advice needed on a paypal gift sale & abusive buyer

[GazOC]

HI Mick,

I know Paypal are getting more and more on top of this sort of thing but my personal opinion is that the "gift" issue is a judgement call for the buyer, he/ she can always insist on paying the extra 5% to get the extra protection from Paypal or choose to walk away from the deal if the seller declines.

Just my 2p

Gaz:)

[Astro_Baby]

If I were in this position I would take it to a small claims court. A small claims court can reclaim up to £5k (unless limits have been changed). Get in touch with your local magistrates courts and they will brief you on what you need to do.

It costs about £50 to register a claim (which you will get back if you win).

This one might be a bit sticky BUT my bet is the minutes the summons lands on his door mat he will respond. Small claims courts are easy to deal with, make sure you have all the information related to the sale and any corriespondence printed out and filed in date order).

If you want some advice on small claims PM me and I am happy to talk you through it. Court usually scares miscreants like this - if he has been abusive it wont look good in front of the beak.

If you win - you would get your costs back plus the cash or the goods and chummy might get a bit of a legal smacking.

[TheThing]

You'll have difficulty in the small claims court and I doubt a claim would be successful, TBH.

The court will look at the facts and not the 'tugging of the heart strings.'

In this instance the 3rd party will simply explain to the court that he bought an item that turned out to be faulty and obtained, legally and correctly, a refund via Paypal. Paypal provides no compuntion to return the goods. Whether you 'feel' that the 3rd party is stringing you along wont be considered by the courts. Even the Sale of Goods Act doesn't insist that faulty items are returned (although it doesn't apply in this instance). The courts are likely to find in favour of the 3rd party - they have sympathies with people who have been 'turned over' by unscrupulous sellers. (I'm not saying that you are, I'm just being realistic as to how the courts will look at it. My sympathies are completely with you.) You will end up throwing good money after bad and with the feeling that the legal system is an ***, even though based on the facts only, this is the only course the courts can realistically take.

I believe your best bet is to report him to the police for theft and deception as you have already suggested. Turn it into a criminal matter.

[Astro_Baby]

Small claims are usually more in the nature of arbitration - having been there three times on not totally dissimilar matters and gotten what I wanted (ie my money or goods back) I'd take a different view.

On the whole though its exactly the sort of reason why I distrust ebay and paypal these days and would NEVER sell a thing on them or buy from it either unless I can go see the goods and pay cash. Its not worth all the flak.

A friend of mine not so long ago had lawyers letters pouring through her door after an ebay transation went wrong and that was over two penneth of nail polish.

I just hope whoever the person is they get their come uppance and I really wish you luck with this.

[TheThing]

Arbitration yes, but they still have to base a decision on fact. And the fact is the 3rd party will tell his tale of woe about an item purchased in good faith which turned out to be faulty.

[david61]

Right now I'm not interested if its faulty or not i just want the item returned to me

the way it is now he has a refund from is MasterCard and the filter wheel

and i have to pay paypal plus the charges

i will never use eBay or paypal again i have 100% feedback with eBay in 9 years i just wonder if the buyer has i dont know is user name to find out

but i think it says a lot about a person

[yeti monster]

Perhaps this is a tad 'left field' but, how about just forgetting all about it and chalking it up to experience?

I've had a couple of bad deals through ebay, but on the whole, 99.99% of all transactions I've been a party too, have been of a good nature, and I've certainly saved more than I've lost.

'Swings and roundabouts', as my mother-in-law often says.

[Robert Watson]

This would put anyone off using paypal or even buying anything on the net,Imyself have bought a few things through SGL with no prob's i never use gift ,there's no comeback if thing,s go tit's up Plus you get to know all the people on SGL even though you've never met them, but you will talk to them through post's at some time I feel iv'e made a lot of new friend's through this forum.If i was selling any thing here or anywhere else I would always take photos of an item with time's dates it don't take much room on the laptop to store the photo's and before you sell send the photo's first then the bayer can see what he/she is buying.Just hope you get this sorted out.

[simon84]

Unfortunately I'm with Yeti on this.

I sold £250 worth of fishing reel on ebay. All paid for through paypal after the listing ended. Sent the reel by registered post with the right amount of insurance on it to cover the reel.

When the buyer received it I got an email saying it was faulty. I offered a refund on receipt of the goods back, I received no further email. Just a claim through paypal, which in those situations is an auto win for the buyer. I had monies removed from my account and never received the reel because thats not paypals concern.

I know he's out there fishing with a perfectly good reel and has probably bought another one with my money.

Short of driving across the country to the address I have for the guy and having it out with him there was nothing I could do.

Its a hard one to swallow but there ya go.

