Gotta vent - eBay/Paypal suck! AND some people are just scum

[ALToids]

I was one of the first users to join eBay and I stopped selling on that shithole almost 8 years ago.  The second they got in bed with Paypal that was it.  I did make money using their services but in my last year I was down about $2400 thanks to crooks - and the buyers sucked too 

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[ljudotina]

Main problem with ebay / paypal is that they don't really do what they advertise (sellers protection). They do not follow any strict rules, they do "what they feel is right". If they don't like particular item you are selling, you are screwed. You (seller) pretty much depend on agent that get's your case. If that particualr agent likes crypto, you have a chance, if it does not, you are screwed. You can send em all proof in the world that you did EXACTLY what was in auction and still they will take your money and walk away with it. You are lucky if you get your stuff back.
It's like escov service without of any strict rules....damn nightmare for seller.

[rezilient]

Hi guys.

Just wanted to give you guys an update on this. It's so ridiculous it's almost funny.

So I received the 90MH scrypt miner from Hungary. It's working fine, no damage or problems (thankfully). Ebay/Paypal reimbursed the buyer 100% so now I've got this machine that I paid about $10K for, someone else mined coins with it while difficulty was really low, and now I will be lucky to get half what I paid! This miner is up for auction right now actually if anyone wants it pretty cheap (and get a discount if you pay in BTC). http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=171385066979.  I just want it out of my hair so I can recoup SOME money.

The funny thing is now I can almost smell when the dispute/chargeback is coming. They contact me weeks after and start complaining that the machine never worked from the start (ya right).

Someone bought a couple of 1TH Bitcoin machines from me.  Now he e-mails me through Gmail saying the machines never connect to the network. I remotely help him and right before we get his miners connected to the pool he cuts the Skype session.  Nice.  Then I see his Google+ account videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2rLkpGmVluoO3FNLs6KB_A/videos

Seriously?? Are you guys seeing the 50+ videos he made as evidence for dozens of disputes he's opened?  WTF! 

[allthingsluxury]

The seller has no protection and no power on ebay / paypal. It is a sad state of affairs.

[hgerson]

Just wait until one of your "buyers" ships back a brick in a box (delivery confirmation of course).  PayPal will gladly give him a full refund.  If you haven't gone bankrupt doing what you are doing on ebay well your lucky.  If you keep doing it, well it is only a matter of time.

I am surprised that there is not more of this type of scam going on already.

My turn! 

But I'll add a twist to this.

I used a stealth account and I already emptied the pp account so I'll get a negative balance soon.

They can go to the stealth address and collect if they want.

[Waramp22]

The bad part is that after a buyer wins a dispute with paypal and the return is done to the seller, they will not allow the seller to leave the buyer bad feedback for the waste of time and money.

I once did this and a few days later checked to make sure i ruined his perfect feedback for all the headache he caused, nope it was back to 100% positive. eBay prunes their feedback for them so it jives with the decision that Paypal made.  

[infested999]

The bad part is that after a buyer wins a dispute with paypal and the return is done to the seller, they will not allow the seller to leave the buyer bad feedback for the waste of time and money.

I once did this and a few days later checked to make sure i ruined his perfect feedback for all the headache he caused, nope it was back to 100% positive. eBay prunes their feedback for them so it jives with the decision that Paypal made. 

Funny how they even have a feedback system when you have no choice in the matter.

[rezilient]

Just wait until one of your "buyers" ships back a brick in a box (delivery confirmation of course).  PayPal will gladly give him a full refund.  If you haven't gone bankrupt doing what you are doing on ebay well your lucky.  If you keep doing it, well it is only a matter of time.

I am surprised that there is not more of this type of scam going on already.

My turn! 

But I'll add a twist to this.

I used a stealth account and I already emptied the pp account so I'll get a negative balance soon.

They can go to the stealth address and collect if they want.

What do you mean by stealth account?
In my experience if you have any bank accounts on file they will charge it against the bank or your credit card.

[sionsandman]

What do you mean by stealth account?
In my experience if you have any bank accounts on file they will charge it against the bank or your credit card.

What if the account is anonymous and have no funds already?

[gogxmagog]

I got a 60ghs bfl miner in october 2013. thanks to the spike in usd/btc price in november through feburary 2014 I made double my money back.

Miner stopped working in july, and although I believe it is software problem I have simply turned it off as it only spat out ~ 0.04btc every 2 weeks, so not worth it. mined a total of 6 btc during its mining life.

I cant be bothered to sell the miner because it isnt worth much to anyone. I have tried to give it away twice and both parties said no thanks. you cant give these things away.

I dont want to lose my ebay rating so it looks like I will continue to own a curiosity and relic of btc history (unless some genius figures out some other use for this thing...i've heard there may be some sort of video gaming application, but idk if that is scrypt miners only?)

[jjc326]

Ok maybe this is not the right place, so mods you can move this if you need to, I just needed to vent.

I sell Bitcoin/Scrypt miners on eBay and on my website (don't worry I'm not going to plug it here) and most transactions have been pretty smooth, at least for the first half of this year.

But recently I've been getting these NEW customers that have no clue what they're doing, just trying to make a quick buck, scam me, and take unfair advantage of the eBay/PayPal buyer protection to the fullest.  I know how most people feel about mining rig vendors BUT trust me when I say I take care of my customers 100%.  I'm just a low level reseller of Chinese products like LKETC and Innosilicon.  I just get people the hardware they need at a fair price and offer them much needed warranties when things get difficult.  Anyway back to the story..

