posted on July 8, 2008 05:09:36 PM new
Allright....I've been selling on Ebay for 10 years. High priced stuff mainly, 1K-25K. Knock on wood I've never suffered a loss, though many have tried.
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I have an odd situation here. I don't know what to do. I sold an item for $1200. The item normally sells on Ebay for 600-1300, and mine was nicer than most. The opening bid was 600, with a BIN at 1200. The buyer came along and used the BIN for 1200, and paid immediately via Paypal. The buyer has low feedback, 25, but all positive. Only 1 transaction in the past 2 years. The address comes back through Paypal as 2 addresses, one a PO BOX, one a street address(an apartment), and UNCONFIRMED. I call Paypal fraud and resolution and they say that I will not automatically lose in this case should there be a scam. It's a matter of Paypal's discretion. They suggest that I send the buyer a friendly e-mail, explaining the "Paypal confusion" and blah, blah, blah....something really just meant to direct the buyer back to Paypal to make his address a confirmed one. I hear nothing back for a week. Then a brief e-mail from the buyer saying, "yea, go ahead and ship to xxxxxxxx" That's it. And xxxxxxxx turns out to be a mexican restaurant a mile away from the apartment he lives in. I send back a message saying that I can't ship there. That I can only ship to a CONFIRMED address that PAYPAL supplies. I suggest a little stronger that he go to Paypal, make his address a cnfirmed one, then resend the funds. Again I hear nothing for another week, and finally hear, "yea, go ahead and ship to zzzzz, which is the unconfirmed address of the apartment. By now, almost 3 weeks have gone by. I speak with Paypal again today and they sound very understanding. I point out that should I ship now I automatically have 2 strikes against me should something go awry. Shipping to an unconfirmed address AND not shipping within a week. Again, the Paypal fraud abd resolution department tells me that there is some discretion even in this case. They check the account and advise me to go ahead and ship in a day or 2. I'd love to be done with the transaction, and I'd like to have that extra $600 over what I was willing to take. But of course I don't want to lose the item in case of fraud. At this point I still have the item and the funds, which I've left in my Paypal account.
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I understand that with Paypal, things are tilted against the seller in case of disputes. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed.
posted on July 8, 2008 05:29:21 PM new
Are you a powerseller? If so, you should be eligible for expanded seller protection which covers non-confirmed addresses.
posted on July 8, 2008 05:36:40 PM new
There is a possibility your bidder works for this Mexican restaurant and got hold of some customer credit card number and use it online .
Paypal should be able to call the card issuer and ask for the name of the cardholder and his address and phone number,given the clout of Paypal,not just keep telling you to ship the watch and not defend you in case of a chargeback.
BTW if you lose the chargeback,there is a 10 dollars fee .
I used to have my own merchant account and when somone came to my site to buy an item using a credit card (thats before the CVV code was invented),I would call my merchant account provider and ask who is the issuer of his card and then I will call the card issuer and ask if my customer is the owner of the card.
Sometimes they will tell me sometimes not,then I will ask my merchant account provider to call instead,they usually can get an answer from the other party.
In your case,PAYPAL is really your merchant account provider,it should do better than to urge you to ship to a Mexican restaurant.
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Google does not hire stupid people.
posted on July 8, 2008 05:40:42 PM new
If Paypal is telling you to ship in a day or two,may be they have spotted that he has confirmed his address and should show up shortly,why dont you call Paypal back again in a day or two?
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Google does not hire stupid people.
posted on July 8, 2008 05:44:12 PM new
say if you fail to ship within 7 days,say you finally shipped to the Mexican restaurant 12 days later with signature confirmation and DC and he filed chargeback on day 14th before the watch arrived.
Paypal gives us 7 days to respond to his dispute,if it is item not received,you have what 7 days to enter a trackable DC,so by the time he escalated to get Paypal involved,your DC should show he has received and signed for it.
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Google does not hire stupid people.
posted on July 8, 2008 06:14:32 PM new
I appreciate the responses. Let me clarify a point or two.
