I recently purchased season 1-4 of “Six Feet Under” on DVD. The day after the transaction went through, the seller got his membership cancelled because he was selling cheap chinese copies and he wasnt supposed to do so. It’s been a week now. What’s the right thing to do in this situation? How does Paypal work? Does this guy get the money right away or does Paypal wait x days to allow you some time to get your money back if the item wasnt sent? There’s so many options on eBay and Paypal it’s all very confusing
Unfortunately it’s rather unlikely that your purchase qualified for payment protection - you might be out your money. You’re generally encouraged to contact the seller in any way you can before taking it to ebay, and to that end there are various restrictions on how soon you can kick the dispute up to the next level, usually a waiting period somewhere between 7 to 30 days.
Oh - your paypal question. Go into Paypal right now. If the transaction says “completed” then he’s got your money. If it says Pending or Unconfirmed or anything implying a delay, see if you can cancel it. Sometimes (depending on how you paid and what his account is) there is a delay - for example if you paid via eCheck there’s a clearing period of a few days, or if you paid by credit card and he had to upgrade his account to receive it (unlikely if he’s a scammer).
If you used your credit card it’s possible you can ring the company directly and dispute it, but I don’t know how effective that will be. Depends on your card.
Thanks Beth. Chances are I lost my money The transaction is ‘completed’. I might try to get my money back from VISA, since I’ve been a good customer for many years… but maybe I’ll get the item after all, it’s been a week, I’ll wait another week…
I would think that, if EBay cancelled his membership after sending him your money, and if he’s unavailable now because of it, then they are responsible.
Had they not cancelled him, you’d have your CD, right? They cancelled him and put him out of business, and he probably has no access to the records of his customers, or what they ordered, because he’s been cancelled.
So, I’d ask Visa for a charge-back to my card. They can get their money from PayPal or E-Bay. Regardless of what they say, they brokered the deal and passed the money along. They shouldn’t have paid someone knowing they’d cancel him and they should be responsible for denying him access to his customer records.
If that doesn’t work, then I’d go for the Good Old American Way, by which I mean starting the Better Business Bureau complaint process against EBay and PayPal. Very easy. Also FREE.
Unless they fork over the cash to you, it will end up as an unresolved complaint against EBay and PayPal, which they don’t want. They might consider this a minor issue, but enough minor issues piling up in their BBB records are damaging. Like a lot of little midges nibbling away.
You’re Canadian. Try not to be too polite about all this. DO NOT WAIT ANOTHER WEEK. DO IT NOW. Trust me on this. The complaint process drags out long enough, and you want to get it started before all chance of satisfaction is lost.
The whole EBay thing confuses me. I tried to figure it out once, but gave up in annoyance.
It ranks right up there with cell phones.
And making long-distance calls. Which is why I’ve never ordered an Olwell bamboo, by the way. It seems that he’ll only do business by phone.
How horrible is that? I can fake it by email, but if he talks to me on the phone, well, then he’s sure to discover that I don’t know what I’m talking about!
Try to contact your credit card company if the charges from Paypal will be balanced out via Visa and tell them to cancel/deny the transaction. I would think the sale is a fraud, so this reason should do the job. If it is shortly after the transaction he may not yet has received the payment or the card company takes it back from him. Maybe a phone call with your credit card company helps, they can tell you what is possible and how to go for it.
I think I would assume the worst and get in touch with my credit card company right now. They won’t care if you’ve been a good customer, but they may stop payment or not make you pay. Someone at a motel cheated me and I was able to prove I could not have been there the extra night they were adding to my bill (I did try working with the motel first). So keep your paper work, print up anything from E-bay that might substantiate your claim. You will probably need to send copies (keep copies for yourself!) to your credit card company with a letter explaining. But it could work out okay. I wouldn’t delay though. Call them before sending anything.
just out of curiosity, what was their feedback score before they were NARUed (that stands for “No Longer A Registered User”)? It really pays to read through any seller’s feedback score, and anyone with 98% or less stay very far away from.
If you did a withdrawal from your bank account (which is the default with Pay Pal), you’re probably not going to have any recourse. You could try going through Safe Harbor - but you have to pay a $25 US processing fee to do that, so that depends on what you are out to begin with.
eBay can be a great venue, as long as you do your homework. Again - read the feedback on any seller you are thinking of entering a transaction with. Don’t bid on any auction that doesn’t disclose shipping and handling fees up front (some use this to jack up prices and do fee avoidance). Make sure you read ALL the fine print as far as their description, shipping, etc.
And remember to go back and put your feedback in for all your transactions - it’s how good sellers continue, and how bad sellers eventually get caught.
Thanks for the tips guys (and girls). I contacted the chinese seller through EBay and he replied, saying not to worry about the time, he shipped it last week.
The seller had a very good feedback, like 60+ feedbacks, so I felt it was okay to buy from him. I guess it’s still okay, if he really shipped the item, he must be an honnest person just doing illegal export of the DVDs, which I morally don’t mind at all.
The transaction is ‘completed’. I might try to get my money back from VISA, since I’ve been a good customer for many years… but maybe I’ll get the item after all, it’s been a week, I’ll wait another week…
