ebay and echeques!

[KBQ]

How's this for luck. On ebay on the 10th, I spot a Microvitec 1402 monitor. Nice thing, one of the later produced Multisync monitors a lot like what they sold for the Amiga around escom time, and it's a price that while a bit steep is still affordable. So I buy it, get an invoice from the seller with correct price, pay by paypal. The money is hoovered up out of my account and I think nothing of it.

Five days later, think "I better see if it's been posted out", go on ebay, got an unpaid item case open! I knew that wasn't right, so I log into paypal and lo and behold, the payment is sat pending, marked as an eCheque. Estimated completion 18th July.

Now at this point I have no idea what's going on. I've bought stuff before, even quite expensive stuff, and every time the money has just left my bank account and the seller has gotten it immediately. So I phone paypal, and the phone rings, and the phone rings, and I don't get anything useful out of the experience. Nothing from email either. On twitter I got "the right department will get back to you" and they didn't.

So I send the seller a message. I say sorry, paypal has held the funds, but it says they will clear on the 18th. I say if it doesn't, he should cancel the sale and we'll do it over again.

Gets to the 18th, end of the day, still not cleared. Paypal now shifted the "estimated" date to 24th. So I say to seller again, sorry, paypal has completely buggered it up, cancel the sale and I'll do this again with a different paypal account. Seller says "Okay, just done, good luck!". And then instead of cancelling the sale and relisting the item, he's confirmed the item as unpaid.

So now I've got a strike on my ebay account for an "Unpaid item" even though I paid for it. And to top it off, paypal still has the full price of the item "processing" in their system!

I've paid nearly 200 euros to buy nothing!

 

[tbtorro]

Welcome to the wonderful world of PayPal! It's a very nice and convenient service when it works (it's 99% automated), but when you run into a problem then you are in for a ride let me tell you. (Have been there myself). They not only rip sellers off for almost 10% for every payment, but also almost hopeless of resolving any issue outside of their automation. Oh, did I mention that any money you might have transfered or have on your account is not yours? As they can (and do) hold it for ANY reason up to 180 days at any time. (Just read their service 'agreement'). So even if your phonecall gets trough, good luck getting a non-drone person to talk to you, let alone solve your problem. All you can do is keep calling them. Every day. Just google "PayPal nightmare" to have your (and anyone else's) eye open.

 

[KBQ]

I just went and did a chargeback from my bank, not that paypal has noticed. I'd like to see what their echeque does in 4 days, because I'm removing my debit card and bank details from that pp account... They can go and do one.

At the 11th hour the seller remembered he said he'd relist it so I just went and bought the monitor finally using a different paypal account, tied to my English bank... No echeque this time. What a bloody stupid situation. Two bank accounts, two paypal accounts, and ten days of faff... want to go and shove the computer up Elon Musk's arse along with that tin can submarine.

 

[Dagger]

If an Echeque had been sent it could mean your backup source (eg credit / visa card) had expired. The wife did something similar, made the payment with out realising her card had expired and so had to wait for the echeque to clear which always takes longing than the date they give originally.

 

[tbtorro]

I just went and did a chargeback from my bank, not that paypal has noticed. I'd like to see what their echeque does in 4 days, because I'm removing my debit card and bank details from that pp account... They can go and do one.

At the 11th hour the seller remembered he said he'd relist it so I just went and bought the monitor finally using a different paypal account, tied to my English bank... No echeque this time. What a bloody stupid situation. Two bank accounts, two paypal accounts, and ten days of faff... want to go and shove the computer up Elon Musk's arse along with that tin can submarine.

Elon Musk has nothing to do with this. He just founded a brilliant service years ago that allowed people all over the globe to pay each other smaller amounts easily and cheaply. When the service got popular, a horde of scammers, business people and lawyers descended on it and messed it up. There were so many scams (when PP was out of their pocket) that at one point they said - f**k this, from now on even if your account has a HINT of problem, first thing we'll do is freeze your funds. For 6 months. Enjoy the 'investigation'. And since there are millions using it they can't afford useful and competent customer service. Customer service is 90% automated, 9% drones picking from answer menus, 0.9% promising solution and not delivering, 0.1% solution.

 

[KBQ]

That's really not true. I've looked like you said at other people's horror stories and the behavior pattern goes back to the beginning. The lack of customer service is not due to them not being able to afford it, rather the cold logic that they should minimize expenses that don't directly lead to or protect profits - they have a monopoly, so it's not like they need to compete on service quality, they can just stick their fingers up and watch the money roll in.

Hell, this sort of problem is actually profitable in itself. If they freeze a payment like this (this one 8, then now supposedly 14 days, actual time probably indefinitely if I didn't do a bank chargeback) or lock your account (90 days? 180 days?) that's a lot of time where they're holding your money in their account. Where at minimum it's earning them interest, and more likely invested in stocks. 200 euros is not much from one person, but they do this with many thousands at once.

This behavior is totally understandable when you know what kind of upbringing Elon had and where the family fortune comes from. When you got your start in life funded from an apartheid emerald mine, then unethical tricks with people's finances is basically the closest you can get to redemption. Whole corporate culture comes from this, a reactionary egotist leader commanding a hundred silicon valley underlings who know PHP but not ethics.

Luckily here in netherlands all the online stores use the iDEAL system, something all the banks cooked up. Nice thing, uses a little handheld device for two-factor auth, no middlemen. Really lucky that the banks here understood the importance of online banking before paypal learned europe exists.

 

[SaviorX]

not sure why you keep bringing up Elon Musk...he was only CEO of X.com, the company that purchased what was to become Paypal in 1999 from the 4 guys that created it (merging with Confinity), and was subsequently sold off to ebay in 2002...16 years ago...

It's not like he's had any say in how it has been run since then...

"Musk was ousted in October 2000 from his role as CEO (although he remained on the board) due to disagreements with other company leadership, notably over his desire to move PayPal's Unix-based infrastructure to Microsoft Windows. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received US$165 million. Before its sale, Musk, who was the company's largest shareholder, owned 11.7% of PayPal's shares."

I hate the be the bearer of bad tidings, but in case people haven't noticed, just about every single human who has or wants to become rich, and has designs of becoming even richer...pretty much behave in the same scummy manner... just like a flesh-eating virus, they just keep consuming until all the flesh is gone

 

[KBQ]

I mentioned Elon in a tongue in cheek fashion as he's ultimately responsible for paypal coming into being, he let the evil genie out of the bottle. To be on the safe side I'll also mention that paypal cannot literally be inserted into an anus.

Now that would be that, but tbtorro is a volunteer billionaire defender

 

[ubermick]

Paypal gets bloody weird when it's an international transaction. I bought a 3D printer directly from Prusa in the Czech Republic a couple of weeks ago (the main reason why I'm only in the market for an A500 now, as opposed to another A1200, spare cash flushed!). Am over in America now, and went through it via Paypal, since I had a few bucks sitting in there from flogging some stuff elsewhere.

Anyways, hit submit on the order, happy days. Goes through, and... the confirmation screen comes up. "You just sent a payment to Prusa Research, funds will be available 16/11/2018." NINETY @#$@# DAYS?!?!? Online chat, they had no clue why that was happening (my account's in good standing) and told me to ring the support line. Did that, was on hold for a good two hours, and they couldn't offer me an explanation either - said everything should be fine, and had no clue why there was a 90 day delay on the transaction. Emailed Prusa, apologising profusely, and got a reply the next day wondering what I was on about, they got the money right away, and it was already parceled up and being picked up. Paypal was still showing it as being on hold. (Money was gone from my balance, though) Finally seemed to fix itself a few days later.