1. I have no intention of shipping to the mexican restaurant unless at some point in the future the buyer goes to Paypal, makes that his new confirmed address, and re-sends the funds under that address. Then I'd go ahead and ship there, and refund the original payment. I'm not expecting that to happen, considering the laissez-faire attitude of the buyer so far. So if/when I ship it will go the unconfirmed original apartment address provided by Paypal. Shipped registered insured, with sig. confirmation, and restricted delivery(something I've never used, but this guarantees delivery to the addresee only, an extra layer of signed proof including having a postal worker ask for ID.
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2. Paypal hasn't told me to do anything definitely. They've just suggested that I send it when I'm ready. I've been upfront in talking to them about waiting a bit(it has been 3 weeks already), in order to give it some time for the credit card bills and bank statements to get sent to the owner. I've even told Paypal that I was thinking of waiting 30 days, or maybe more, until I ship. And Paypal says that would be ok with them if I decided, and goes further to say that after 45 days there are no disputes allowed to be opened.
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My strategy has been to keep in contact with Paypal, elicit their support, advice, and complicity.........so just in case something does happen I've got a couple of reps who say they'll fight for me. And it's worked, I do.
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The buyer could be the busboy who lives in a dumpy apartment and stole a customer's identity, and paypal account........or he could be the laid back owner of the mexican restaurant who lives in a real nice apartment a mile away. If he's the busboy, I don't want to lose my item to him. If he's the owner, I want to get the buyer his item quickly. He probably wants it as a gift and may cancel the transaction should I wait too long..
[ edited by watchguy on Jul 8, 2008 06:18 PM ]
posted on July 8, 2008 06:33:05 PM new
Also, I am not a powerseller.
And zippity2dah, refunding his money is one option...except that way I lose out on a possible $600 extra profit.
posted on July 8, 2008 07:44:07 PM new
Better to lose the $600 profit, than lose the item and the paypal money. I would send his money back, luck runs out on all of us eventually and we usually get a chargeback. Personally, I would rather that be on a less expensive item. I have had a couple of chargebacks, always wondering when the next one will be. Call me skeptical.
posted on July 8, 2008 09:56:56 PM new
Some have learned the hard way that it is a serious mistake to believe the things that PP reps tell you over the phone before the fact.
I would still refund. If he really wants it, he will repay but then if he really wanted it he would not be jerking you around like this.
posted on July 8, 2008 10:05:32 PM new
I'm with hwahwa. Call the guy at the restaurant and explain directly to him. This all sounds rather scary, but could be on the up and up.
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posted on July 8, 2008 11:35:04 PM new
We just had a similiar thing happen althouh the cost was not high, it was for 6 sets of cups & saucers.
We are in Canada and mailed the parcel to a PAYPAL confirmed address and it was returned to us as 'Address Unknown".
We checked the address and it is a Sushi Restaurant in California and the buyer is a good customer of theirs who is Korean and out of the Country a lot so he has parcels shipped there. The address was correct so no reason why it could not be delivered.
We called Canada Post and have a refund for original shipping coming from them.
We re-mailed and the parcel arrived and we received super feedback and a buyer who wants to keep buying from us!
I think we have been conditioned to expect the worst so I second the motion to call the Restaurant as there could be a similiar situation with your buyer minus of course the fact of the parcel returning.
Maybe PayPal will come out with a new rule that only allows us to mail parcels to our Buyers favourite Restaurants!!!
posted on July 9, 2008 03:19:06 AM new
If you only want to ship to a confirmed address and this buyer doesn't have one then just return his payment and request he either confirm his address or you will not be able to ship him the item.
As of now the buyer can file for none receipt of item and make a Paypal claim and he would win. Too much time has passed and your over the limit for following paypals rules of shipping. To protect your item it is safer to refund his payment and move on. The profit is great but if a problem arises you will be at fault.
If the buyer really wants to complete this auction then he will follow through and confirm his address.
posted on July 9, 2008 05:47:40 AM new
There are many Paypal employees who just join Paypal and dont know what they are talking about.
