A Little Story, It's about PayPal & Ebay

This is a copy of a topic I started on the MSFN forums last year... enjoy!

In the morning of Friday the 8 of July 2005, I used the BUY NOW option on eBay for 2 identical Item No. 5217189323 & 5217163850 (New Dell 24" LCD Ultrasharp Flat Panel Monitor 2405FPW).

The BUY NOW option requested immediate payment and I fully paid the amount of 981.77$ CAD (778,99S USD for each monitors) using PayPal.

In the morning of July 10 (Sunday), I received 2 emails from eBay concerning the 2 items:

Dear Incroyable HULK,

The following is a notice from eBay Trust & Safety regarding:

Item Number - 5217163850
Item Title - New Dell 24" LCD Ultrasharp Flat Panel Monitor 2405FPW

Our records show that you placed a bid on this item. We removed this item from
the Site and cancelled your bid because it appears that the seller's account has
been compromised and used by an unauthorized third party. The seller's
privileges to trade on eBay may be temporarily suspended while we investigate
this matter further. Due to privacy concerns we will not be able to share
further details related to this seller.

If someone claiming to be the seller asks you to complete a transaction outside
of eBay, we strongly recommend that you ignore the request. Transactions for
items listed on eBay that are completed outside of the eBay marketplace are not
covered by the Buyer Protection services offered by eBay and can be highly
indicative of fraud.

If you have already paid, you may wish to pursue recuperating your funds. Some
steps you might take include:

1. Ask the seller for a refund
2. If you paid by check, ask your bank to stop payment
3. If you paid by credit card, contact your credit card company’s security
department
4. If you have made a payment by money order or wire transfer, you may contact
that company for further information at 1-800-325-6000 (Western Union), or at
1-800-926-9400 (Money Gram)
5. If you paid with PayPal, review the Buyer Complaint Process at:

/csg/p?www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/protections-buyer-outside

There are many tips on how to protect yourself with any Internet transaction in
the eBay Security & Resolution Center located at:

www.ebay.com/securitycenter

Our goal is to ensure that your eBay experience is safe so that you can buy
confidently. It is rare that something goes wrong with a transaction on eBay,
but we're here to help you protect yourself in the event it does. If you have
additional questions, please send us an email using the "Contact Us" link found
on eBay Help pages. Do not respond to this email, as your reply will not be
received.

Regards,
Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay Inc

Since I didn't get any information from the seller, I sent him 3 emails asking for information about this matter to the address I had: jaimemag@hotmail.com & sihatchturbo@hotmail.com (eBay account = drtransexpert) ...but I didn't get any reply.

I went thru the PayPal process to fill a claim and I had to wait 10 days (without knowing if I would even have a chance of recovering my money) to finally win the dispute (because the guy never answered)

I got a refund of 885,65$ CAD for each monitor (748,31$ USD) so I am still missing 192.24$ CAD. Why?

Speaking with 5 PayPal representatives over the phone, I got a foggy picture.

First, there is a 2.5% charge for the conversion (both way, payment & refund) from USD and CAD for every transaction. Of course, they cannot give you this money back because they want to keep their bank manager happy...

Ok then where is the missing 60$ left?

They tell me that they weren't able to recover the full 778,99$ USD amount. BUT how come I got 748,31$ twice? If this was true, I would have expected that the first refund would have been fully recovered and the second would be missing money... You see, both claims were done apart and there was at least a 24 hours delay between my two request.

I finally understood that 748,31$ is the amount they GAVE to the seller so the 2 x 30$ missing here is their profit. They keep telling me that they will issue a refund when the seller has money in his account but we all know this will never happen. *EDIT: and it still hasn't*

Some thing to remember:
1- You cannot cancel a PayPal transaction on your credit card. That's right.
2- You won't get any information thru the whole process. You don't even know if there is still money in the account of the seller to fulfill the claim.
3- PayPal doesn't want to pay for their mistake (neither admit it)

Ever wonder why Ebay and PayPal are F*&?ing rich company?

The bottom line is that I can't believe there is no investigation from the government relating to eBay and Paypal. They do whatever they want, sole judge, jury and advocate and you don't have any rights. They won't tell anything unless you open a case with your local police Dept.

I Truly hate them.