181lizard
Cave Dweller 
Still lurking :)
Member since December 2005
Posts: 2,171
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Post by 181lizard on Oct 2, 2006 13:41:32 GMT -5
As far as I can tell, the only way to safely purchase items on e-bay is with a credit card. Anything else, & your $$ could be in jeopardy.
There are lots of people that use debit cards & I want to warn them. Use of a debit card for a transaction, is the same as handing over cash. Once the debit is processed, you no longer have a good way of handling a dispute should the item prove bad. (Other than the normal dispute process which e-bay currently has in place...which from the sound of it, sucks!)
If you use a REAL credit card, you always have the option of putting a transaction into dispute. Scenario: You won a slab. You pay for it w/credit card. Your item arrives & it's not the right one. Seller refuses to make it right. You contact your credit card Co. & tell them you are disputing it. They flag it & send you documents to file. They contact Seller & ask them for documents. (which w/a credit card...there aren't any on e-bay!) It's a slam dunk folks!
The new wrinkle I'm not sure about is the new "gift cards" from VISA & Mastercard. I don't have any info on those and their place in society. (although...if someone is not able to get a regular credit card, for whatever reason, I think these might be a good alternative as long as they have the same abilities & safeguards as regular credit card does.) I know some of us don't use credit cards in our everyday life. PLEASE...do not give anyone electronic access to your accounts. Recipe for danger! Your account can be emptied real fast & it could take a long time to get it straightened out.
I use my credit card through Pay-Pal. I would never become verified. I'm just not going to give someone access to my account.
I brought this up because it seems there are alot of transactions that don't go well on e-bay AND because at my place, there have been some debit card things that have upset some customers.
Like:
Debit card is ran for wrong amount. ($100 instead of $10) We void the $100 one & re-run for proper amount. Customer gets copies of all transactions. The bank STILL processes BOTH items, even though we voided one out AND, on top of that crap...bank will put an automatic hold of 20% on BOTH transactions too because it's a debit to a "hospitality industry" establishment. It has taken up to 5 days before some banks get everything ironed out and in the mean time...poor customer is getting bounced all over the place.
Please remember...a debit card is NOT a credit card even though it says VISA - Mastercard. Check with your banks & ask them how situations like I've spoke about will be handled.
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ZackAttack
starting to shine!
Member since January 2007
Posts: 45
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Post by ZackAttack on Oct 2, 2006 14:58:08 GMT -5
I use nothing but pre-paid credit cards online. The ones I use(greendot from wal-greens) have all the safeguards of you REAL credit cards, and I never spend more than I have on hand at the time!! If I don't have the cash to put on the card, I don't bid! ;D
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earthdog
Cave Dweller
Don't eat yellow snow
Member since June 2006
Posts: 2,731
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Post by earthdog on Oct 2, 2006 21:08:08 GMT -5
I use a debit card on ebay with paypal and have not had any problems.
I ordered a Jaguar shirt, the guy sent the wrong kind, I emailed him time after time and for a week and a half, never answered me, untill I went through the paypal dispute center. I stated what was wrong, in that he sent me a short sleeve Jag shirt instead of the long sleeve that I bought and that he never answered my mail. Paypal wrote me and said that if he didn't answer back in 10 days they would refund my money back to my bank account. Well the seller answered the next day, he refunded my money, told me to keep the wrong shirt, and then the next 2 days I also got the right shirt from him.
Paypal will back you up if you go through the right channels.
I have to disagree with you about the credit card thing. Paypal will help you out and back the buyer...
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Post by rockyraccoon on Oct 2, 2006 22:19:24 GMT -5
well i have to agree on the credit card thing. i ordered some kids sunglasses and they never came and never came, nobody would answer my emails.....you know how it goes. so i finally called my credit card company and they issued me a credit. a couple of days later the sunglasses actually showed up. i called the credit card folks back to let them know this and they told me not to worry about it and keep the sunglasses lol. i don't know what happened on the other end but i got free sunglasses on my end.
kim
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Post by ladyt on Oct 3, 2006 6:11:29 GMT -5
I'm with E-dog. I use my debit card and have for years. Paypal is good at helping in disputes. Never had a problem.  Tonja |
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181lizard
Cave Dweller
Still lurking :)
Member since December 2005
Posts: 2,171
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Post by 181lizard on Oct 3, 2006 12:29:32 GMT -5
E-Dog & Tonya, as long as you are dealing with people or businesses that have a concience, you will be allright. Of course e-bay & paypal have a series of steps to go thru when transactions go bad. And if that's good enough for you..then cool! I just know what I've read, heard and dealt with myself and what a nightmare debit cards can be for me in my business.
