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My Own Tale of PP Hell
 

Hi All

A dishonest eB buyer killed my PP account and stalled my business.

I have 3 retail websites and 1 wholesale site. I've been working on them for almost 2 years and one of the retail sites was finally getting some traction. I was running a few small PPC campaigns, generating sales, getting some repeat customers. Wonderful, right? All that hard work paying off. Now a bad eB sale has killed my PP account and I had to take my sites down. They’re going to be offline until I can get a PP account JUST for my websites, and hopefully the eBook and this forum will help me get my sites back online ASAP.

So what happened to me? I only sell stuff on eBay from time to time. Not a lot, just every so often I’ll have a selling spurt. 10 years and close to 200 positive feedback. Then I sold a 25 year old vintage blender on eB about a month ago. A popular brand that generally goes for around $200 used. Mine was still in its original box, never been used. Pristine condition. Even had the 1985 postmark from when the manufacturer shipped it! The only time it had been out of the box was when I took the pictures. Never used, never turned on, and I said so in the auction. I also marked the auction No Returns.

The buyer bid it up to $300 (!!). Amazing. First communication from her was that she didn’t want to pay $30 shipping (flat rate, stated in the auction). The freaking thing weighs almost 20 lbs, I said the shipping stands. So she paid. I shipped. Once the tracking showed the blender delivered I took her money out of PP, so all that was in the PP account was my web revenues. I use a drop ship company so when I get an order I spend 50-80% of the take fulfilling their order, so there’s a constant flux.

Next communication was that she was “very disappointed: there was a dead bug in the box! What are you going to do about it?”. ??? She wanted a partial refund for A DEAD BUG. Next communication was “the smoothies aren’t smooth enough”. WTF??? I told her to contact the manufacturer or take it to a repair shop and have the motor greased. The company is still in business, still cranking them out, still in the USA. And the blender had been sitting still for TWENTY-FIVE YEARS and had NEVER EVEN BEEN PLUGGED IN. As the auction stated. Got more complaining emails, then she started whining about home-schooling 6 kids and needing a partial refund. My first thought was, “why is someone with 6 kids buying a $300 blender you idiot??”. What if I had TEN kids? And home-schooled FOURTEEN foster children? I told her she didn’t have to bid, the terms were clearly stated, and it isn’t fair to the losing bidders if she got money back. IMHO, if it was worth $200, then someone who bid $200 should have won it. Seems to me that she planned to out-bid everyone else, then squeeze and threaten me after the fact to get her cash back.

SO, 3 weeks after the auction she filed a “Substantially Not As Described” complaint in eB and PP and requested a full refund. PP swiped $340 from my account immediately, wiping out payments from my website so I couldn’t process my dropship orders and get the products out to my web customers. Now I’m negative $$$ and I had to take down my websites to stop them from feeding into PP.

The orders that came in the day of the freeze were sucked up by the negative balance. It was really, really horrible: I was at work, decided to check my email before I went home. Right in a row: 3 New order emails (YAY! Woo hoo!) PP complaint email (WTF??), PP negative balance email (Oh C**P!). I almost shat. Once I realized I wasn’t dreaming and this wasn’t going to be cleared up anytime soon, I covered the DS charges out of my own pocket ($200+!!) and took down my sites. PP was my only payment method, I only have 1 PP account. I’m screwed.

Initially I was just concerned about my eB account: the blender was exactly as I described and I didn’t want to risk a bad eB reputation. The eB rep checked my auction text and pics, agreed with me, cancelled her complaint and negative feedback, made a notation saying that the auction was honest. Fine. Then I called PP. They said “F*** You”. I offered to forward the emails where she tried to get me to send her money right from the start. Didn’t want to pay shipping. Wanted money for the bug. Wanted money for smoothies having lumps. Obviously, this “Not as Described” complaint was spurious. She’d used the thing for 3 freaking weeks!

And my auction said “NO RETURNS”!!! PP said I can mark the auctions however I want, if someone uses PP they can return anything and I have to refund them. The fact that eB says her claim is unsubstantiated means nothing to PP. They act like 2 separate companies and I think it’s illegal. If I choose “No returns” under auction conditions, if I also choose “Accept PP” there should be a flag that the two are not compatible. They have all kinds of can’t-pick-this-and-that, but PP and no returns is fine, until they force you to refund and accept a return.

