Bartertown.com

I recently had an issue arise with paypal and a buyer. They buyer thankfully has nothing to do with BT but I wanted to run this by people here since this has the chance of happening.

I had an auction for a broken dyson vacuum cleaner that worked for the attachment only not the brush. I had at least 10 photos showing external problems and I listed it "as is for parts." Someone messaged me and told me that they would like to use it for a college experiment and couldn't afford the price I listed it at. Having been in school I felt for this person and decided to do it. I sent the 27 lbs vacuum via Fedex. 47 days later I have an escalated claim on my paypal. The buyer never communicated with me after the sale date. The claims he listed are external and interior damage and that he received a pile of plastic rather than the parts for his dyson that he needed.

So now I have sent paypal his messages about the college experiment not just to me but to another person that he messaged using the same wording for a camera auction, the fedex tracking number that shows it was sent on Feb 9th and arrived Feb 14th, the fedex invoice that shows the weight 27 lbs and the auction link with photos.

Shipping included he payed me $70. Shipping alone cost around $25. I feel I am obviously being scammed, but most people say that paypal will side with buyers even in the face of so much evidence and contradiction.

I'd like the communities thoughts and experiences with this sort of issue.

Thanks,
Gabe

From what you've said, and presuming that you've told us everything and given PayPal all of the details, I believe that they will side with you. Contrary to what some pessimists believe, PayPal and feebay do not always side with the buyer.

What I want to know is how you know that about the camera?


Eric

I googled the email address given to me via paypal. When I did, I found an auction where he had asked the same question and the seller posted it to the auction.

Ah. Gotcha.
Well, good catch!
How long before YOUR issue had he done THAT? If it was a long time, you should try messaging the seller to see if he had any issues. Showing a pattern of behavior can go a long way towards helping you.

Eric

This was about two weeks after my sale. The seller at the time of the auction declined his request.

Interesting.
Did you contact the seller? Did he say if the guy tried to go to PayPal for it?

Eric

I think you probably have a good chance of PayPal siding with you due to weight of evidence.

The buyer sounds to me like someone who tries to get cheap parts to resell and then tries to scam back all of his/her money if possible. I would question whether this person even is in university.

I didn't try to contact the seller because the perp was not the winning bidder on the auction. He asked the question while bidding was still live and the seller said it would be unfair to those that had already bid if he were to end it early. Mine, on the otherhand was a buy it now and he messaged me before someone bid. I then ended the auction early to sell to him off ebay. Thankfully my auction link still worked and was visible to send to paypal.

archangel_80 wrote:I didn't try to contact the seller because the perp was not the winning bidder on the auction. He asked the question while bidding was still live and the seller said it would be unfair to those that had already bid if he were to end it early. Mine, on the otherhand was a buy it now and he messaged me before someone bid. I then ended the auction early to sell to him off ebay. Thankfully my auction link still worked and was visible to send to paypal.

You sold off ebay? You cancelled an auction to sell outside it.

That's an Ebay no-no. Good luck. Ebay owns Paypal.

They went in the buyers favor. When I mention the ebay auction that I linked to the claim they said, "What auction?".

sounds like that's what he had planned from the start. buy off auction, then despute it and get his $ back. you had no protection.

and that's another reason why paypal is owned ebay. you try to short them their pound of flesh, and they get i plus interest in the end.

it's like the drug dealer complaining to the cops he got robbed of his $ & drugs.

I'm just happy most of the stuff I planned on selling is gone now. I hope to no longer deal with them in this capacity ever again.

archangel_80 wrote:They went in the buyers favor. When I mention the ebay auction that I linked to the claim they said, "What auction?".

Did they make him return the item? They usually make that a stipulation before he gets his money.

Eric

Yes, he has to return the item and get a tracking number. I will likely video record myself opening the box if the item gets returned. I'm starting to doubt if this is a scam cause this seems to be the worst way to make a few bucks or he can't read what I posted in the auction about the items condition.

You realize that little, important pieces of the vacuum will probably be missing from the mechanisms, and you'll only be able to tell by disassembling it?
Then again, that could just be my rare pessimism coming out.

Eric