Time to forget Ebay?

In message , at 17:59:25 on Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Andy Hall remarked:

As always, it's more likely to be a balance. I don't think I can criticise an Internet company for serving the whole of Europe from one place. It's an improvement on only serving it from the USA.

I agree, and I'm currently working on something that may go some way to correct this (as a small part of a larger project).

What people need to realise is that they aren't buying *from* Ebay. And that Paypay is just a low cost way of doing a wire-transfer to someone you've never met. Most of the rest follows from that.

You don't expect the Post Office to act as a private-sector trading standards clone if you pay for something mail-order by postal order; and turn up at the Post Office demanding they refund you if the item fails to be delivered.

I agree, however, that there is potential for confusion now that PayPal is owned by eBay, and because of the limited protection offered by PayPal - which many people I speak to assume goes deeper than it really does. In particular it's not like the Credit Card protection which is funded from the commissions charged to merchants and interest charged to cardholders. Perhaps there's a gap in the market for "Paypal plus" where they charge the buyer (say) 5% extra as an insurance policy and offer 'complete no strings' protection; but only for sellers they've checked out as stringently as the CCCs check their merchants.

When buying from individuals, yes. If buying from traders then there is a whole raft of existing UK based legislation (quite separate from eBay or PayPal, or indeed the Post Office's postal order department).

In message , at 18:17:06 on Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Richard Perkin remarked:

Thanks very much. Couldn't be more explicit.

In message , at 16:15:35 on Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Bob Eager remarked:

Because I think they are being unjustifiably criticised. Of course they aren't perfect, and there are many things that could be improved, but the majority of issues I've seen raised here (and elsewhere) are people who actually have a complaint against another eBayer, and have unrealistic expectations that eBay/PayPal will bail them out. They are, in effect, engaged in a widespread campaign of shooting the messenger.

I'm also working on a project that might in one part shed some light on the subject, and it's interesting to get people talking about what they perceive to be the more common problems.

The "Recorded Signed For" issue is a classic. People swearing blind that it's not compliant under PayPal's Seller protection, when in fact PayPal have an FAQ that clearly and specifically says it *is*. [So chalk that up as something positive we've all learnt now].

I'm not criticising them at all. From their perspective, they are making the correct financial and legal moves to optimise their tax situation and minimise their legal risk.

In comparison with the banks it has certain attractions provided that it's used carefully.

I don't expect anything from the Post Office, other than its complete demise within a generation.

Even if buying from traders based in the UK via Ebay?

In message , at 12:32:54 on Sat, 29 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

I don't see what that has to do with voluntarily abiding by a UK-based Ombudsman's decisions.

In message , at 11:32:12 on Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Bob Eager remarked:

And "balance transfers" are probably in the same camp. I'll have to read some of my T&C's a little more closely and try to spot the differences.

In message , at 23:35:02 on Fri, 28 Dec 2007, Lobster remarked:

Yes, hence my earlier remarks about the lack of a system to erase unwarranted negative feedback.

Plod might be, as could Trading Standards (their colleagues, if you have the town the trader lives in, might have him tagged as a usual suspect).

My complaints are mainly:

Oh dear...you're a BBC researcher? :-)

I think that's because there was a time when that certainly *wasn't* accepted. It's changed now, but some people had bad experiences and haven't forgotten.

"magwitch"

Yes, I got caught by that when I paid a small supplier using their Nochex facility - my Morgan Stanley CC treated it as a cash advance.

No it does not follow the items progress. Items only appear on the system once a delivery attempt has been made and then not particulary reliably.

Tracking means that you can follow the item as it moves through the system, from the date/time of entry, the date/time of each time the pacakage is handled right through to final delivery. Recorded Signed For does not do this.

That is very poor as the contract is under UK Law and will be interpreted using UK English.

Anyway as has been pointed out PayPal do appear to accept RSF but note that that statement is not in the T&Cs so if push came to shove may not be worth the LCD pixels it was displayed on. The T&Cs still have that word "trackable" in them. The lawyers would have a field day... B-)

In my case, it was exactly the opposite. PayPal obstructed my payments to the seller, and obstructed the seller receiving his payment. That is quite apart from confiscating my payments, 2 of which were unauthorised.

How long have you got Roland? There is a link (already posted) where you will find hundreds of complaints against PayPal. You seem to have time to read the PayPal blurb, try the other side of the story.

Surely that merely illustrates just how difficult and opaque sorting out a problem with them is.

Why don't they have a customer services and complaints number so one can explain the problem to real person as I can with my bank? Why should one have to trawl through megabytes of irrelevant scenarios none of which apply to your own problem? Why did I only get identical stock e-mail replies when I had eventually been 'allowed' to make my complaint?

But you said you cancelled the payments?