I cant believe Paypal kept saying there are some discretions on what Paypal would do in your case if you ship to non confirmed address for that kind of money!
All the disputes over 25 dollars when the seller shipped to confirmed address,Paypal refuses to eat the loss,so I cant see Paypal protecting you for a 1200 dollars watch shipped to unconfirmed address?
BTW,seller protection does not cover fraudulent use of credit card ,makes no difference if you ship to confirmed addr or not(read Paypal seller protection policy).
I would just do nothing,dont refund and dont ship,it has been over 3 weeks,the owner of the credit card should be receiving his cc statement soon,if he has not received it already and I would not be surprised a chargeback notice is on the way to Paypal.
If you refund now,you would just muddle the water ,let Paypal take the money away from you if there is a chargeback!
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Google does not hire stupid people.
[ edited by hwahwa on Jul 9, 2008 05:49 AM ]
posted on July 9, 2008 06:50:56 AM new
I would refund the payment and then re bill him stating that you will only ship to a confirmed address. Calling him is also a good idea, but I would do it after the refund.
posted on July 9, 2008 06:58:36 AM new
Dont refund now,if a chargeback is on its way to Paypal,let Paypal takes the money away.
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Google does not hire stupid people.
posted on July 9, 2008 07:42:30 AM new
1) Refund Payment.
2) Send Final Request for Payment using a confirmed address, or if you are a power seller, request that the bidder resend payment due to PP processing issues.
3) If bidder pays using confirmed address, or if you are a powerseller, ship it to the address given IF and only IF Paypal's transaction page tells you it's ok to ship to the address.
4) If it doesn't work out and bidder doesn't pay, just move on.
The biggest problem you are going to have with the current payment is that you waited so long to send the package. This is why you should refund payment and have bidder resend it. That way you are resetting the clock. Also, you may want to insure the package even if the buyer didn't purchase insurance. That way your covered in case the item is damaged/stolen/etc.
posted on July 9, 2008 08:26:37 AM new
Do not trust what reps tell you over the phone, PERIOD. Follow the established policy's. You would already lose based upon the fact you didn't ship within 7 days.
SO
you must refund and try to get repaid. If you are in the expanded seller protection policy, having a confirmed address wouldn't matter. Just follow all the other rules for del. con. and sig. confirmation.
posted on July 9, 2008 09:06:29 AM new
Appreciate all the advice.
I like the thought of calling the restaurant. It's out west so I'll have to wait till later, but I'll give that a shot. I'll update later.
For now, seeing as the buyer is in no rush, and Paypal is in no rush, why should I rush?I'm just going to sit tight and do nothing. Deep down, my gut is telling me that once I hand that package to the post office people, I'm kissing away my item. I'll call back Paypal on Friday or Monday and speak with the last rep that I spoke with. I'm not dealing with the front-line no-nothings. The reps that I've spoken with are in the fraud and resolution departments and they've given me their extensions. Still, in talking to these people, it's not like taking with people at your own merchant account. There, I've had cases where they called the buyer, and we had a 3-way converstaion, and things ran smoothly. With Paypal, you can't be sure what they're doing when they tell me ,"let me check their account". They don't let you know. The last rep was going to send the buyer an e-mail so I'll see if she got any response.
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On the refund, for some reason Paypal has told me to not refund the money so quickly. I don't know why they say this, but it's all notated there, and the funds are sitting in my account. They're available to me, but I'll let them sit. I can see the possibility as hwahwa says of muddying the waters if a refund occurs around the same time as a chargeback.
posted on July 9, 2008 12:39:58 PM new
"Deep down, my gut is telling me that once I hand that package to the post office people, I'm kissing away my item."
that and your money, and then getting charged a $10 chargeback fee if it is a fraudulent payment. go with your gut and cut your loss.
i would listen to the advice of people that suggest refunding the money and then requesting it again. basically, that is what you should do anyways because you state you want to ship it to their confirmed address. i can't imagine a bidder wanting to pay you twice without first getting a refund anyways... would you???
as stated previously, once payment is made, the clock starts ticking all over again. if you ship the item now... or later you are still in violation of Paypal's policies and the bidder could file for a chargeback even if they receive the item. Stick to Paypal's written policies, as you know Paypal will. The only way to beat Paypal on a chargeback is if you follow their rules, dot your i's and cross your t's.
posted on July 9, 2008 01:01:57 PM new
If this buyer has registered with other people credit card,watchguy hit the refund button,WHAT HAPPENS TO THE $1200 DOLLARS?
