E-bay the "FAIR" way to buy and sell.... WHAT BS!

Yes, I did read the PayPal User Agreement when I signed up many years ago and I keep abreast of the policy changes as well. However, it must be pointed out that paypalsucks.com is NOT an official source to quote PayPal policy from and it's a 2002 document at that, seven years old, much has changed. Please point out in the actual PayPal User Agreement where they explain their authority to do this. I have been looking and have not yet found a clause that matches examples you guys are offering that allows PayPal this sort of back door access you your bank account funds without your permission or that of a court order to seize your account and funds. Paypal has resolution tutorials on their site but I have not read in these that as recourse by PayPal on the behalf of a miffed buyer can make a legal judgement to take funds out of anyone's account. I just want to see actual proof from PayPal that they have this authority.

 

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Okay I went to paypal and here is the offical user agreement!!
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/UserAgreement/ua/USUA-outside

Here it is in black and white

 

This clause does explain how a user authorizes PayPal to make certain types of fund movements in and out of PayPal tied to a verified bank account. But this does not state in any way that PayPal can rule against a PayPal account holder in a dispute over a transaction and then also deduct funds from your bank account. It only allows PayPal to reclaim any funds left in your PayPal account. It clearly states that in a dispute PayPal can recover funds still in your PayPal account and if more than that amount is still owed, by this agreement, the Seller has agreed to make the remaining repayment by other means. It does NOT say that PayPal will go into your bank account and debit from your bank account any remaining disputed funds. You even highlight this, "you agree to reimburse PayPal through other means." It does not say PayPal will do this, it say you agree to reimburse. They will not withdraw the funds but expect you to follow the rules agreed to and make the reimbursement yourself.

 

"If you have a past due amount to PayPal or a PayPal affiliate, subsidiary, or parent company (eBay), PayPal may debit your Account to pay any amounts that are more than 180 days past due."

That's not black and white at all... This clearly does not include dispute settlements made by PayPal. In a dispute you are not repaying money owed "to PayPal or a PayPal affiliate, subsidiary, or parent company (eBay)". They can only debit your PayPal account any money still in the PayPal account to the buyer they deem repayment is to be made to. From there they require a seller by agreement and by other means to repay anything over the amount not in the PayPal account. Whether or not the Seller follow up on the user agreement and makes any restitution is to be seen, I wouldn't hold my breadth from a scammer and I doubt PayPal takes individual claims to court against individual sellers either. PayPal does not debit your bank account in cases of dispute between buyer and seller. In a dispute, if they were to withdraw your money and you yourself had a legitimate counter-claim, and in so doing PayPal's actions of debiting your bank account caused you additional financial hardship, overdraft, etc. you would certainly be able to take PayPal and the claimant (the buyer) to court over these losses they brought on you. They do not withdraw money in dispute case from a sellers bank account because they would be in suit all the time.

 

I've been buying on Ebay for several years. My user is the same as the one on Cointalk. I've never sold an item as yet but some time in the future I am going to have to unload some coins somewhere. Reading through all these posts it's a tough call for people to decide whether to use Ebay or another method. There is always more risk with Ebay vs. other online sites but you sometimes get what you pay for in terms of fees. If you use the other online sites the risks are almost zero but you'll pay a bit of a premium for the service. One thing I'll point out that never seems to talked about ... the term " online auction " in general. None of these sites , Ebay , Heritage , Teletrade are true "auction" sites. It's whomever places the highest bid in the last seconds that usually gets the prize. If any of these sites had the insight and knowhow they would come up with a way to extend the times on these "auctions" until the bidding is over. Then you would have a true "auction". The sellers would make more money , the online people would make more money and the term " auction" would be just that. I know these programming whiz-kids could do this but I guess nobody has enough interest.... at least not yet !

 

There was a computer equipment site called onsale.com that had auctions and the end time would extend 5 minutes from the time of the last bid. I bought a lot of junk from them and I preferred this format myself for the reasons you (and I on a previous post) gave.

 

"One thing I'll point out that never seems to talked about ... the term " online auction " in general. None of these sites , Ebay , Heritage , Teletrade are true "auction" sites. It's whomever places the highest bid in the last seconds that gets the prize. If any of these sites had the insight and knowhow they would come up with a way to extend the times on these "auctions" until the bidding is over. Then you would have a true "auction". The sellers would make more money , the online people would make more money and the term " auction" would be just that."

It's called closure. When your market is the entire online world and bidders could theorhetically go on and on and on into infinity, an auction would never end. All auctions and auction houses have start and finish times, otherwise someone could keep coming along and bidding higher and higher and higher and no one would ever buy, pay or win. It has to end somewhere. The whiz-kids did their thing.

 

It never happened at onsale.com and the site ran for many years until they were bought out. Eventually, when the price gets high enough, it ends.

 

An auction is still a "true auction" regardless of whether it runs for a day, a week, whatever. There is no open ended requirement for accepting bids. Many bidders would lose interest if the bidding were extended as you suggest.

 

Agreed, they are all "true auctions." I'm not sure if I am just repeating now, but I think I have a question, do not all auctions have start and end times established before bidding is opened? or at least an established policy on how an auction comes to an end? Auction services and houses must have something figured out before starting a bid not only to retain bidders and their interest, but in order to make money and to be able to go home at the end of the day or whatever as we suggested.

Thank you Mark.


p.s. This has been a fun thread today but I have to run out for the rest of the afternoon so I will check back for updates later on. Cheers to all!

 

I am just saying the open ended model works fine as I have participated in them before eBay existed. They don't "go on forever" and people "don't lose interest."

 

The large majority of auctions I see have a specific end time announced before bidding begins. Very rarely, however, I do see an auction which includes terms under which bidding continues until it has been X number of minutes beyond a certain time and no additional bids have been received. For example, I received a catalog today from a company I am unfamiliar with, which states: "If you are outbid on the last day, we will give you the chance (two hours from outbid notification) to raise your bid and you win the item". That company apparently accepts mail bids, phone bids and fax bids, but not internet bids.

 

Some people do indeed lose interest. I am one of them and have talked to others who feel the same way.

 

Thats the way I do business! And i am sick of Ebay, now you HAVE to take PayPal.

I never had a problem when i took US postal Money orders. Even personal checks i held till it cleared and sent the item.

Ebay has it all figured out how to skim a lot of money from the seller.

You know what is next for Ebay??

I bet a Buyer premium.

Lets see how that settles.

 

The point I am trying to make is that if there were "true auctions" instead of timed auctions I believe the sellers would be much happier and hence the point of this thread may be resolved or lessened by the fact that more money in the hands of the seller would make up for the fees that Ebay( and others ) charge ... or at least that's my theory. I guess we'll never know until somebody decides to try it for real. One other thing , I can't see auctions going on-and-on ... but as a seller I wish they would since it's money in the bank for me ... and the Auction house.

 

A timed auction IS a true auction, even if you prefer that it be handled differently.

 

I've been using ebay and Paypal for years to buy coins. Since I'm not a seller, I can't really comment on the part that they take from each sale or whether it is high or not. I can say that business getting costs are very high in my business. If you count the cost of labor, transportation, advertising, travel, shows, etc., it can be close to 25% of your costs. I can also say that ebay and Paypal must be providing cheaper business getting costs than other methods because I'm buying many things cheaper on ebay. Of course, I'm assuming the sellers aren't all idiots, which might be a bad assumption.