Is it me? Need to vent about stupid people

A

antiqueladyvintage

Registered Guest
I received an email from someone who won an EBay auction from me. My listing terms are pretty clear. This individual whined on and on about how he/she was in Ecuador and could not make payment by another method other than PayPal and why, oh why did I not accept PayPal. Well, the resons I do not accept PayPal are superflous so I am not going to go there. The listing terms are clear. If you knew you were going to be gone, why would you bid on an auction requiring you to make payment using actual mail? It's not my problem. I do not want to be mean or unsympathetic but this is a business, not a coffee club and I expect adults to read and understand the purchase terms. Am I being unreasonable? My responsibility as a seller is to accurately describe items for sale and ship promptly.

The funniest part of this story is the person telling me the item was a gift. The auction ended at 99 cents. Now I am probably judging but if I understand this person's request correctly, he/she wanted me to ship the gift to the recipient. IF I accepted PayPal, I would not be comfortable shipping anywhere except a confirmed address. That's for the buyer's protection as well as the seller's. I may be new to online selling but I am not stupid.

OK-I feel better writing that down. I was so irritated and it wasn't the first time. One bidder sent a PayPal payment anyway which I promptly refunded with a note saying PayPal not accepted as a payment method.

I do not accept PayPal because PayPal does not do enough to protect its users. I don't agree with PayPal acting as a bank but not wanting to comply with banking laws. The fees are quite reasonable so that's not my objection. A friend of mine sells coins online and has been screwed by PayPal on more than one occasion such that it cost my friend over $1,000. I read the PayPal board on the EBay site and the number of horror stories are far too numerous to recount.

I filed an unpaid item thingie for a bidder who has yet to pay for an auction after 20 odd days. Yesterday I received an email whining about the unpaid item filing. Novel concept-bidding and not wanting to pay according to the listing terms. Again, this is not rocket science. The person said payment was forthcoming but after all of this time, I'm just inclined to relist the item. I filed an unpaid item for another auction and the person had the audacity to accuse me of stealing the money order. Huh? Payment was not received; the money order has not been cashed. Sounds pretty simple, right? Is the world populated with idiots or I am just having a Twilight Zone moment or two?

Thank you, everyone. I DO feel better now. I can take comfort in the fact that these kinds of people are a very, very small percentage of online buyers, right?
 
I think it is a small percentage, but it does make you feel the need to vent! I sympathise completely, and I think sometimes there is nothing you can do - no amount of capital letters, underlining or simple instructions will help.

Hopefully your next experience will make up for it !
 
I see that in your TOS it states that check, money order is your preferred method. And you state you do not accept paypal from US buyers. But it also says: International buyers must pay with PayPal. I do not blame them for being upset that you aren't accepting your payment that being so. It is right there in the listings. (at least the ones i looked at). If it were me, that being so I would h

I would suggest that if you don't accept paypal period, change the wording in your template, disable the ability to take paypal in your preferences, and probably only ship to the united states. Or also ship to canada and state that you will only accept US money orders or checks drawn on US bank accounts. It might save you a lot of potential issues or misunderstandings in the future

Chris
 
Thanks, Chris. I just checked and PayPal is disabled in my listings. I guess I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to read. Listing policies aside, why would you bid on an item when you knew you were not going to be able to send payment or accept delivery? I don't think it's unreasonable to NOT ship to an address other than the buyer's address, do you?

I reluctantly decided to accept PayPal internationally because of international banking. I lived abroad for a while and any international transaction was so expensive. My parents resorted to sending cash via registered mail because international banking transations averaged $35 a transaction. It's against EBay's safe transaction policy to say a buyer can send cash so accepting PayPal for international transactions makes partial sense. I don't like it but I do get international buyers so, for now, it's not the worst thing.

Thank you for letting me vent!

By the way, Chris, I love your Vintage Menswear Daily. I just clicked on the link. Great reading-
 
I have only ever sold once on Ebay, it was not a very nice experience. My account was hijacked and I started getting nasty emails from people saying I stole their money. My listing was taken off and mysterious camaras were added. Although I did get it sorted out with Ebay and I succesfully sold my listing.
When I recieved my invoice for this month they were charging me $20 for all of the camaras listed. I sent Ebay an email asking them to fix it, but the only one I got in return was a spoof email saying my account would be deleted.
I can definitely understand your frustration right now.

I am a new member on the board and I hope this is ok to talk about although can anyone tell me if I am still able to use my paypal account or add new listings if I havn't paid my invoice?
 
I have no idea how that works. I imagine PayPal would keep track of users via email addresses, addresses and other user information. I think EBay doesn't allow new listings if any invoice is not paid after a certain time. You might want to sign into the EBay community boards and see if you can find information there. Good luck and hope it works out-my coin selling friend had a months long drama working out the mess with his transaction.
 
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