I would appreciate some advice from Vet Ebay sellers

[J.McMurry]

I would appreciate some advice on what to do about a paypal dispute being filed against me.

The buyer of one of my cards lives in canada, He demanded the lowest ship rate(no tracking) even though my original ship price was half of what it should have been.
I changed the ship rate with the understanding that there would be no tracking or guarantees. He paid invoice.
Four weeks later he's emailing me for a tracking number.
I nicely remind him of the invoice note and point out that the package is sitting in customs and if he would wait until Jan 1, I would refund his money if he still hadnt received it. He says he will only wait until the 15th(2 weeks),which I agree to. 2 DAYS after our agreement he opens a case with PayPal,which today was converted into a dispute.

Is it worth the fight or Should I just refund the money and take it as a lesson learned? the amount in question is only $96.00 ,but I cant shake the feeling I'm being conned.

Oh, and it turns out this guy is some kind of card dealer who runs an (online?) auction

[ullmandds]

personally...I don't like being conned...and despite the fact it's $96 you're talking about...not a huge sum of $$$...I personally wouldn't give in so quickly. If you have email documentation of the discussions regarding the shipping and how there is no tracking and no guarantees which he agreed to...you should be ok. I'm no lawyer...but I am a prudent man!

Just my opinion!

[byrone]

As a fellow Canadian, I'd say this buyer gives all of us Canadians a bad name. No wonder some U.S. sellers choose not to ship to Canada.

Most of us in Canada don't want to pay excess costs for "tracking" from the U.S., so we go with the cheaper alternative. In this case, if the package does not arrive...tough luck for the buyer. Too bad Paypal rules against the seller in these situations.

Might be a good idea to out the buyer...I would not want to deal with him.

[mybuddyinc]

Fight it thru paypal, send them all your correspondences, and see how it goes. Don't just give up, odds are against you, but you have a chance. Also out him.

[ibuysportsephemera]

Sorry, it sound like you were scammed. Unfortunately, you will most likely have to refund the money. Without a tracking number (even if you have great documentation) paypal will refund the money to the buyer. I still would pursue with paypal. IRC, there is a limit of times a buyer can make claims and if this guy is running a scam, maybe they will put an end to it.

[quinnsryche]

The same thing happened to me this week. I sold a guy a card and unfortunately didn't get delivery conformation. 2 days after it shipped he's asking me "where's my card"? I told him it was only 2 days and he'd have to wait. 2 days later same thing. 1 day later "you didn't send my card, where is it, blah, blah". EXACTLY 7 days after the auction ended he files a claim with Paypal. I sent a copy of the postal receipt to Paypal and 2 days later they gave him his money back. I called Paypal and spoke with a very nice lady who basically told me from now on get Delivery Conformation on EVERYTHING because they will ALWAYS find in favor of the buyer irregardless. The post office said they can't do any kind of search until after 1 month. I have over 1500 positive feedbacks and he has 6. Paypal said they don't even consider this as a factor. I've learned my lesson and will purchase the DC on everything I ship. For the extra 80 cents it will be worth it. I know how you feel, I know I got jobbed on this one myself. By the way, this guys user name is newusertoday1990 so everyone be REAL careful out there with him although I don't think he does vintage stuff.

[J.McMurry]

I agree about the Delivery confirmation,in fact I have always shipped with it,always at a (small) monetary loss to me. In this case the loss would of been about $9 and I just didnt want to eat that much.

He told me that he didnt want to wait on the card because it was the last card to complete the set,which he wanted to sell, and if the card never showed up,it would put him further behind in selling the set.

I will out him soon, just want to make a decision on this first.

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by byrone

As a fellow Canadian, I'd say this buyer gives all of us Canadians a bad name.