I wish you luck with whatever avenues you take, maybe a letter stating your intent to prosecute if the item isnt returned with a certain amount of time.

[Ant]

"TBH Mick SGL makes a point of staying out of the Buy/ Sell transactions as much as possible. Its not really our "call" what arrangements people come to over payments, delivery etc."

I can understand that Gaz, but personally been the honest sort i feel a bit underpressure buying things from people who in all intents and purposes are genuine sellers, only to inform them that i wont pay as a "gift".

Makes me feel a bit awkward to be honest, id find it much better if the rules stated anyone selling equipment using PayPal must not ask for payment to be made as a "gift"..after all, it is breaking Paypal rules and i suppose a comparison could be made to allowing people to use your house for illegal dealings with your consent?.

It might be worth considering Gaz as PayPal are become more proactive in the way the are making rules reguarding transactions etc, and people are now starting to receive bans for it.

We already have a post in that section warning of the use of GIFT payments.

SGL cannot tell people what they can and cannot do, if problems like this continue then we'll have to look at the whole buy/sell section.

Ant

[beamish]

This is just not the sort of thing one wants to hear about 'cos it just scares the living s**t out of doing business over the net- Loads of us have bought & sold stuff and keeps us all tickety boo but ...

Looks like we'll just end up going backwards and using Postal Orders and cheques soon enough.

Just remember there are a great deal more honest folk out there than sheisters, tho that's no comfort when one gets shafted

[nigelwr]

Hopefully this is an isolated occurance the majority of transactions with paypal are conducted amicably !!!

[xmal]

And the moral of the story is do NOT use PayPal. It's policies are now too draconian. If the buyer puts in a claim the seller loses and it looks like the buyer does not have to return the goods. I belive that Ebay and Paypal will eventually fall by the way-side over this over the coming years- just far too many innocent people are being conned by unscrupulous people. As more people get stung, less people will use the service. I used to use ebay a lot, but not any more. Not much help for the OP, I am sorry for you mate.

xmal

[Moonshane]

for sure this is a bad turn of events but we need to keep it in perspective I feel. I have dealt with lots of people in the past and never had a problem. it's amazing what google can unearth when buying and selling from/to folk and striking up a conversation by email or phone can often put minds at rest. I appreciate once bitten twice shy etc but I'll certainly continue with Paypal for the foreseeable future.

[Michael Rapley]

I'd like to think that this is an isolated incident. The fact that some people seem to know who is being talked about without names being disclosed makes me think that this person may just be a bad apple. From what i can see so far the members of this hobby are by and large a kind,friendly, trustworthy sort. I'd rather purchase and sell though contacts on here than ebay though.

[ZOG]

This doesn't just apply to Ebay with Paypal. We started using them for the website, within a week we had nearly 3 grands worth of chargebacks even though the payments had went through the paypal security systems and we had proof of delivery.

Paypal is really a sellers minefield and I'll never use them again.

[Astro_Baby]

Yup and if you saw a previous post of mine I was stuffed by Paypal as well and have never used them since.

I had a few grand in a Paypal account ready for a business to business transaction with a US software company. Paypal suddenly sequested the funds and said 'your broke our terms of service and our money is frozen for (I think) 180 days' I asked what I had done wrong because as far as I was concerned I was simply buying perfectly legitimate software from a vendor and Paypal basically said 'we wont discuss it - end of'

Repeated emails got me nowhere and at the time it caused major financial problems for me.

THe FSA were useless and too slow and at the time I was going through a rough period in my life with my father dying and my business running a bit rough because of health problems. I realy didnt need that sort of stress and after Paypal let me have the cash back I closed my Paypal account and would never EVER use them again.

[Earl]

A tip with paypal.

As soon as anyone opens a "Not as Discribed" case, Instantly upgrade it to a claim yourself, they will now need to provide paypal with proof of delivery that the item has been returned to get there refund.

Its best to take hold of the situation and force it.

I work for a large eBay powerseller, and I am myself an Top Rated Seller eBay powerseller.

Im not sure on the Gift side of things though.

Card Chargebacks are unfortunantly beyond anyones control except the Credit Card company.

[Psychobilly]

WoW you can chargeback a gift..... I'll never stick a fiver inside a card again....

[david61]

Just to let you know i got the filter wheel returned to me this morning at my cost

i plugged it in and it all works with the manual handset and the usb and its still on now from this morning so i don't know why it didn't work for the buyer but i now intend to sell it again in the buy sell section with a 7 day warranty

David

[Moonshane]

great result - at least he saw sense (or fairness anyway) in the end.

all this fuss and if he'd only done this in the first place......

good luck with a more genuine sale.