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I commiserate with John and am glad it was a small amount
lost. I have done business with him successfully, despite the vagaries of
delivery. I am delighted to deal with John and other topline poster sellers who
care about the transaction in all its phases and their customers. When things
sometimes go wrong, there's always a reasonable prospect for
resolution.
There really is no other way to look at this issue than as
part of the cost of doing business when the item is consigned to any third party
for delivery.
Secure, virtually instant on-line payments have been a boon to
sellers surely, by mostly eliminating lost letters containing money orders and
the time-cost of getting them cashed and so-called lost letters from
fraudulent buyers.
These services have benefited buyers too: protecting them
from those sellers who falsely deny receipt of the MO - some still do as I
have recently noted regarding a Turkish poster seller.
Now buyers still deal with sellers who state the item was
sent, but it wasn't and, still, negligent and indifferent
packaging and ruined items on delivery. I just got an 05 calendar from a seller
who failed to put any stiffeners into the packaging and the postal services of
two counties bent and creased it to a useless state. The seller required a
substantial "shipping AND HANDLING" sum and had 100s of positive feedback.
While I generally expect a bad result and am pleasantly surprised on the receipt
of an item intact in a reasonable time, I didn't figure specifically
for a bad result for that item.
And sellers who list hundreds and hundreds of items then have
NO system for even internally tracking when items are sent are another huge
problem, because all buyers can do is wait and hope against hope usually past 30
days and no recourse. These sellers often do not reply to inquires either,
because they're so busy listing MORE stuff and don't know when the stuff goes
out and DON'T CARE because they have been paid - by paypal - and
don't expect repeat business.
So the feeble recourse for buyers is to give the
o-so "dreaded" negative or "scaredy-cat" buyer's neutral feedback. But
these same sellers have time for retaliatory negatives which are
specious.
Buyers should build those kinds of problems and sellers into
their economic model and use them very sparingly (only for items they MUST have,
but, ironically, can live without), because they'll never go away.
Buyers would assume that the sellers' business models take
nondelivery and the occasional refund for good customer relations into account
when the opening price is set against the reasonably expected end price even if
it is the opening price. Buyers should be able to expect that the sellers'
overhead costs are included in the price.
However, the effort by many sellers to avoid ebay and
paypal sellers' FEES (most of which are calculable and should form part of
overhead and the price) has reached such a feverish pace as to
approach fees evasion. These sellers have low opening prices and
charge unduly high shipping and handling charges to get more money for their
items without paying fees. Of course their packaging has to be
minimal to keep as much of the backend as
possible.
I don't include in this bad group sellers whose business model
is proven to be based on market-forces driving the bidding, so they can start
low, because the fees are higher at the end and likely are at least commensurate
with start and end fees together (some sellers use a straight buying
model with the same result) AND who charge reasonable shipping costs AND do
a good job of packaging.
Ebay and Paypal could do much better of course if they were to
consult and ACCEPT recommendations from longtime respected sellers and buyers of
many kinds of items and business models on these issues.
But the issue really is not Paypal per
se, it's the people with whom we
(all) deal.
Can anyone can find a prophylatic for toxic people such
as those noted? Not likely, so we're all engaging in various degrees of "risky
business" and have to find some level of comfort for doing so.
As I move closer to completing (if that will ever really
happen) a poster collection with which I am pleased, I am limiting the sellers
with whom I deal to those who my risk assessment gives me good
comfort.
John and others with substantial inventories, have
to deal with a much larger selection of buyers and thus their risk
assessments must result in and account for higher probabilities that
problems will occur. Good buyers pay for that as well.
Craig, Vancouver
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 12:42
AM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Paypal
Hi JR
The amount was only 16.99 but I was more
concerned that someone else could be caught this way over a large transaction.
Lets say a US seller sends a package to Europe with a value of $1000.00 but
cannot provide the "online tracking" that paypal require. If the buyer decides
to dispute the transaction they get their money back - no questions asked, no
chance for the seller to provide any response, end of story. I'm not sure how
things work in the US these days but I dont think the US postal service
provide on line tracking for each and every transaction. I know that
even if I fully insure the article from Australia (which I do on large
transactions whether the buyer pays for it or not) that will
not satisfy paypal.
The reason for my post was that I thought other
sellers should be aware of this. I have had a couple of private emails from
sellers who have had similar experiences. I can live with this happening once
in 5 years but I would not have been happy if the amount had have been large.
Hopefully it will be another 5 years before anything similar
happens.
Its a jungle out there.
Regards
John
JOHN REID VINTAGE MOVIE MEMORABILIA PO Box 92 Palm Beach Qld
4221 Australia WEBSITE: www.moviemem.com
eBay Userid: johnwr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 7:04
PM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Paypal
John,
Sorry to hear that this fellow used PayPal to hurt you -- you've always
been great about shipping posters all the way from down under for only $7.00
USD. I hope the refund amount wasn't too much. It's pretty ironic that
PayPal allows sellers to accept payments from "international buyers" (even
encourages it) but that if there is a problem with an international buyer
they simply say that you ship international "at your own risk". Typical
double-standard from PayPal again. I suppose if this happens to you very
often, you'll be forced to charge everyone a higher shipping rate (one which
does provide a tracking number). Or else possibly offer both, but if the
buyer wants the $7.00 rate, they have to agree to not file a PayPal claim
against you in the event it does not get to them. That's not a good
solution, but then nothing seems to be in this case.
The sad fact is that PayPal always sides with the person who paid in
these disputes -- the only sellers who can get away with taking PayPal and
scamming the buyers are the ones who continually empty their PayPal accounts
and continually close them and open new ones, staying one step ahead of
those filing complaints with PayPal about them. The honest sellers get stuck
with PayPal arbitrary decisions.
Perhaps it will soon be time to make charging insurance mandatory (an
insured package must by definition carry some kind of tracking number) and
at least if the package does not get to the buyer, you can get reimbursed
for any refunds you have to give. Of course, insurance means declaring full
value for customs, so it gets messy there as well when shipping
international.
Nope. I got no good solutions. Probably the best is find the cheapest
way of sending something with a tracking number. Here in the U.S. we can
send a Priority Mail package and for 45 cents add what is called a "delivery
confirmation" tag which is actually useless as a delivery confirmation, but
does give the package a "tracking number" of sorts.
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004
15:41
Subject: [MOPO] Paypal
Hi everyone
This is a warning to sellers who use paypal.
I sold a poster to a customer in France about 3 weeks ago. He paid with
paypal. I sent the poster immediately - airmail as usual. He filed a
complaint a few days ago saying that he had not received the poster. No
contact with me at all from either paypal or the customer. I logged on to
my account and found that there was an "issue" that had to be resolved.
Paypal gave me two options:
1. Provide on line tracking of the
package.
2. Refund the customer.
I send all of my packages normal airmail at a
basic 7.00. Most of you would know that I rarely if ever have a problem
and delivery is often within a week but our postal service does not
offer on line tracking on international airmail.
So I was left with no option at all but to
refund the customer. I was given no opportunity to communicate with the
customer or paypal.
My feeling is that he received the package
and uses this as a form of scam. Paypal say that if you ship
internationally, you do so at your own risk. I'm not sure what they
actually mean by "internationally".
So, basically, if you send a package without
on line tracking you have no comeback with paypal. If anyone disputes the
transaction you have to give them a refund.
Regards
John
JOHN REID VINTAGE MOVIE MEMORABILIA
PO Box
92
Palm Beach
Qld 4221
Australia
WEBSITE:
www.moviemem.com
eBay Userid: johnwr
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