WARNING: Buying gear online, please be aware!!!

[alo100]

Yes, but you can type in almost any business in the world and somebody has has a bad experience with them and created a www.?????sucks.com. I am not saying that things like this happen, but when you consider how many 10s of thousands of people do business through ebay and paypal everyday then the problem is a little more in perspective. Let's see, over 100,000 transactions a day around the which comes out to over 3 million transactions a month and if there are even 10,000 complaints a month then you still have a 99.97% customer satisfaction. That type of customer satisfaction great in any business.

I do understand you had problems with a seller. Thank you loads for letting us all know about him/her. The problem is with him, not ebay or paypal. The seller taking advantage of the system is the problem on all counts. Ebay and Paypal are the leaders (ebay actually owns paypal for those of you that didn't know) in the industry and the models for online auctions that everybody follows. Their rules have been created to protect themselves as much as possible given that they literally millions of transactions take cross across them. They did not create their rules for anyother reason than to protect themselves.

I don't work for either storefront but have done thousands of $$s of business as both seller and buyer without every as much as a hiccup. I know a few people that have had problems with them but that is the exception. As a business goes there are far more satisfied customers and dissatisfied ones. I say their probably doing pretty good. I just think that focus should be kept on the guilty one, the seller. Remember it is not the gun company that came to the guys house and gave him the gun and told him to go kill all the kids in his school.

Step down off my soapbox.
It is the person (in this case the seller you dealt with) that makes the choice not the institution. And I have never heard any case of either Ebay or Paypal purposely holding fake auctions or anything else the like to purposely cheat people.

I am still going through the steps, what I can see is, eBay said, Paypal is a prefered way (next time when you do shopping at eBay you will see the stmt when you paid), then when I fill out the form online, they are going the check if I did it through Paypal, as long as I paid through Paypal, the case would switch to their (Paypal) side. Then 2 steps further down the road, you'll see that Paypal has determained that their own refund policy. Look, when I try to buy something, I want the product, if there is anything bad happening, like this situation, there is no reason why I should deserve a policy which is unfair. If you can see that what Paypal is offering -- they are taking a role of a credit card company, so, they should have protection equals to what a credit card company is offering. I have brought an item with a seller 3 yrs back, although I don't do online shopping all the time (I want to have service, see the item and look at the real thing etc.), but this is when I failed to get what I want I begin to know what's the deal.
I talked to a consultant, Paypal will feedback to eBay for the seller's credit, but in this way, eBay can off load their duty -- they don't need to deal with credit card companies because Paypal is doing the job. I am not saying that they are doing on purpose, but if the system is not done fairly, buying through it is risky.

 

[alo100]

Thanks for the defense. I am the seller and I think that the packages may have gotten mis labled at the shipping center by the girls putting the shipping tickets on them as the boxes were marked with whom they should go to in black marker, so we knew exactly which went where. Now hopefully if that is the case the guy who paid $100 for a couple of wreck reels (not balls of twine) will be honest enough to return the $$800 mask. Thanks again

Please contact Paypal and eBay, they are instructing me to elevate the process.
As a customer, I am now given a deadline to follow the procedure.
I am not responding to the feedback just to make sure that it will be fair to you as well.

Looking forward to post a good ending here...

p.s. Please do not get me wrong, frankly, this is a friendly reminder.
I appreciate your efficiency on the issue.

 

[*Floater*]

What does "As is" really mean ? Does it mean if you bid and win (and pay) it's yours period ?

"As is" means you get what's in the picture of the item and nothing else. Usually it means that something is missing, like a manual for the item or something else.

Do you just take a deep breath and live with it ? Do you leave bad feedback to the seller who does not respond to your emails ? Do you turn around and put the same item back up for bid yourself (hot potatoe) ?

If the describtion was inaccurate then you should request a refund or ask to return the item. If it's a piece of crap, but was not misrepresented by the seller (i.e. seller said s/he didn't know if it worked or something like that), then you just have to take the loss, and you shouldn't leave a negative review (maybe neutral if the seller doesn't repond to emails).

If the seller mislead and doesn't respond to complaint emails, then leave negative feedback.

You can try to sell the item again, but you should include an accurate describtion. If there's something wrong with the item, then just say so and don't expect to get much for it. If the item is completely worthless then throw it away.

 

[cowdog77]

Thru a Paypal/Ebay goof up I was a victim of identity theft...ended up having to close down my bank account and cancelled my Paypal account. It was a real mess....very time consuming, stressful. I came out ok but it could have been really bad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paypal does have a multitide of issues and one is well advised to take heed of them before doing a large amount of business with them. It *is* dangerous.

However, this thread should probably be tited "WARNING: Buying anything on eBay, please be aware!!!" since it applies to anything bought on eBay, not "gear" bought "online"

 

[ScubaSarus]

I sold a Biology book on ebay once. After the auction ended the buyer email mailed crying he or she could not afford the shipping and would I lower my price. So I did being a nice guy.

 

[ChrisA]

Also please keep us informed on how you make out. This is also mail fraud possibly.

