and PayPal. Why should they have gotten any better? eBay now owns PayPal and it enjoys even more prominence, meaning even less competition, even more of a monopoly.
Don’t listen to their marketing propaganda. Protect yourself. Only deal with proven-good sellers, especially NOT electronics sellers with 0 feedback. Always use your credit card and be prepared to file a chargeback against PayPal at any time. Always withdraw 100% of your PayPal balance whenever you can because they can and will freeze your balance at their whim, especially if you file a chargeback. Never buy or ship internationally unless you’re prepared to deal with legal and customs nightmares when things go wrong. Your time and sanity is worth the precautions, and usually worth whatever savings you might otherwise get from a 0-feedback seller.
Hmm, the one time I had a problem with a seller, I went through eBay’s buyer protection guarantee thingy. I never contacted PayPal at all.
Details: About two years ago, I bought a couple of gold coins. The total transaction value was over $2,000. After the sale closed, I waited for an email saying that my items had been shipped. After a week and no signs of life from the seller, I sent an email. No response (knowing that eBay might be looking at these later, I made sure that I wasn’t harsh or abusive in my correspondence). A few days later, I sent another. No response. Then I checked the seller’s profile and noticed that it had been deleted. A few days later I opened a case with eBay. They refunded my money (back to PayPal) within a week of my opening the case.
Not sure if one is any better than the other. PayPal is owned by eBay, and as I mentioned above, eBay isn’t exactly known for its stellar service either.
This thought needs expanding upon, because by this logic ebay should just shut down new enrollment and die the slow death of a closed business system - and I don’t think that is actually what the author is saying.
Before I go further - please don’t buy your next laptop, smartphone, set of gold bars, prada purse, priceless art, car, or nigerian lotto ticket from a zero feedback seller. That is one of those things that should go without saying but for some reason does still need to be said sometimes.
There are several legitimate reasons for being a zero feedback seller:
You are 18 years old.
You are 92 years old.
You are a non-tech savvy person who was in a coma for the last 15 years.
Etc Etc Etc
I have gotten some of my best Ebay deals from low feedback sellers for the very reason stated - they can’t demand as high of a price on the open market. A few examples.
If I see a zero feedback seller with photos that look like a 7 year old took them and they are selling 9 vintage hats from the 40’s, 3 velvet track suits size 3, 25 handmade doilies, a pedal operated sewing machine, a shower chair, and complete collection of readers digest magazines from May 1963- Aug 2012. I think SCORE! I am totally going to get these awesome hats for cheap! Because this is guy is probably a single small town accountant whose wife’s grandma has just passed away and somebody told him to list this stuff on "the ebay"rather than throw it away.
If I see a cute pair of shoes being sold by a zero feedback seller named brittany<3sRoach4eva who has atrocious grammar and is also selling 3 pastel belts, two skirts and 11 shirts from Hot Topic, 3 gag gifts from Spencers and a set of partially used coloring books, I assume I am dealing not a scammer but with a young lady who is cleaning out her closet to pay for some questionable life choices.
However if I am looking for a replacement battery for my phone and I see a great “Buy it now” deal from gudthings4cheep, a zero feedback seller who has opted to post this item 200 times rather than just list it as “200 available”, and is also selling 200 plastic phone holders, 200 funky looking cowboy hats and 200 sets of lacy underwear in 16 colors- I am not going to buy from this guy.
I recently reset my account. It killed me but ebay refused to allow me to change my name and my old account was myexsfirstnameandmyfirstname (ok, I know, I know, I was young, it was stupid, let’s move on). Now that I am re-married I really didn’t want to use that name so I was forced to close it an open a new one. I had 900+ feedback at 100% for the last 6 years, I nearly cried when I closed that account. The poor person who was my first buyer … they took a risk. But I would have taken that risk too … I was clearly selling off all the stuff I didn’t want to keep from my recent wedding. Two brides in particular got some amazingly great deals (one got a like new dress for $800 off the David’s Bridal price) and I effectively got my dream wedding for a net cost of $200. Capitalism for the win.
In the end the moral is - read all the signals. It is rare that one thing can tell you everything you need to know. Zero feedback just means you need to do your homework - which in my humble opinion you should be doing on every seller anyway. It doesn’t cost much for a scammer to run 100 items through the system, buy them from themselves under a couple of fake accounts and leave themselves positive feedback. Buyer beware, but don’t be afraid.
the result? I got a macbook pro without working wireless for about half price. Little USB dongles that are wireless cards cost about twenty bucks, so I did good. And since I have a high feedback number, I could sell it for more than I got it.