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Post by gemkoi on Oct 3, 2006 13:02:29 GMT -5
Liz, you do make some very good points. Personally i try to stay away from buying anything on ebay unless i really cant help myself. But that 99.9999% of the time is rocks. The other .0001% is music. But like any place online. You must be able to trust your seller. If you use Paypal, as a seller, there will rarely if ever be a problem in getting your money back do to fraud or a sour deal unless your suspected of being a part of the fraud. Whether you use a debit card or not. Paypal is extremely secure, more so than National banks now using online billpay and similar features.
One thing i would note is shopping in general online. If you ever see those lame full page adds in your local newspaper,"make millions selling on ebay"? well the band wagon the last few years is drop-shipping online. I would never by from a drop shipping online, in person its not big deal because you can walk out the door with your paid product.
However online, drop shippers don't have you product in hand. Some other company does. So when you buy it, the seller places your order and the other company ships your product. And if things were to go sour, then a seller wont respond, or send you to their drop shipper to fix it. This is lame money grubbing practice in which allot of folks are getting into.
I would much rather buy from a drop shipper who has a physical store location. Like the guy i buy CDs from. They have a store in CA, and have just transfered their inventory online. So they have it on hand in most cases and ive never had a problem with them.
But an example, recently my mother wanted to get a larger "nanopod" a Salt water fish tank. She has a 12 gallon and wanted to get a 24 gallon. Found it online through a drop shipper for $189. But the shipping was $50. She asked me about it, and i asked her what they cost at the local fish store they buy their live rock and such at. $230, though they would have to order it. I was like, duh, at least if it showed up broken or what ever, you'll be picking it up in person even if you have to figure gas as part of the cost. So you can take care of the problem right there. Otherwise if the same happened online, who knows who you have to send it to to get a replacement, and how long that would take, or the hassle there in. She ordered it from the local guy, got in last week and set it up. NO problems.
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carolelgin
starting to spend too much on rocks
BlueBelle
Member since October 2005
Posts: 161
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Post by carolelgin on Oct 5, 2006 14:59:22 GMT -5
Wow....I like the prepaid idea. It would be the ONLY way to keep me on my eBay budget. I too use a debit card. Can't hide the Paypal transaction. Bummer. I cringe when I add them up. Yep...prepaid sounds good.
Carol - the spending fool.
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spacegold
has rocks in the head
Member since September 2006
Posts: 732
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Post by spacegold on Oct 5, 2006 23:49:17 GMT -5
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Post by cpdad on Oct 6, 2006 22:31:23 GMT -5
look...i have said this before...and if you want me to proof it i will....the only protection you have as a buyer is with a protected credit card...thats only to save your butt....(buyers)...you can file for a refund...for whatever reason.
i can scam you right now...if you sell on ebay...and nothing you can do about it...even if you ship with delivery confirmation...and every protection you can wanna think about...paypal has no clue...anyone wanna do an experiment?.
i'll be the guinee pig buyer.
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spacegold
has rocks in the head
Member since September 2006
Posts: 732
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Post by spacegold on Oct 7, 2006 1:30:27 GMT -5
It sounds like a foolproof scamming technique in itself. Buy something big on ebay (a Genie?), pay with credit card and then claim you never got it. Put in a claim for backcharge and walk away. Set the Genie up in a crooked friend's basement, and make lots of cabs.
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Post by rhodescabbin on Oct 7, 2006 2:17:07 GMT -5
That happened a couple years ago to a friend that just started selling on Ebay. His rocks were going pretty cheap. I can't recall what the rock was but it was big and he got right at $100.00 from a veteran seller who, at that time, sold on Ebay and still does on the WWW...
A few days after it was shipped my friend gets a notice from paypal that a claim had been filed against him that the buyer claimed he never received the rock, paypal put a hold on $100.00 of his funds.
He had shipped it UPS he checked online and it showed delivered and signed for and he sent all that to paypal And he also called the local UPS in the guys town and asked to speak to the driver, thru a channel of calls he had the driver on the phone and this guy knew the customer/scammer and said Yes he did get the rock package from Oregon.