Sounds like nothing went through the US mail. But even if it did it wouldn't help. I tried going through the US post office to get a seler once. I finally got a letter back that said in effect "we don't care about people getting ripped off for only a few hundred bucks. We only have enough staff to go after the big guys" I should have framed that letter it's basically a license to commit mail fraud as long as you don't get to greedy. I think a lot of people know this and keep thier scams below the wire.

Paypal and Ebay know who pays the bills. It's selers and they are setup so as to be attactive to sellers. I'll bet if Ebay kicked all the scammer out they'd loose 15% of thier income. There are a lot of pawn shops that mis-represent them selves are privat parties and grossly inflatethe quality of there offerings

 

[alo100]

I am the seller and was just made aware that there was a problem by the buyer filing a compaint with ebay, he had not contacted me. I in turn, after being alerted by someone that read this post on ebay was made aware. I just shipped another Mantis mask to another buyer recently and he left good feedback and recieved the mask just fine, check my feedback report on ebay. I am researching this dispute to make sure its valid and will be contacting DHL to make sure the package was indeed delivered.

I think what might have happened is that another person who ordered 2 270ft wreck reels got the wrong tag on it at the shipping center, so someone else who should have gotten the reels, which are not balls of twine but black and yellow dive reels, but instead received the Mantis mask instead. I am contacting the other person to see if that was indeed the case. I ask the buyer to please contact me directly about any errors so that I may address them before posting nastygrams all over the internet. I assure you that we will get to the bottom of this and resolve the situation. If you did recieive the reels then you will need to ship them back to us, and we will get you another mantis out to you or provide you a refund. Thanks, and I will let you all know how this pans out.

If anyone of you know midwestscubadiver, please tell him to contact Paypal promptly.
The issue is, whatever being said here: full refund (and I can return the reel) is not communicated to Paypal, so, eBay and Paypal are related but they do not share the same data base. Whatever being mentioned in eBay (full refund) is not known by Paypal. Paypal is still assuming that the seller is not agreeing with the buyer that there is a mismatch (swap). This is not a job for anybody here to help out the communication, I know, but I am just hoping his friends will tell him also: I left a message to "midwestscubadiver" already (v-mail). It is important for him to tell Paypal directly (I cannot represent him by quoting what he said here and what he said in eBay) by Monday (*). This is very important for the progress as well as for his feedback rating. Guys, esp. those who know him, please tell him. Appreciate your help!

 

[midwestscubadiver]

If anyone of you know midwestscubadiver, please tell him to contact Paypal promptly.
The issue is, whatever being said here: full refund (and I can return the reel) is not communicated to Paypal, so, eBay and Paypal are related but they do not share the same data base. Whatever being mentioned in eBay (full refund) is not known by Paypal. Paypal is still assuming that the seller is not agreeing with the buyer that there is a mismatch (swap). This is not a job for anybody here to help out the communication, I know, but I am just hoping his friends will tell him also: I left a message to "midwestscubadiver" already (v-mail). It is important for him to tell Paypal directly (I cannot represent him by quoting what he said here and what he said in eBay) by Monday (*). This is very important for the progress as well as for his feedback rating. Guys, esp. those who know him, please tell him. Appreciate your help!

Albert,

I emailed you 2 days ago and apparently you just replied today, I was at work all day and am now seeing that you replied. If you wish to contact me I have replied to every email you have sent, but you still have not provided your phone number, you have mine and called this evening but didn't leave yours. Albert, GIVE ME A CHANCE TO SEE YOUR EMAIL SO THAT I AN REPLY TO IT BEFORE POSTING TO THIS BOARD PLEASE.. As I stated in the email that I sent you, according to the Pay Pal dispute that you opened and that froze my pay pal account by decucting the transaction amount out of it, Pay Pal is awaiting action from YOU. The status specifically says "Waiting for Buyers Response." That Buyer would be you. I have offered the refund through Pay Pal and addressed that via the dispute you opened, so therefore when I open the dispute it does not give me an option to react as it states it is awaiting for you to take action. I am on hold with Pay Pal now via phone and will talk to them about getting the funds restored to the account so I can get you your refund. But please, give me your phone number and let me get home from work to address any emails you have sent me BEFORE posting to this BOARD, common sense. Okay, I just confirmed with them on the phone that THEY ARE WAITING FOR YOU to send the item back to me. Once I have it then they will verify with me that I do have it and refund your money to you. Sorry everyone for boring you with the details of this A & B transaction, but hopefully you can all learn from this experience and see how Pay Pal deals with these matters. Albert, I will contact you directly just as I have throughout this ordeal, please pay me the same courtesy. Thanks
MidwestScubaDiver

 

[Mr. Brown/Scuba]

As a whole I have always thought divers were a somewhat of a smart group.
When are we going to learn that buying dive gear over the net is a risky business...
Your buying gear from a company that cares about only one thing.....
"It's all about the money"

Find a good dive shop and stick with them.....

 

[cummings66]

In this case it's hard to say what's going on, but from appearances I'd say that alo100 is not familiar with how ebay works. I'm guessing that based on his rapid posting here of his problem before he even talked to the guy to see what was up.

I think that buying over the net is not that risky if you do your research, my LDS sells things over ebay and it's very safe to buy from him that way. In this case I'd say the seller is above board and doing what he can given the situation.