Yes - this is my concern with a scumbag like this too. I have been buying cards on Ebay since 1998 (over 11 years) without a single problem. Yet I have recently encountered sellers who will not consider dealing with a Canadian buyer. Sad to tarnish a whole country over one or two bad experiences with a jackass buyer - but it is happening. It hurts everybody. The Canadian economy is doing well, and the exchange is good for us to buy cards from the US now. The last guy who said he just would not deal with any buyer from Canada turned down over $1,000.00 from me (I was prepared to pay his asking price). And the cards are still not sold in his Ebay store...

Cheers,
Blair

[marfak]

People who pull crap like that suck the fun out of the hobby. I've had to deal with a few people like that and I raised hell until PayPal agreed that I was right. But it is very annoying all the same.

[steve B]

You'll probably loose, but yeah, forward all the emails to Paypal. That's about the only chance you'll have. Once it's all over, I'd block the buyer.

I sell mostly bicycle parts on Ebay, getting back into cards this year but I've sold a lot of mostly cheap cards in the past.

Most "problems" come from new buyers that have no realistic idea of how long something really takes to get from one place to another. (For me, the rest have come from sellers trying to be too big and getting slow and sloppy as a result) So far the record was 12 hours after buying a card to ask why it hadn't arrived yet. -purchased at 10 pm, whined about at 10 AM! Turned out they asked about the wrong purchase.

Getting the tracking on a US package is cheap through Paypal shipping, only about 18 cents as opposed to 80 over the counter. But you can only do first class packages, and they must be over 3/4 inch thick or the PO may reject it. A properly packed card in a bubble envelope gets thick enough pretty easily. The other benefit is that you can just hand the package to the postman, or if the post office you use is friendly, you can just leave them to one side of the counter and tell them the packages are all ready. I usually wait in line at the branch I go to, just to avoid aggravating people, but the clerks have told me I can just leave the packages without waiting.

Steve

[Sterling Sports Auctions]

Sadly you are pretty well screwed. Paypal has a terrible history of standing behind the buyer even with delivery confirmation. When they started requiring Paypal as a payment I pretty much shutdown my ebay selling.

Lee

[jbsports33]

Hey, Tony the same thing happen to me a few weeks ago

Buyer demanded the item after just two days and then said he would place a claim in. I said you jumped fast about this give it time to reach FL. a week and half goes by and the buyer placed a claim. I am sure he got the package sent priority - it was only 20.00 dollars so I did not have it tracked. First problem I have had on eBay in 2 years

I send items to Canada, fill out the claims form and you should not have any issues, when you send a card or a small package without that's when you have issues. When you send small packages you can tell them the item is just a photo or printed item and they will not make you fill the form out. Work with the buyer from Canada to save them money and place the item as a gift.

Still, I think this guy is asking for something extra, I ship everything for free to US and Canada so I can send it the way I feel is safest and the buyer gets a deal

good luck

Jimmy

[tbob]

Is there a reason we're not getting the buyer's name and ebay id? That's one of the advantages of this Board- accumulated information about pre-war cards is great but knowing who to avoid in transactions is also very worthwhile.

[J.McMurry]

ok, I went ahead and sent paypal my side of the story, with the customs form number(which only proves that I mailed the pkg), so we'll let them decide. The guys' name is Paul Fisher, he lives in Toronto,Ontario. The ebay id he used for me was magnolia-lane-09 and the current email he is using is chasing.records.auctions@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone for the input.

[HOFAUTOS]

This exactly why I just throw on delivery confirmation regardless if the buyer paid for it or not.

[dennis]

simple advise.....select the option "ship to the U.S. only."

[J.McMurry]

As a reply to the two previous posts, I do have checked "ship to US only",but on this particular auction someone named jrdunn1 emailed me and asked if I would ship to Canada and how much? Being relatively new to selling on the Bay I agreed and looked up the shipping on the Ebay calculator and came up with $6.81. This email and answer was posted to the auction page.
The winner of the item emailed me and asked me to amend the shipping charge,citing it as "outrageous" and "should be less than $3".(The post office says it should be $11.49 to have any tracking,insurance, etc.)