All this info was sent to paypal and I told him to write the seller and give him one last chance to come clean or file fraud charges. Man that customer/seller made all kinds of threats and basically laughed in my friends face that there wasn't a dang thing he could do about it...It was true, a few days passed and paypal took the money from my friend and refunded it to the dirty seller!!!!!!!!!!! Then get this, he slams my friend with a nasty negative!!!
I am convinced the crooked seller had lost money to paypal that way and was using it on these new sellers.
The big scam now is the $5,000 digital cameras...Thats why spoofs are so prevalent. If they get your password then you get an account takeover and they go to selling $5,000 and $6,000 cameras on buy it nows for $3,500.
I get atleast a dozen spoofs a day and some look so real that I can see how some people are tricked.
Ebay does strive to keep up with the criminals but man its still a gamble for both seller and buyer, moreso the buyer of course but as I just told you about the new seller getting scammed by a veteran seller, just made me sick. I encouraged my friend to go to the police but he let it slide and swore some day their paths will cross. He did file a fraud claim with UPS but I have no idea what came of that.
Like spacegold said, a GENIE, man if you buy something that spendy I advise opening it in front of the UPS driver or someone to verify all is well.
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181lizard
Cave Dweller
Still lurking :)
Member since December 2005
Posts: 2,171
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Post by 181lizard on Oct 7, 2006 13:55:35 GMT -5
That's the type of thing I was talking about!
I listen to AM radio shows as I'm driving back & forth. There must be 3 or 4 consumer type shows at any given time and ALL of them have said basically the same thing. Be CAREFUL when buying AND selling online. Credit cards are MORE risk-free than debit.
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Post by gemkoi on Oct 7, 2006 15:20:18 GMT -5
Cpdad, i think Spacegold made the most important point here. big$$$
anyone that goes the length to scam and rip another off, will not do it for pocket change. If they do that, in the long run they will only lose out in my opinion. And what would the real lose be then?
Besides, you say a seller can rip off a buyer, but your examples plays as a buyer being able to rip off a seller, as Dale notes. So a seller can be ripped off as easy as a buyer. I am confused here. I for one know, through common since never to make a large purchase online. I will never need it, what ever it is, no matter how good a deal it is. Thats just me, and i like to think im a minimalistic kinda guy. Though i know not everyone is. But how is that different from mail order, or buying anything from overseas. Or just sight unseen?
Dale the only one that is talking in resolve here through example. Please if you can show proof, for everyone to see in terms of resolve. Post it.
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Post by rhodescabbin on Oct 7, 2006 16:07:42 GMT -5
To better clarify I will tell you about a personal experience several years ago before the great flat rate boxes.
I sold a $200 chunk of beautiful Purple Biggs on Ebay to a new buyer. I shipped UPS. A few days later I get a paypal claim and a hold on $200.00 with this guy claiming he never got the rock. I tracked it as delivered thru UPS. I was flaming mad. This guy then emails me and said he will settle for nothing less than either a rock of equal or better value or a full refund...I called UPS and got the terminal in his town. They were confused as the address was a big office building and said that they have a mail boy take the packages...So I called the Office and asked to speak to the mail clerk. I told him I was calling to see if a heavy box made it there ok to a _________ ________ (name excluded.)..He confirmed that yes he toted that heavy thing all the way up to his office. I then called the police and explained things to them. They said it is fraud but that UPS actually has detectives that investigate these types of things. So I called UPS and that afternoon this guy had a UPS investigator knocking on his door with the mail boy and a police officer just in case...
Needless to say he was shocked and as the UPS guy explained the guy claimed he had just found the package under his desk and was getting ready to write me. The Police officer said (Great, problem solved) the UPS investigator wasn't so easy. He asked the fella if he remembered the mail boy delivering the package??? After a couple of pauses and head scratching he said (Come to think of it ya I do recall a heavy box.)
Then the Investigator explained the types of criminal charges involved if one was to pursue them and thanked him for clearing things up.
The claim against me was dropped and I never heard from that guy again.
You see without (Signature, return receipt) it can be very difficult to prove a package indeed made it to the buyer. I have about 6,000 transactions and this has only happened a couple times. Most of the time on missing packages the box is stolen at sorting centers, or busted open. One case involved the arrest of a postal worker caught trying to sneak out of the Seattle sorting center with some Labradorite I had shipped. Thats when I dropped (And Gems) off my name as the sender...