Does it sit in the buyer Paypal account so he can download it or spend it?dont forget it has been 3 weeks now.
Or does it go back to his credit card?
Say,if this is a stolen credit card,and the owner has found out and cancelled the card,so what happens to the 1200 dollars,where does it go?
Dont refund,it will just creates more work for Paypal.
On Ebay side,how are you going to get your FVF back?
You can try filing NPB and see what his response is?
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Google does not hire stupid people.
posted on July 9, 2008 01:40:45 PM new
"The reps that I've spoken with are in the fraud and resolution departments and they've given me their extensions."
posted on July 9, 2008 02:07:12 PM new
Update as promised.
I just called the mexican restaurant. Asked for the guy, they said he wasn't there right now, but his father was. I asked if Jack was the owner, they said no, that he used to work there. They asked if I wanted to speak with his father again, and I asked if his father was the owner. No, he was the cook.
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I read the advice about refunding. Then asking the buyer to re-send using a confirmed address. First of all, again, Paypal has advised me, for some reason, to not refund. I'm also afraid that should I refund the buyer will never re-send and I'll lose the sale. This is a buyer who sent off 1200, has taken days to respond to e-mails, and doesn't appear to be in a great rush. I know if it was me I'd be quite concerned, but he's apparantly not. In this case the item sold for 1200. It's "worth" dealer to dealer about 250 if you have to sell, or 500 if you have to buy. It normally sells on Ebay for 600-800. So we're talking about a nice sale, with a 600 extra profit. That's a nice thing these days on Ebay and I'm not so quick to throw it away. If we were only talking about a 100 profit, I wouldn't have come this far. Same thing if it was an item that I could replace for 50. It just so happens that it falls into that middleground where the risk/reward ratio is important.
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.As for the chargeback fee, that's relatively minor. I'm not concerned. And hwahwa, I can't file a NPB, because he has paid. The Paypal rep said that she was going to e-mail him. I'll contact her in 2-3 days and see if she's received any response and take it from there. hwahwa also raises a point about what happens to the 1200. I can envision some scenario whereby I refund, the buyer then winds up spending the refund, the chargeback comes through to Paypal, and somebody has to pay that 1200 back, Paypal or me, and that somebody could be me.
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Right now I'm comfortable. I have the money, and I have the item. I can't lose. Hopefully Paypal will get somewhere with this slow responsive buyer
posted on July 9, 2008 04:36:14 PM new
So your man worked in the Mexican restaurant and his father is the cook!
He has not bought a thing on Ebay for 2 years under this ID but saw your watch and did a BIN paying $1200.
And he is not concerned that 3 weeks have past and he has not seen his watch.
May be he has been poisoned by that salmonella laced salsa!
Yes,i suggest watchguy files an unpaid item dispute with Ebay and see if your buyer is still alive?
Dont we have a deadline on filing to get our FVF back?
posted on July 9, 2008 05:11:52 PM new
Well,then Watchguy may end up paying FVF for an item which was never paid for.
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Google does not hire stupid people.
posted on July 9, 2008 05:53:19 PM new
Salmonella laced salsa....LOL.....I got the idea from talking to the gal who answered the phone that the buyer hasn't met a grisly death. But you're right, it's odd. $1200 bid and then relative silence. But haven't we all seen our share of odd behavior on Ebay?
I can not file a NPB. He's paid. And I'm not really concerned about getting back my FVF right now. As I've described, I'd like to see the transaction go through. It's a nice profit, and a real nice extra profit. You're right I think that if I let this play along long enough I may lose the FVF, but that's much better than potentially losing the sale through a dispute, or losing the item or the money through a fraud.
