A reader named Barb emailed me a posting from a Yahoo Group about a problem one of the members had with a PayPal transaction. Many people don't realize that in order to be protected by PayPal's Seller Protection Policy, they must follow certain rules. Here's a link to the complete policy:
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/protections-outside
Some of the things to keep in mind, according to the Yahoo Group posting:
ONLY use trackable shipping which shows STREET address and obtains a SIGNATURE
Do NOT accept multiple payments for one item
Do NOT give people extra time to pay
Do NOT ship to Asia... even if the address is verified. Paypal will authorize the transaction, but will, not stand
behind it. Many Asian countries nullify Seller Protection.
Thanks, Barb, for reminding sellers to pay attention to PayPal policies when accepting PayPal payments!
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Ina:
Thought you might like to pass this experience along to your readers.
I recently had an auction end and the bidder NEVER replied to any of my e-mail messages. I sent them 6 reminders and also filed a non-paying bidder alert. When I cancelled the order after three weeks of no replies and filed for final value fee refund, I also decided to post negative feedback. This is the FIRST time I have done this for a non-paying bidder. However, I thought it was the right thing to do.
Well, guess what? They filed a negative feedback against me and said I never replied to their e-mails. Now I have to go through Square Trade and pay to have the negative feedback removed. I know they never sent me any e-mails because we maintain a database of all messages in Outlook.
I also know they received all of their messages from me because none of them were bounced back. This person had a total feedback rating of 8 and they also had two other Negative feedbacks from other sellers, who also got retaliatory negative feedback from the bidder! So, I guess the moral to this story is that the negative feedback option really doesn't work for sellers. I have much more to lose than this bidder does and I'm not willing to take the risk of retaliatory feedback again! Sellers, you have been warned.
Jay
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We got an enormous amount of email responding to Kevin Tyerman's article, "New eBay Policy Has Users Go Goodwill Hunting" http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m08/abu0100/s03. Here are some excerpts. And be sure and read today's Ask Nick column about the issue.
"Ebay is doing this, if their policies are indicative of their serious drive for more profits, because they indeed want to limit direct contact between buyers and sellers to avoid out of auction selling and buying so that they would not be losing listing and final fees."
Margaret
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"I have contacted Ebay with the issues of trying to get the User ID that would help my clients find my auctions better BUT the User ID was snagged by someone 3 years ago who NEVER used it! ... I have been doing business on Ebay since March, 1997, and have built up a very good client list and business relationships. I had to choose a new Ebay User ID that is NOT intuitive to my old email-based User ID because of Ebay's no release/no reuse User ID policy. I have emailed a few of my regular clients and let them know, but there is no way that I can email everyone. ... I feel that it WILL take some time to re-establish my business relationships because of Ebay's User ID policy change, but they seem unconcerned. My tough luck. I'm just a little fish in their pond, and any suggestions to them fall on deaf ears."
Patricia
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"In regard to people who have eBay IDs which are email addresses that now have to change them, perhaps they could create a user ID like this:
Before: paul@stressdynamics.com
After: paulatstressdynamics.com or paulatstressdynamicscom if eBay won't let you use punctuation. Or even paul_at_stressdynamics_com
Of course, this isn't a perfect solution as everyone may use a different format for doing this, but it might provide some searchability to former customers."
Paul
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"Here's a possible solution that might help those forced to change their IDs: First, eBay has to take steps to free up the hundreds of thousands of good user IDs that are registered but have not been used for years or perhaps ever (this is justifiable: If eBay can force you to change your ID, it is saying it has control over IDs and can therefore reclaim unused ones). ... It would seem that if eBay is going to force people to change their IDs, it ought to do something to help them retain their branding and goodwill. It's another one of those cases where eBay talks about "community," but is the company really willing to step up to the plate and demonstrate it?"
Dana
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" I have a friend that put a 10-day auction on Ebay because he was going away for a week. His ID was his email address. When he returned, the auction had been stopped, because someone had been able to access his account (with special software through his email ID) and had purchased several expensive items. He never answered any bogus emails (that we all receive weekly) but somehow they were still able to break into that account because he used the email address as his user ID. This may be something that people should be aware of - and may have something to do with Ebays policy to disallow email addresses as ID. By the way, we do not use our address as ID, but we constantly receive the bogus Ebay emails anyway."
Cathy
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"Interesting, especially because ebaYs biggest line item on their corporate asset sheet is goodwill. It is within a % or two of being larger than all their current assets combined. Somewhere around 41%, last I checked. Make no mistake. This isn't about spoofs, which by their own admission only 13% go to people with emailIDs. It's about ebaY having control over communication between users."
Fred
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"It seems the same folks remain in charge of their heavy-handed policy determinations, and ever-committed to "fixin' what don't need it, and ignorin' the problems that do". I wonder where they find such folks? Is there a special school somewhere that grinds them out? ... I have just learned, from the article, that apparently I am one of those that will have to change ID's to accommodate more of eBay's ill-advised policies. I'll live through it, I'm sure, but I have less and less "goodwill" toward eBay as a result. I would suppose it's too much to hope that somebody in Corporate would wake up and see the damage. It is obvious that seller complaints carry no weight with them."
James
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