I closed the bank account connected to PP. No way am I giving back one red cent to that cow. If PP says she gets a refund, let THEM give it to her. I want a PP account just for my websites, a new eB account, new mailing address and phone. I’m walking away from 10 years of history on my old account, and I say good riddance! They’ll never get me again. I closed the bank account yesterday, opened a new one and my bank printed my new ATM card there and then. By tomorrow the CC# will be active, and I can start working through the steps in the book.

yeah that sucks.. just how it is with paypal. I lost a 10 year account in a very similar way. Had sent out probably $30,000 with it brought in over $500,000 over the course of the life of the account. but they chose a new buyers account over mine.

well on a positive note when the buyer sends back the blender to get the refund you can resell it and get your lost 200 back :p

Maybe she would have been happier to find live bug instead of a dead one? And maybe some of them ended in her smoothies, hence the lumps? yuck....

Anyway, was it really worth it to you to give up on 10 year old accounts with Ebay/PP for little over $300 worth? Why don't you add Google Checkout or another Merchant to your Websites and just take down PP payment option for the time being or open new Stealth PayPal and replace old PP with New PP info? This way you did not cut your chances for new sales....In the meantime, you can still work on resolving the problem with PP (hey, Ebay sided with you, right?) and request your item back. If she doesn't send it back, than you file counterclaim with PayPal, so let the money fly out of her account again.

Thanks for the advice, Lyda! I'm getting onto alternate payment methods as soon as possible. But I just got the book a few days ago! I need to make sure of my steps, get it done right so I'm protected.

Google Checkout is kind of hinky with my cart system. I really don't like the way it integrates, too much info is left at Google instead of in my admin so I'd have to login to Google to see some order details. Also, my site sells adult novelties and Google is really nasty to adult businesses. Their spider could see a word they don't like and cancel my account on a moment's notice.

And I will get the stealth PP account as soon as I figure out the steps I need to take! I need my new cards to be active to buy dialup service, etc. I'm also probably going to do a merchant gateway of some kind, I'm looking into the ones listed in the book. Filing the DBA papers is a pain, tho: I live in a rural area, prob 2 hours from the county seat to my office so I'll have to skip a good part of a workday to file the papers so that won't happen immediately.

And yes, $300 is enough for me to give up that account. I absolutely can not afford to drop $300 for no reason. My last oil bill was $1200 ! (I know, whine, whine :violin: ) I'd rather give that $300 to the oil or electric company than to a scammer.

Also, I'm :mad:. I've left out a LOT of the PP responses and her emails. Among other complaints, she said that milk didn't get "very frothy". If PP had told me to refund half I would grumbled and done it, chalked it up to the price of doing business. At least it would have shown that they were trying to accommodate both sides. But no. Refund 100% to a cheat? Never. I need a new account, and hopefully the book will help me do that. I'm just beyond thrilled that I found the eBook (and this forum!).

PP says the fact that the SNAD is not the case is "immaterial". The PP rep said that eB's opinion means nothing, her extortion emails mean nothing. All that matters is that after 3 weeks she doesn't want it anymore. So I get back a used blender if she does indeed send it.

Well, little confused now..are you selling kitchen blenders on the same website with adult material? or, that was auction only, drop ship too...hmmmmm.

I say, read how to open Stealth everything and start new...

HA! Wouldn't that be a kick. Somehow I don't think blenders really fit in with my main products . . .

My own websites carry adult novelties and clothes and lingerie and massage items and romantic games etc.

The blender was a one-time thing. Was going through some of my father's stuff that was sent to my house. Found the blender. He ordered it 25 years ago and never even took it out of the box. I didn't want it. I put it on eBay.

I think this should be moved to the http://www.aspkin.com/forums/ebay-pa...orror-stories/ section.

I'm pretty sure everyone who sells on ebay has experienced a buyer that is a bad apple of the bunch. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Sorry to here you got the short end of the stick. That is the reality of Ebay and Paypal.

BooMer