Complaint Review: eBay

Please sign my petition so we cn fight in numbers. change.org/users/joshnj82

I am writing this letter to hopefully put and end to the ongoing scams and to share some of the horrible experiences customers have faced when dealing with eBay and Paypal. I am hopeful that this letter reaches the right person/people and doesn't get tossed to the garbage like other letters. As a eBay store owner since 2005 I have sold many different items but took pride in the fact that my feedback rating is 100% positive. I am in excellent standing with eBay and am actually owed a credit. I am not the only one, in fact there are thousands of unhappy customers who share their experience on forums such as consumeraffairs.com, ripoffreport.com, BBB.com (Better Business Bureau, and many other consumer websites. I suggest you Google eBay and Paypal scams and you will see countless websites and pages of very unhappy consumers.

I never take the time to write to businesses but I feel that eBay and PayPal are allowing scams to continue while the innocent, hard working people are being taken advantage of. All while receiving no help whatsoever from customer support from both companies. Before I continue, I must say eBay has poor customer support but PayPal's customer support is absolutely atrocious. Generic responses, one-worded answers, or the lack of email communication. I can go on and on about my negative experience with customer service but I feel this letter is more damaging and important then poor customer satisfaction.

One scam currently in the works is the buyer just stealing from the seller. I have read countless horror stories of innocent buyers being scammed while PayPal allows this type of behavior to continue. For example, a buyer buys a computer for $750. The seller promptly sends over the computer to the buyer and right away the buyer files a dispute with PayPal stating the computer is defective, not as described, etc... PayPal will then tell the buyer to resend the computer back to the seller and they will be issued a refund. Meanwhile the seller is livid because he/she knows the computer was in perfect condition and that there was no refund warranted. 4 days later the seller receives a box filled with garbage and no computer. The seller furiously calls PayPal and explains the situation, after being transferred to multiple representatives the seller speaks his/her mind. The seller is told that the box was tracked back to them because USPS tracking shows that and there is nothing they can do. That leaves the buyer with both the money and the free computer. Now the seller is out $750 and nothing can be done about it.

15 year-old Adam Perkins of Fresno, CA, recently received a new Apple iPad and then decided to sell an old laptop he no longer needed. The teenager listed the item on eBay, using the auction site’s Buy-It-Now feature, for $500. Someone bought it immediately. The second email appeared to be a payment confirmation from PayPal, stating that the buyer had sent the $500 (and presumably a shipping fee) to Perkins’ account. Perkins and his mother scrambled to send the laptop but missed the deadline for overnight shipping. That’s when they took a step back and realized they were almost scammed. The family reviewed the PayPal email. They noticed numerous spelling mistakes and grammatical errors that PayPal wouldn’t permit in an official company email — and a big red flag for a scam. After more investigation, Perkins and McConnell confirmed the buyer was a con artist.

If the scam had been successful, the buyer would have received Perkins’ laptop without paying a cent.

Paula from Florida entered a website that required credit card info and I backed out. Weeks later, I found out I was billed by PayPal. I was livid! I do not need a third party to pay for my purchases. I have credit cards. Now here is the thing about PayPal, I had so far two occasions where the site I visited decided to charge me for the experience. Each time I disputed the charge with my credit card company and I was reimbursed. It seems if you have an account with PayPal, even if you never used it someone somewhere can bill you for something. On Ripoffreport.com, PayPal has 2,381 negative reviews and I am so happy I followed my gut. Any transactions that required PayPal ONLY I ignore. They will take your money but proven wrong they will work over time to keep it. I have never lost a penny to PayPal and intend to keep it that way! PayPal is Useless

The next two examples make me so angry it's hard to type the words, since it happened to me. I had been an eBay and Paypal member since 2005 with zero disputes and 0 positive feedback. I had my own eBay store and I found it to to be a great money-making hobby.

In late October, 2013 I had purchased a bitcoin from a buyer who had very high ratings. For those of you who are unfamiliar with a bitcoin, it is an open-source, peer-to-peer digital currency that can be used globally. In other words it is online cash that can be spent for tangible or intangible items. I see this listing for 1 bitcoin which was being sold for half the current market value. Now when it sounds too good to be true, it usually is, however, next to the price was eBay's “Buyer Protection Guaranteed” symbol. So I went ahead and made the purchase using Paypal as the payment method. Right away the buyer asked me to give him positive feedback before he sends the paid for item. I told him I would after I receive the bitcoin I paid for. I then started receiving personal emails from this seller asking me to give him $1000 for 6 bitcoins. I replied, first send the one I paid for then we can discuss further business.

Well the item never came and I called eBay to find out what to do. I spoke to a friendly, yet ill-informed customer service rep who instructed me to call PayPal and issue a stop payment with an escalated dispute. So following the instruction of my eBay rep,by calling Paypal and initiating an escalated dispute. I submitted the evidence I had, the shady correspondence between “seller” and myself, the transaction information ( all transactions are linked and verified by bitcoins block chain (website blockchain.info). The customer had an eBay account in California but two PayPal locations; one in Peru and the other was somewhere else in S. America. After submitting all this info, being a loyal customer for so many years, never being involved in any disputes or complaints, and submitting clear-cut evidence... I was scammed. PayPal somehow ruled in his favor. I called eBay and asked about the “buyer protection” and their response was, “ We must stick with PayPal’s decision” even though I was just instructed to call Paypal and begin a dispute.

In November, 2013, I started selling bitcoins on eBay, Buyers were buying and my PayPal account was rising. In about 3 had about $9,000 in my PayPal account. For a bartender who works two jobs I was ecstatic. So I kept buying and selling, not worried one bit because eBay protects their sellers, guaranteed. First week of December I was hit with my first dispute. Turns out someone purchased my item using an hacked account and the funds were returned, so I was down $350. The next day I was hit with another dispute, same issue, buyer was using a hacked PayPal account, this time I lost$500. 3 times that day Papal wrote me an email saying I was involved in a dispute. Either buyer used hacked accounts or stolen credit cards. This kept happening until my account was down to negative $850 ( I withdrew $850 from an actual buyer, so I thought.) To top it off, eBay charged me hundreds due to seller fees.

The way John Dohnaue and David Marcus (CEO'S) are allowing these companies to run are ridiculous. I for one, will not use PayPal for any payment methods. They're allowing these parasitic scum steal money from hard working citizens. I was absolutely disgusted by the way customer service treated me, it was an outrage. I say we put a stop to this with the signatures created and tell these two corporations, enough is enough. Too many people have lost money and if they can't figure out a way to protect us users, then we we will fight with our class-action suits or multiple civil suits. We can not sit back and allow this to happen anymore.

Very Angry and Frustrated Customer,

Joshua G****

www.change.org/users/joshnj82