No they didn't. The first payment was obstructed by the seller refusing it. It specifically *wasn't* obstructed by them waiting for the funds transfer from your bank to your PayPal account to "clear" before they (attempted to) send payment to the vendor. However, as they can't do a "void DD" (in the sense that the original DD is erased, rather than refunded), they quite understandably waited for that clearance before sending cleared PayPal funds back to you. Which would have happened much sooner if you hadn't started mucking about - so that was you inflicting an obstruction upon yourself.

The second payment wasn't obstructed by PayPal because as far as I can see you've never suggested the vendor failed to get those funds immediately - even though they were uncleared, and even though you then got the bank to cancel the DD. What did you expect to happen then - PayPal grab the money back from the vendor? How do you think he'd have reacted?

They didn't confiscate your payments. The first one was put on hold until it cleared, for the reasons I give above. The second was remitted to the vendor.

However, neither of the payments were in fact unauthorised. You asked them to send the first (which then went into hold after being refused). And you asked them to send the second.

If I understand your claims correctly, you then *reversed* the second direct debit, despite the funds having been sent to the vendor exactly as you requested. Therefore, being £250 out of pocket, PayPal used the secondary Credit Card for the purpose it was set up - to cover the shortfall you had created yourself.

Yep. Reading there. It seems to be mainly about disputes between buyers and sellers. And people who are very confused about PayPal's role, how to complain and so on.

In this instance, what's opaque about typing "Recorded Signed For" into the "search" on the FAQ page, and getting one unambiguous answer?

That's assuming you ever expected them *not* to recognise as a tracking service something sold by the Royal Mail as, err, a tracking service.

It's in the nature of e-commerce that you charge very low prices for your service, with a quid-pro-quo that the way to sort things out is also online. You may think that they've got that balance wrong, but they aren't the first, and won't be the last, e-commerce outfit that has a very strong preference for online customer service.

They could do with a better help system I agree. That's one of things I'm trying very hard to influence (in my own way).

It can be frustrating dealing with distant vendors, by any means. I have a whole bunch of anecdotes about call centres that work just like that too!

Ultimately, if you want to do things online (cheaper, usually), like publish your own works, buy your own airline tickets, be your own auctioneer and banker; you end up with a responsibility to be much more clued up and careful than if you simply offload the whole thing to a publisher, travel agent, auction house etc. The e-commerce company gives you the tools, you must make sure you don't cut yourself. (But as ever, I agree that better training aids would always help, however it's relatively early days for many of these sites and they haven't all got the wrinkles ironed out yet).

In message , at

PayPal disagrees with you because their FAQ specifically says that Recorded Signed For counts as a Tracking Service.

And the Judge will take one look at the Royal Mail *tracking* website and laugh the case out of court.

Cancelled one of them.

Yes of course there are crap call centres. But I choose to keep my bank accounts with banks that operate excellent call centres. Where everyday real-world banking services are concerned I *do* have that choice.

This is not an option I have if I want to buy stuff on ebay - it's essentially PayPal or nothing, as ebay have banned the use of any plausible competing systems from reputable companies that have appeared. So ... I don't use ebay, simple as that. You aren't going to change my mind by explaining how it's all the punters' fault that they can't understand and drive the system - the system should be designed, surely to goodness, so that the type of punter who is going to use it *can* understand and drive it; you *know* this, Roland, you've had enough involvement with designing mass market products.

In message , at 21:59:52 on Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Bob Eager remarked:

Just the same as those systems other companies have on the end of phone lines than. I find the problem I'm calling about features in the lists of "Press 1 for this and 2 for that" about 10% of the time.

Of course, many wrongs don't make a right, but I'm struggling to understand why people have so much pent up emotion over eBay. It's just a website!!

And yet that's exactly what many buyers want them to do - believe the "honest" buyer over the "crooked" seller without looking at any evidence. It's all very reminiscent of the Credit Card companies and the way sellers always claim they get "high handed" chargebacks, while customers claim the card companies always take the vendor's side.

They are a business after all. What confuses the issue is that a vendor who has signed up for PayPal is much better authenticated than one who hasn't. That's why I think that in practice they won't penalise a seller who accepts cash/cheque, as long as they are PayPal registered. What they are trying to avoid is certain items being sold by unverified sellers. Of course, neither buyer not seller will get any of the protection (even if you think it's pretty poor protection) *at all* on such a backdoor transaction. Even so, there will be buyers and sellers who don't realise that (although it's pretty obvious) and still go round complaining that eBay "let them down" by failing to act as policeman for a deliberately back door transaction. They can't win.

Not quite. But I was one of the experts on R4 Moneybox a few weeks ago, talking about ID theft.

Probably from before the days it was even called "Recorded Signed For". It might have been better for Royal Mail to rebrand it completely, like they did with Registered. "Delivery Confirmed" would be a nice new and unambiguous name.

So the seller cancelled one, you cancelled one & paypal sent the third one to the seller?