[TowerTalk] Pay-Pal (one final time)

[Gary E. Jones]

I have read with interest the concerns with Pay-Pal and I wanted to add my 2
cents worth. Beyond the current and past stock market rip offs (where I, and
many of you) have lost enough money for quite a few towers and antennas
(see, "towers" is in here), I have been ripped off twice on E-Bay by sellers
who had fictionalized a good trading history by forming other identities and
giving themselves high marks for their honesty, promptness, and
dependability, only to then unleash themselves in a torrent of false sales
and fraud. The prices were excellent but the seller demanded either a bank
check or money order (the first strong sign that you should have nothing to
do with this vendor !!!!).   I suckered into this same guy for two purchases
within a weeks time of coax cable. He corresponded with me, acknowledged
receipt of my money order and then voila, nothing ever arrived. What a
surprise!  Another vendor about a year before had done the same thing and I
fell for that one too. However, after being burned twice, I vowed I would
never again deal with anything on e-Bay and swore off for several years. My
opinion is that E-Bay's policies were tilted strongly toward the seller and
not protective of their buyers, most of the time. 



I recently put in a pool and wanted to use bollard lights from a major
commercial manufacturer which listed the lights at around $650.00 and you
could get them for $400.00 roughly on E-Bay. However, I was very reluctant
to deal with them since this would be $4,000 to $5,000 total, an unknown
seller on the west coast. So I called E-Bay and Pay-Pal and was impressed to
find that they had gotten very concerned about theft and fraud on E-Bay and
had changed their policies to now tilt toward the buyer rather than the
seller. Pay-Pal works this way. If you buy through Pay-Pal and pay through
Pay-Pal either through a checking account deduction or through a credit card
backed payment, they hold the entire amount of money until one of three
things happen:   1.)  21 days have passed with no complaints from the
customer (or concern about delivery delays or quality of received
merchandise)(so timing is very important. if you have a slow seller or slow
shipment, you need to contact Pay-Pal immediately to put a hold on the
transaction until the shipment arrives), and if there is no notice or
problems, they release the funds to the seller. 2.)  they release the funds
to the seller if the buyer returns to the site and writes a review of the
transaction indicating their satisfaction with the transaction, or 3.) the
seller directly communicates with Pay-Pal to indicate that they considered
the process done. Those stipulations made all the difference in the world to
me, and I comfortably went through with a transaction that ended up being
approximately $5,000.00 with confidence that I had enough leverage that if
any fraud occurred, that I was on the strong end of the transaction. 

 

Now, as a person who has also been in the commercial sales business, I
personally had no problem waiting for less than net 30 on most sales if I
knew who I was dealing with and we had established credit. I don't see how
the seller can get screwed unless they have not sold what they described or
if there was something wrong in the transaction. Pay-Pal has, and holds the
funds until the transaction is completed. 

 

The fellow on here who is most unhappy with Pay-Pal is obviously someone who
does not like the tilt of Pay-Pal policy toward buyers rather than sellers
and the wait for the funds after the buyer is happy with the transaction,
however, with the new policy, buyers should be just fine (back it up with
the payment on a credit card so you also have the credit card company on
your side in a dispute).  I feel comfortable buying from E-Bay again. 

 

            JMHO                  73                       Gary        W5FI