What recourse do I have?

Question

Sold item on ebay and the customer paid through paypal.

The very next day, without time for it to even be shipped, the customer filed a non-delivery claim.

Few days later, because I have 7 days to ship and had been busy, I then logged on and saw his claim and hurried up and shipped it. Since it was over $250 I sent it requiring a signature per Paypal's Seller Protection Policy.

Customer's claim is declined then he files a credit card chargeback so Paypal then freezes the funds back in my Paypal account.

I sent Paypal the shipping tracking #.

Customer emails me. I email customer back the tracking #.

Tracking info says it was attempted delivery once and sitting at the post office waiting for pick up.

Email customer again. Customer emails back that he will pick it up today.

Meanwhile, Paypal settles claim saying non-delivery and I owe him a refund.

So now I owe him a refund and he is picking up the item today...

What can I do?

I emailed Paypal about 20 times mad as hell.

Answer 1

That's just plain evil. I can't believe there's such scum like that around. Well, as long as you keep all documentation, correspondence, etc... you shouldn't have a problem proving the situation to the authorities.

I hope you get to meet this person and give him a whopping big whack in the head. Grrr! I'm so angry FOR you!!!

Answer 2

I think that this guy is trying to get something for nothing, and he knows all the tricks. If you are worried about future transaction like this happening again, you can always request payment for mdse. be in the form of certified check, or money order, and forget about Paypal.

Answer 3

Unless you are a Power Seller you are in for a major hassle. Power Sellers have a special back channel to eBay. If you have a friend who is one, get him/her to help.

Sellers are constantly victimized by fraudulent buyers. Have a look at http://www.paypalsucks.com/ (there are also other similar forums.) I did some research on PayPal a couple of years ago, having found them operating illegally in the European Union. By the time I collected the information for an article, they had reorganized legally as PayPal (UK) Ltd so there was nothing to do with my research except file it away.

If (and only if) you are in a jurisdiction where PayPal is subject to court action (basically their home state and wherever they have a registered office or do substantial business (see below) or in England) you can sue them, and make them reveal the identity of the buyer and bring the buyer into the case. This works very well -- if you can get the court to accept jurisdiction.

A firm can be sued where it is incorporated, where it has a permanent establishment, where it has registered to do business (in the USA that's usually a Secretary of State's office, and many or most have online directories to check). The two US Supreme Court cases that set out the parameters for jurisdiction otherwise are International Shoe and Asahi Metal Industries (you can find the cases at http://www.justia.us )

It seems to me that your mistake was in not having constant e-mails to PayPal and eBay telling them you were on the case. Ten days gets an automatic refund. I am holding goods from a seller who mis-advertised them, agreed to take them back, refused to collect them from the Post Office, so I filed a claim with PayPal who repaid me except for $25 handling charge. I can get that $25 back from Amex (I always pay via Amex because I've been their cardholder since 1958 and they always do right by me). I think I have filed 3 claims with PayPal -- never unfairly or extravagantly (once indeed because eBay told me to: they had blocked a fraudulent seller just after I paid her) -- the other times for non-delivery.

But I don't want the goods and the seller seems not to want them back, despite the refund. And the goods are at my mail drop in NYC and I live in Europe, which makes it worse.

BTW: I know you are the top Y! Q/A Politics & Government answerer, so either you are not paying proper attention to your business, or you aren't setting the proper priorities. On the other hand, you presumably find solutions for others so I am hopeful you will find one for yourself today. I hope what I have written is useful. (I filed a small claims summons in London against Dell Computers a year or so ago: my daughter's computer failed a week before the extended warranty expired, and their rep (in Bangalore, natch) argued that it was "ordinary wear and tear" and not a covered defect. Within days of the summons going out Dell called, a woman here in London said her sole job was dealing with summonses ("writs"), that she wanted it off her desk, that someone would come by to collect the computer and fix it, and not to worry. Indeed, they fixed it.)

As far as the FBI or the police are concerned, this is a civil case. eBay has thus far managed to evade the laws on selling, the rules on being deemed "doing business" and even the auctioneering laws. They do register as real estate agents in some states, all while denying they are selling real estate. It reminds me of Lloyd's of London and their (non-)registration under SEC's Regulation D: they filed meaningless, largely blank, registrations, then used political and diplomatic muscle to avoid getting caught out when the huge fraud -- basically a Ponzi -- came apart in the mid-1990s.

You've just been through an election. You must know that huge wealth buys poltical influence. Enron could never have been brought down until the day came when they couldn't pay their current debts. Never mind Skilling's protestations of a conspiracy: every pyramid scheme runs out of money eventually -- that's a mathematical certainty. But eBay's not a pyramid: it will just stop growing at some point. What it does have is the wealth to spread around. You can benefit: being a gnat with a claim for $250 as soon as you file a court complaint, their legal bills start running at $500 an hour MINIMUM. Unless they think they can make a legal point by defending (or "pour encourager les autres"), they will fold.

I'm sure it's occurred to you that the very difficulty in reaching a real-live person by telephone or e-mail at eBay or PayPal is part of their billion-dollar-profit business plan. It is a well-known secret in this era Wall Street short-term profiteering that if you can make problems going away simply by making it difficult for your customers to reach you, your profits will rise. Corporate arrogance is greater than ever: top executive wages have risen to astronomic levels at the expense of both workers and customers. Yet customers put up with this. If you want to get attention you write to them REGISTERED MAIL or, if you find that too costly, certified mail. I used to send telegrams. Nobody ever ignored them: not even the Chairman of General Motors when, in 1964,I sent one to his home address after parts for my car went astray, and I was left stranded in Sanderson, miles from anywhere, for 2 weeks.

Complaining to the press is about the most effective remedy. Blogging helps. You Tube hysteria is the new secret weapon. The 21st Century, more than ever, is the star-and-celebrity era: to have a name well-known is worth millions. Privacy is a right: it's also (with certain exceptions, such as staying below the IRS (or foreign equivalent) radar) missing out on a key element of wealth.

If only Y! Q/A points could be auctioned off on eBay the way cyberdollars and cyberstatus in game sites can be.

Answer 4

Report it to the FBI that you are being scammed and inform paypal that you have done so. If you have his address inform him that if it you do not recieve the money then he will here from the legal authorities. If it is in your power to not pay him, then do not...

Answer 5

The customer was who?... We'd love to help, wouldn't we, guys?