I do add on the Delivery confirmation on everything I have sold(mostly at a loss to me) except this one,simply because the buyer said he didnt want to pay more than $3 for shipping,which meant that I was going to have to eat over $7 in shipping. In hindsight I probably shoulda ate it,but at the time I thought that was asking too much.

[byrone]

As a Canadian, I could never understand why a U.S. based seller of cards (baseball, hockey, etc.) would not ship to Canada. There are 30 million of us hosers up here, you know.

Best thing to do, if possible, is mail inexpensive cards regular mail, charging $2.00-$4.00. Anything deemed expensive (to me, over $100.00) should be sent with tracking, costing $10.00 and up. If a Canadian buyer is not agreeable to paying for this, have him/her move on.

It's the idiot buyers like the original one in this thread that cause the trouble, but they are the very small minority.

Also, it works both ways. Many U.S buyers pull this stunt on Canadian sellers, since they know that tracking parcels from Canada can be expensive, and sellers will often not bother. Without delivery confirmation, the seller is out of luck

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by J.McMurry

As a reply to the two previous posts, I do have checked "ship to US only",but on this particular auction someone named jrdunn1 emailed me and asked if I would ship to Canada and how much? Being relatively new to selling on the Bay I agreed and looked up the shipping on the Ebay calculator and came up with $6.81. This email and answer was posted to the auction page.
The winner of the item emailed me and asked me to amend the shipping charge,citing it as "outrageous" and "should be less than $3".(The post office says it should be $11.49 to have any tracking,insurance, etc.)

I do add on the Delivery confirmation on everything I have sold(mostly at a loss to me) except this one,simply because the buyer said he didnt want to pay more than $3 for shipping,which meant that I was going to have to eat over $7 in shipping. In hindsight I probably shoulda ate it,but at the time I thought that was asking too much.

I have found through experience that the buyers who usually complain about your shipping charges being "outrageous" are also the first ones to ask for a tracking number or start harassing you because a package hasn't shown up at their doorstep 12 hours after they ordered it.

Christmas is usually the worst time of year for that. Last week I had a woman order an item off my website on Monday morning.

Immediately after placing the order and seeing everything laid out in the shopping cart, including shipping charges.........she e-mailed me to complain about the shipping charges...............then to tell me she better have the item by Wednesday because she's leaving for Christmas vacation on Thursday. Oh, and I'm located on the East Coast and she's on the West Coast.

BTW, I charge a flat rate of $6.50 per order on my website, regardless of size and that usually includes Boxed Priority Mail shipping, Delivery Confirmation and also Insurance if I deem it necessary.

[J.McMurry]

Just wanted to thank everyone again for their responses to this thread, and to update everyone that PayPal, Surprise!, sided with the buyer. I'm sure it was based solely on not having a tracking number,even though I had proof that it was mailed, and proof that the buyer didnt want any delivery tracking,etc. Lesson learned.

I just wanted to put the serial number of the card out there in case anybody comes across this,as this is now considered a stolen card in my book.

SG llc 8179701-002 (1968 Pete Rose 8)

see post above for dealer name/info.

[totran]

ive had many problems as a buyer on ebay.
some examples are wrong card sent creased cards sent and sellers overstATing card condition
one recent transaction went like this...
mattingly/jeter game used, i won it for $9.07 delivered i waited 3 weeks then contaced the seller who asked me to wait a weak... time was running out for me to settle this and i felt the seller was stringing me along until i ran out of time for a claim.
i stayed civil but all the apologies and such meant nothing finally i got a refund and more apologies. i left the seller no feedback because i felt i could not endorse someone who tried to rip me off...
2 month and 2 days later i got this


this seller did not use dc and when i paid him the second time i recommended he use it for everything
after my apology to him he was happy to get paid. the mail system is not perfect using dc is the only way to partially protect yourself.
fight your fight $96 may not be much to you but it is to me and you will help others behind you by fighting this guy.
tony