I was actually the buyer recently in a transaction and it just showed me how easy it is to fleece a seller on feebay. Basically I bought some Philharmonics from Germany for about $700. Anyway, 2 months go by, no coins. Email the seller - where's my coins? Get a reply, sent 7 weeks ago. After another week I figured this is a bit fishy and filled out a chargeback with my credit card company. Didn't even bother with mucking around with PayPal's resolution process. Anyway, the seller goes to PayPal and starts a resolution process which I ignore. About a month later (now some 3 months after my order) a box arrives in the post from Germany which I sign for - ah, my package? Open it up, and yup she's empty! And I'm pretty sure its from the place I ordered the coins. To cut a long story short, even though I signed for the box and PayPal + my credit card company know I signed for it because the seller gave them a copy of the receipted delivery, because I said the parcel was empty, my credit card company takes my side and the seller got shafted. PayPal took the sellers side and booted me off PayPal unless I cough up $700. Seems to me one can order a few kilos of silver via ebay for say $3,000 and pay with your credit card. Then sign for the package and send a chargeback from to your credit card company claiming your were dudded and the box was empty or you got fakes or some such story and they will take your side and reverse the charge so you get to keep the silver at no cost. Looking through PayPal they say under the chargeback section of their website words to the effect of "losses from chargebacks from credit card companies are a cost that most sellers factor into their prices when selling items". In other words, expect to get fleeced from time to time! Makes me VERY hesitant about selling anything of much worth (say over a couple of hundred dollars) using creditcards/PayPal as payment. I've always paid for my items off feebay using my credit card as in this case it gives you another level of buyer protection against fraudulent sellers but it also also allows fraudulent buyers to rip off sellers pretty easily.
That could catch by storm unless they do something about it. but what Risk are you exposed to if you have used PayPal as method of payments, if your account is credited with funds thru paypal, how can the buyer reneg/cancel/withdraw that payment that has processed into your paypal account?
If you have accepted a credit card payment of say $1,000 from a buyer, that money goes into your PayPal account. If the buyer then does a chargeback, PayPal will take this $1,000 back out of your account. The only way to avoid this is to keep your seller PayPal account at $0, this way there is nothing they can take out. I dont know if PayPal then has a right to take money out of your linked bank account. But what can happen if you are selling a few items is, a few days or so after you sell your $1,000 item and you take the cash out, you are selling other items which means more money goes into your PayPal account, PayPal can then take that money from your account because you in effect "owe" PayPal $1,000 from the first reneged transaction. ie. Once the chargeback of say $1,000 happens, any other money that goes into your PayPal account they will take out until the $1,000 is paid to PayPal !!!
The problem is there is no way you cant make a distinction between a credit card payment through paypal, and a payment that is from a linked bank account.
My understanding is that if you accept PayPal as a means of payment, then if the buyer chooses to fund their account with a credit card (which you dont know they do as they could use a normal bank account) then YOU are accepting the terms of the credit card companies which allow for chargebacks. I dont think you can just accept PayPal if it is funded from a bank account. If you want to use PayPal then you are accepting credit card payments and hence open yourself up to chargebacks and loss of funds - even if PayPal agree that you (the seller) are in the right.
Paypal, although I dont really like it... its more secure than any other transfer ie. western union or even bank transfer. I know half of it is marketing but the buyer protection is a big seller for me. I guess any international transaction under any form of payment has a higher level of risk involved. Although I was taken on ebay for just under $200 a few years ago.... she lived only 20 mins from me. Not sure if she realised I was that close but she took thousands over a 2 week period from many others and is now hopefully in jail. At the end of the day, its not ideal but Paypal offers less risk than other systems and as a result they charge crazy fees....
How do you initiated a charge-back? I bought something worth $600 that never showed, was overseas at the time of 55 day dispute date and can't do anything via paypal. Was told by seller would send tracking number after i paid but never got that either
True but if you choose to fleece a seller who is even in Australia, what are they going to do about it? Go to the Police and say "yes officer I really did sent that 3kg of silver to Mr Smith". And the Police, even if its the same state or whatever, go to you and say "did you receive 3kgs of silver and not pay?". You say "I received from the seller a box with 3kgs of rocks in it, they are con-men, you should charge them with fraud". Who is to be believed??? Simply, it will go no-where and I get my 3kgs of silver or whatever came in the box free. Seller dudded. Sad but its pretty easy to do if you're so inclined.
Call you credit card company and ask to do a chargeback. You will just need to fill out a form but its pretty simple. Usually you have 90 days from the date of purchase on a credit card to initiate a chargeback so get onto it ! At the end of the day, a credit card company is likely to believe YOU because YOU are their customer who they want to keep. If its a matter of believing YOU or some guy in Germany or wherever who is not their customer then, its pretty likely they are going to side with the person who earns them hundreds of dollars a year in fat fees.
CC Chargebacks & PayPal have been a real risk for years now. Thankfully after 100s of transactions i have never had one! Another scam you need to look out for is payment through paypal and then pickup in person. Buyer pays through PayPal picks up in person then reverses the transation once they get home, seller is left without goods and money. I know someone who lost a PS3 this way a few years ago now. Another tip, as a seller ALWAYS use registered post, proof of delivery is required if there is ever a PayPal dispute.
As a buyer you can get shafted with PayPal too. You could order a laptop and seller sends you a box with 2 bricks. As long as the seller has a tracking number PayPal will generally favour the seller in the dispute. Also AFAIK once you raise a dispute for item not recieved for example, you cannot then raise another dispute for item not as described. The only way to get around this is to pay through CC on PayPal. PayPal doesnt like this so they always have bank transfer as the default payment method.
Maybe I'm lucky, but in my experience, this is not the case. I bought some coins from a seller in Sydney, his feedback was approx 100. The registered envelope came, which i signed for, but there was nothing in the envelope. Filed a dispute with paypal, 'goods not as described'. I had my money back approx 2 weeks later.
It can go either way, as a seller i have had people file disputes and won the disputes. As a buyer i have also won disputes. Generally if the seller does not respond to the dispute within the given time (2 weeks or so from memory) the buyer automatically wins the dispute. Also, if it was registered post insured to the full value you can put a claim in to AusPost that the goods were lost/stolen in transit.
Yep, buy a 1kg silver bar for $1,000. Receive it in the post and sign for it. Then do a chargeback saying a 1kg brick was in the parcel. Who's to be believed? Usually the credit card company will favour their client, the buyer and the seller gets shafted.
Exactly. Make sure if you are going to do a CC chargeback you dont have your bank account linked to your PayPal account, otherwise PayPal will just try to pull the outstanding amount out of your bank account. Lots of people have a seperate bank account linked purely for PayPal, where they never have ANY money stored for this exact reason.
I am happy to provide a free escrow service for Sydney silver stackers who trade on this forum; as long as they are happy to pick up at our regular weekly meet.
Have a similar story regarding fake coins. I purchased some Silver Pandas from China using Paypal with about 800 sales 100% feedback. Excellent fakes if there's such a thing, they eventually turned out to be copies. I opened a dispute with Paypal and they sided completely with the seller explaining it was an issue of quality and that they couldn't intervene. If I was prepared to send the coins back registered post they would happily offer me a full refund less postage. I got a quote for postage which worked out around $60 & thought well I could get burned again, it's not worth the risk. The Chinese are absolute rogue's when it comes to counterfeiting.