So the number of scammers are way low but to me it has been claiming the package never arrived. Most of the time it is legit but sometimes it is someone trying to make an easy score thinking the seller will just automatically send another rock. If I smell something fishy I follow thru, as with this guy, the office building, mail boy, I knew I was being lied to...
But yes there are people like him stupid enough to pull a stunt like that thinking they can easily get 2 rocks for the price of one...But they are very very rare.
In both instances reports were filed to Ebay for the record...
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Post by gemkoi on Oct 7, 2006 17:19:50 GMT -5
It is amazming what folks will go through, thanks for posting that Dale. I totally understand that perspective. But the thread is about "buyer" rights, not sellers. And as a seller, though ive never had it happen to me in the 7 years ive been doing it, i know it has happen in many venues as to "buyers" ripping sellers off, as this buyer tried to rip you off. my confusions is around what Cpdad stated as a seller ripping a buyer off. IN which the buyers only recorse can be preventive by paying for siad transaction us a secured CC only. And that compaines like paypal does not protect the buyer?
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riverbendlapidary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2006
Posts: 1,058
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Post by riverbendlapidary on Oct 7, 2006 17:20:23 GMT -5
You did the right thing.
It is sad that stuff like this happens. I guess I have been pretty lucky selling on ebay. I have had several people claim that a slab was missing or something wasn't right. I always make things right with them but if I am dealing with a high dollar item and paypal, I insist on insurance and verified address, etc.
I think in general, people who are into rocks are honest are are not gonna play games. Best advice I can give is to listen to the little voice in your head (wether you are buying or selling). check feedback, ask questions and if something doesn't seem right, be careful. There are a good number of guys selling rocks on ebay who have been doing it for along time. They have auctions up all the time and have excellent feedback. Find one or a couple you like and you'll probably wind up doing some good friendly business for along time.
I would say 99.9% of all my ebay transactions (buying and selling) have been great and I am very happy to be able to do business on ebay. I have learned so much and met some great friends on ebay and I plan on doing business there for a long time ('till I win the lottery or something)!
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spacegold
has rocks in the head
Member since September 2006
Posts: 732
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Post by spacegold on Oct 7, 2006 19:15:33 GMT -5
Good for you, rhodes. What you did took some work and could have met a stone wall at a couple of points, but you worked and lucked through to the final tick. That is probably an insurmountable barrier to a majority of people, and that is what your guy was counting on. The point is that Paypal and credit cards put a totally unfair burden of proof on the seller. When I sell on ebay, I accept only certified payments, personal checks which delay shipment for two weeks, or cash. I have never been scammed by a buyer.
From the buyer's point of view, credit cards are pretty safe, but there is a 60-day limit on complaints on most. They do limit the buyer's choices to those sellers who are willing to run the risk of scam.
I have bought four vehicles via ebay. In one case, the seller was a shady dealer who sold the vehicle to someone else for more money before I could get to it. He refunded my $250 VISA deposit and I got him kicked off ebay. In the other three cases, the transaction went off without a hitch, with one seller even storing the vehicle for five months for me before I could arrange pickup. I realized the risks involved and chose to accept them because I wanted the items. I would have gritted a lot of enamel off my teeth if they had gone bad. In the latter cases, the sellers had exceptional feedback, and I corresponded with them enough before the bids, with my huckster sensors at full tune, to gain a little confidence before putting in a bid. There is no question but that ebay is a risky venue, but experience with about 500 transactions convinces me that 98% of the dollars I have spent have brought home a good item or a reasonable adjustment.
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riverbendlapidary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2006
Posts: 1,058
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Post by riverbendlapidary on Oct 7, 2006 20:00:37 GMT -5
sounds like these scammers would be good candidates for a length of 3/4" rope and a stiff oak branch....
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Post by cpdad on Oct 7, 2006 20:31:10 GMT -5
spacegold...you see..you are honest but you could scam anyone you wanted to...you only accept non credit card funds....just how the scams are being played out on ebay now....you prove lizards point about covered credit cards being someones only safe alternative.
if i bought an auction from you....and it never arrived...or it was different from what was listed...i would have no recourse...you got my funds...im stuck with what you sent...all i could is hope for ebay buyer protection...which has a 25 dollar deductible i think.
this why a covered credit card is the safe way...and only way to buy on ebay.
of course you wouldnt scam anyone...but it would be so easy to do it....the scams are growing buy the minute.
i am going to delete my earlier post in a few minutes....its well known how to do it all....but no reason for it to be here
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