Trouble with ebay

[Jim M.]

Yes.  I go there every day, and have bought and sold many items on ebay.

[donnis]

I have ought many items on Ebay and am satisfied with all of them.  I generally will not buy from someone that has just opened account with Ebay.  If they only have a handful of feedbacks, then I will be cautious.  In general, have no issues and I always use PayPal. 

Donnis

[zankoku]

I do the same Donnis and have never had an issue

Jim

[Rigatony60]

This guy had all positive feedback. 100%. I know there was only 17 transactions, but with all positive feedback I thought he was ok to deal with.

[Edgeman]

I've ordered quite a bit on ebay, as well as sold items. I can only remember 2 things I paid for and never received which I ended up writing off as lost in the mail stream, that can happen, doesn't happen to often but it's possible. I'd contact the seller and try and work things out. Generally now I only buy things if insurance is offered, thats the best way to protect yourself. If you ordered it from out of your country it is also likely that its held up in customs, I sold to a guy in Norway once and it took 3 weeks because of customs.

[davesab]

When I had my dispute with the seller, I raised it to a claim with PayPal.
they gave the seller 10 days to respond.
when he didn't answer them, they refunded my money.
Since you are following the correct procedure, you should be OK.....

[Emily!]

When I had my dispute with the seller, I raised it to a claim with PayPal.
they gave the seller 10 days to respond.
when he didn't answer them, they refunded my money.
Since you are following the correct procedure, you should be OK.....

Ah, ok. This is good to know for future reference. I was pretty sure that filing a claim with PayPal would get you your money back but I wasn't 100% on that. Thanks for clarifying.

[Jim M.]

I only have one problem with Ebay right now -- some people keep bidding against me.

If you are a forum member with an Ebay feedback score of 328, please contact me by PM or Email.

[Kevin R.I.]

I don`t have any problems withy Ebay..it`s Paypal that`s the problem. After using it twice, BOTH times fraudulent charges appreared on  my credit cards(one Visa, one MC). My banker asked me "have you used Paypal recently?"  When I told him yes, he said "that`s likely the problem...we see a lot of fraudulent charges on credit cards from people using Paypal, it`s a big problem for the bank". Apparently, Paypal is anything but secure and is easily hacked into and credit card information stolen. Of course, you`re not responsible for the charges but the bank has to institute a fraud investigation and your card is cancelled and you have to wait for a new one to be issued. Based on what my bank has told me, I refuse to ever use Paypal ever again. If I see something on Ebay I`m interested in, I contact the seller and ask if they`ll accept alternate forms of payment, explaining my reasons for not using Paypal. Some only accept Paypal so I don`t bid on the item. Others will accept checks and M/O`s.

[Jim M.]

Sorry to hear you had problems with Paypal.  I use it all the time and have never had any problems.  Maybe I have just been lucky.

I had one guy who paid me with a check, but the amount was wrong (not enough) so I did not ship the items and he stopped communicating with me as I tried to work it out.  I still have his check but won't cash it.

[Kevin R.I.]

Apparently you HAVE been lucky but check your credit card bill carefully after using Paypal. My bank actually called me because some of the charges just didn`t look right to them...like $950.00 in Disneyworld  tickets. According to my bank, Paypal is a major headache for them...when they see suspicious charges on cards, they immediately ask if you`ve used Paypal recently. That should be a red flag if there ever was one.  I`m through with Paypal forever.

[Jim M.]

I only use a DEBIT card and keep just a small amount on it, so if they do hack me, they won't get very much.

The rest of my money is in a coffee can buried out in the woods.

[hesprit]

Kevin,

I'm really surprised to hear about those problems, and especially that your bank is specifically blaming Paypal.  I have been using Paypal for 10 years and have never had a problem with any of my information being stolen and used.  I have also not heard of any issues with the site having been hacked.

Generally if there is a problem where someone's Paypal has been used to charge something, it turns out that they have accidentally allowed someone into their account, often through a phishing type of email, where an email is received that looks like it is from Paypal, and directs you to click on a link to log into your account.  The way dishonest people do this is by creating a phony webpage that looks exactly like the Paypal page, and the email sends you to their page, not the real Paypal.  When the person enters their login information on the phony page, it is stored and sent to the crook, who then has full access to log into your Paypal account and use it to make purchases.

Sadly, this problem is unfortunately common, but it is not a security issue with Paypal itself.

Peter

[Kevin R.I.]

The first time I had fraudulent charges on my Visa card about 10 days after using Paypal, I was sitting in the bankers office and he looked right at me and out of the blue asked "have you used Paypal recently?"  then went on to tell me about the banks headache with  customers having fraudulent charges put on their cards after using Paypal. About 5 months later, I thought I`d give it another try, this time with a MC and about a week later the bank called and asked about "suspicious" looking charges, one to the UK. When I told the person from the bank on the phone that this is the second time this has happened after using Paypal, the reaction was "Oh Paypal, yes, we know all about them, we go through this all the time".Having been "burned" twice now and my bank telling me they see this quite often, I`ll NOT risk using Paypal anymore.

[hesprit]

Kevin,

That is certainly your option, and I can understand your reasoning after being told this by your bank.  What I am saying is that I have used them, quite frequently, for a very long time and have had no problems at all.  I have even had a couple of instances where I had an issue with items purchased using Paypal, or more accurately, the Paypal Debit card I have been issued, and they quickly resolved the issue, giving me a full refund.

In the interests of fairness, I decided to do a search for fraud issues on Paypal.  As with any search, I found a number of pages, but as I went through them, I noticed a pattern.  The first five pages I opened all talked about how huge the level of fraud is on Paypal.  They all warned about how easy it was for Paypal to do this and take that, etc., however every single one of them came down to the same thing ... "here, try our alternative to Paypal" which was an offer to help you open your own merchant account.  Every single one of these pages then linked to the exact same business website.   What this tells me is that there ARE people out there who are intentionally trying to scare people about Paypal specifically to increase business on their own site.

I also found a number of sites talking about how secure Paypal is, and the levels of protection they offer, as well as the methods of recovering any fraudulent charges.  I have been able to find very few numbers of complaints about Paypal being hacked into and card numbers stolen then used fraudulently .. in fact, I have not been able to find any from within the past several years. 

Now, again in the interest of being fair, I will say that I have also been a victim of Credit Card fraud, where my card was being charged for things I had not purchased.  In my case, the issue was tracked back to a different merchant I had used my card at, one which had nothing whatsoever to do with Paypal.  I would also point out that the bank investigation took a matter of only a couple of days, and I received my replacement card within 4 days of filing the investigation.

Also in my searches, the latest reports I have found of "hacking" related to Paypal are reports about the Denial of Service attacks which were claimed to have been done in June.  One should realize, though, that a DoS attcack does NOT mean accessing secure information, such as credit cards.  It means stopping people from being able to access the website.  Sometimes, the term "hacking" is over used and causes panic, which is exactly what people want to happen.

Like I said before, you absolutely have the right to choose not to use Paypal, and you have the right to state your reasons for not doing so.  I simply feel that it is important to express an alternative point of view.

Peter