About a month ago I sold a 90MH/s scrypt ASIC machine via eBay to a customer in Hungary. My cost on those machines was close to $10K so you can imagine it's a high risk transaction already, especially since it was paid via PayPal. The machine got held in customs because he asked us to put a lower value on the customs declaration which is usually a bad idea. After receiving the machine about 10 days later the customer thanks me and says the machine is working as expected, all good. A couple days later I see a new dispute open on eBay from my Hungarian friend and he's says (quote) "It will never reach the 100% ROI! So it is a very bad investment indeed! So please refund my money!"  Of course my response is quoting my eBay auction which says we cannot be held responsible for Exchange and difficulty fluctuations, yadda yadda.  He did not respond for another 12 days.  Then I see a message from eBay saying "This case was decided in the buyer's favor, so we've asked the buyer to return the item to you for a full refund".  WTF.  This is after Litecoin/Dogecoin have been in a deep slump and the machine is worth 3/4 what it was before.  And nobody is buying Scrypt hardware at this point.  I got on the phone with eBay right away and the guy pissed me off further by saying "honestly we really hate dealing with all these bitminer cases, and usually we will favor the buyer in these situations".  Completely ignoring that my ad says we cannot be held responsible for market fluctuations, my ad has a NO REFUND policy, that I have 100% positive feedback and ALWAYS close my disputes with a happy customer.  Okay now it has been 6 days since eBay made their decision and this guy still has not shipped the machine.  Guaranteed he's sitting there mining with my hardware with a big smile on his face making LTC until the very last day, then he'll drop that shit in a box and kick it to the post office.  I'll be lucky if it even powers on once it arrives to me.

I have 3 similar cases open right now with customers who bought Scrypt ASIC hardware and are having buyers remorse. 

PSA: If you don't know what you are doing DO NOT buy thousands of dollars worth of mining equipment!

/rant

This sucks.  I don't necessarily think you're foolish for suing Paypal and ebay but may I suggest only dealing with people in your home country?  Then you can sue.

[wasserman99]

The bad part is that after a buyer wins a dispute with paypal and the return is done to the seller, they will not allow the seller to leave the buyer bad feedback for the waste of time and money.

I once did this and a few days later checked to make sure i ruined his perfect feedback for all the headache he caused, nope it was back to 100% positive. eBay prunes their feedback for them so it jives with the decision that Paypal made. 

I think that the dispute process kind of takes the place of the feedback process. If something is done against your will (like a charge back dispute) then you would likely be unhappy with the situation, however paypal/ebay would have determined that it would be "fair" to have a resulation be a certain way.

[haploid23]

This is such a downer to hear. The worst part is not how low the buyer is, but how paypal/ebay knows that the buyer is out to screw you, but they'll still force you to give a refund. Nothing you say will matter. This is a problem with the payment processor, so best thing to do is completely avoid them whenever possible.

I was caught in the same situation, although not with mining equipment. Some brand new ebay account purchases some expensive items from me, said it wasn't as described, filed a chargeback with his CREDIT CARD. Naturally, paypal has to fight his bank, so they preemptively withdraw the money from my account. I provided all proof, and I even documented the condition and packaging. It does absolutely nothing.

For paypal, some disputes don't really matter (as with both our cases), and with ebay, you can never control who buys or bids on your items. There are no filters.

[freedomno1]

This is why remediation that settles in the buyers favor for Ebay and Paypal Sucks!
I can feel for you on this one and would say avoid dealing with them but yah ... can't do much but vent here.
Seriously on a depreciating asset refunds should not be accepted in most cases.

[cdog]

To, OP, I cant really help but chuckle that you're learning these very basic things about ebay and paypal on $10k crypto miners.

I mean, you are selling machines that create the currency of the future, and yet you chose not to accept BTC and instead tried to make "extra" by selling on ebay rather than sell at a fair price for BTC.

The very system which Bitcoin solves just bit you in the ass. I hope you appreciate the profound irony of this situation.

[rezilient]

To, OP, I cant really help but chuckle that you're learning these very basic things about ebay and paypal on $10k crypto miners.

I mean, you are selling machines that create the currency of the future, and yet you chose not to accept BTC and instead tried to make "extra" by selling on ebay rather than sell at a fair price for BTC.

The very system which Bitcoin solves just bit you in the ass. I hope you appreciate the profound irony of this situation.

Dear sir, if you read the thread carefully you would have noticed that I do accept BTC however eBay immediately cancels my listing if i mention the word BTC, Bitcoin, or show the Bitcoin logo anywhere.  I have been a seller on eBay for over 10 years and I am comfortable selling product there.  I haven't had a problem with their policies in the past, however the nature of these Bitcoin machines is different because they depreciate so fast and the learning curve to understand how to make money with them is steep.

That said, this thread is several months old and I have stopped selling machines on eBay at this point.

[oceans]

This does not surprise me at all with eBay and PayPal to be honest, they don't have great ways of dealing with things like this which can in turn leave you high and dry. I personally avoid PayPal and eBay as best I can a lot of  the time because of these kind of problems and will only deal with them as and when I know I need to and it's usually not for anything like this.

It's a shame that the scammers seem to be winning to be honest because of their change in policies.

[zolace]

Sigh I thought I told everyone to use something you have a trail on, like a tracking number, even if u print a paperwallet,  I also say before you do business with Ebay contact the supervisor and that you wanna submit proof of ownership of what your selling and a business plan this can help get better protection from scammers.