I have not experienced any problems yet with either eBay or Paypal. All the buyers and sellers (I have both bought and sold) I have dealt with in the model railroad area have been honest and fair, meeting the terms and conditons that were stated. But I have only a couple of dozen transactions to go by. It appears from all the threads on this subject that there are only 2 types of honest eBay users - those who have been scammed and those who will be scammed (I expect I fall into the 2nd category).
I suspect the fraud rate, at least in model railroading, is much lower than most areas. But when fraud strikes, it appears to leave a very bitter taste for the whole eBay experience. Which is why I am surprised at how little effort eBay and Paypal make to deal with fraud and scams.
With 20,000+ items available at any given time in HO alone, you would think that eBay would want to take care of this market. It’s obviously an established secondary market place for model railroading, with superior exposure to both buyers and sellers than anywhere else. Can’t say as I enjoy the eBay experience - I don’t care for auctions anyway - but as I said it’s a great secondary marketplace for those of us without ready access to shows and large local populations of MRs.
Maybe I’ve been lucky. I have over 600 transactions on ebay (the majority of which are not train related) and have only been disappointed twice. The two times I have been less than thrilled are more than offset from the money I have saved on the other transactions. Yes, it is getting harder to find bargains on ebay, but there are still some to be had. And there are many things that can only be found on ebay, unless I decide to become one of those Saturday morning garage sale guys.
The service you mention is called Return Receipt. It costs $3.15, NOT $1. For items with a value of $50 or less, insurance is $1.35 and also requires a signature from the recipient but you do not automtically receive hard copy.
On the one hand, let’s remember that mail order of any category has had - and will continue to have - its share of problems. For older folks such as myself who may remember an outfit called AHM or American Hobby Manufacturers - a large multi-page advertiser in MR in the 60s and 70s - they were notorious for many bad practices, especially advertising out of stock items and sending credit slips, which expired in 90 days, instead of refunds. In the 70s and early 80s, there was a fellow based in Colorado (he was very litigious so I will not name him here) who successfully ripped off a number of people in the brass locomotive mail-order market. And then as now, those of you who look to the Postal Inspection Service for redress will be sadly disapppointed.
I’ve had about 250 E-Bay transactions over my six years of membership, and only 7 of them had problems. I fully believe that if I placed conventional mail orders with over 200 different companies, I would also experience a 2-3% problem rate, and more probably higher than lower. 5 of the problems were mis-described items, 2 were items that were literally destroyed in transit due to horrible packing, nobody has (yet) just tried a straight old-fashioned rip-off - money for nothing. 5 of the sellers promptly refunded my money upon return of the item and 1 of them even refunded my return shipping. 1 of these sellers refused a refund and sent me a check representing 25% of my bid; this covered only half of the loss of value from the innaccurate description of the item’s condition. 1 seller refused to take any responsibility for the packing problems and endured my negative rating. Overall, to date my savings, and the ability to find unusual or out of production stuff, is much more valuable than the approximately $75 (including cost of return shipping) in losses over a 6-year period. During this period I used PayPal regularly, mostly as a buyer, without any problems. Others have correctly noted that fraudulent checks and money orders are pretty much just as big
The Ebay/PayPal phishing emails have been a problem for a long time. I get them on a regular basis as well. I forward them to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com. I get their standard issue reply email after sending them the info. If someone does not know what they are looking at they can be sucked in, they are all very well done.
To say that they do nothing about it is in correct. They do as much as they possibly can, it isn’t like there is a group of ten people sending these emails out. The problem is widespread, you can shut down 100 people a day but there will be 200 more people ready to take their place and prolly most the first 100 people will try again with a different IP address/email etc.
I think it would be a different story if Evilbay owned up to it’s problems and provided a real customer service that could resolve issues. The fact is if you do have a problem with Evilbay, you might as well know that your Evilbaying days are over at that point. It’s a stupid way to run a business where you loose a lot customers because you can’t fix a problem with your own company.
On the one hand, let’s remember that mail order of any category has had - and will continue to have - its share of problems. For older folks such as myself who may remember an outfit called AHM or American Hobby Manufacturers - a large multi-page advertiser in MR in the 60s and 70s - they were notorious for many bad practices, especially advertising out of stock items and sending credit slips, which expired in 90 days, instead of refunds. In the 70s and early 80s, there was a fellow based in Colorado (he was very litigious so I will not name him here) who successfully ripped off a number of people in the brass locomotive mail-order market. And then as now, those of you who look to the Postal Inspection Service for redress will be sadly disapppointed.
I’ve had about 250 E-Bay transactions over my six years of membership, and only 7 of them had problems. I fully believe that if I placed conventional mail orders with over 200 different companies, I would also experience a 2-3% problem rate, and more probably higher than lower. 5 of the problems were mis-described items, 2 were items that were literally destroyed in transit due to horrible packing, nobody has (yet) just tried a straight old-fashioned rip-off - money for nothing. 5 of the sellers promptly refunded my money upon return of the item and 1 of them even refunded my return shipping. 1 of these sellers refused a refund and sent me a check representing 25% of my bid; this covered only half of the loss of value from the innaccurate description of the item’s condition. 1 seller refused to take any responsibility for the packing problems and endured my negative rating. Overall, to date my savings, and the ability to find unusual or out of production stuff, is much more valuable than the approximately $75 (including cost of return shipping) in losses over a 6-year period. During this period I used PayPal regularly, mostly as a buyer, without any problems. Others have correctly noted that fr
i sent a payment into ebay for an item yesterday and today get an email saying the item was cancelled because it broke rules and not to do the transaction. but i all ready sent money im i out money or not.
Just letting you guys know that last Friday I got the hold on the money that the guy was trying to scam me out lifted. It seems when a bunch of members who pooled together against Paypal and this member, it got taken care of quick. Out of the 100 or so members that got there money back only one stands not to. The guy that was scamming was buying things up everyday 20 to 30 auctions a day, using his credit card, and got way in over his head and could not make the payments. So he was trying to get his money back to pay the huge credit card bill. One of the members that he tried to scam was a lawyer, this lawyer has filed charges against him for fraud using the US postal service, and faxed all the other members who were caught up in the scam with a letter and paper to sign that he will give the courts.
I contacted the lawyer Saturday and found out he tried to steal more than $15000 worth of money and items from people. The lawyer sent all fax’s papers to paypal, and they are going to be caught in the web to, but the way it looks they lifted all the holds on peoples accounts. The lawyer that has taken the case says he his eeking damages against the members, I could care less about that, sounds like he is trying to line his pockets. LOLOLOL!
Waltersrails,
If you paid with a personal check or money order, you can stop payment on it. But its to late for that if you used paypal, all I can say is good luck.