Another Ebay Horror Story

ebay and Paypal have another horror story,buyer protection rides again.I sold the stamps on ebay.Buyer paid using Paypal.Paypal sent me an email that buyer paid and I can shipp my items.Stamps sent on the his Paypal adress.buyer get them and left a positive feedback on the ebay,I left it too when the buyer did it. After some time (couple of weeks)I got a message from the Paypal that buyer bank started money reversal.Paypal froze my money and ask me proof of posting or they will return money to the buyer.Mail is sent by priority mail and iant registered,trackable or have a proof of posting. ebay and Paypal are the great sites for criminal activity of some thiefs and they aupport criminal.

If you shipped by Priority, then there's a tracking number, and Paypal
will do everything they can to recover funds for you... believe it or
not Paypal's policy is to be on the side of the seller when it comes
to chargebacks...

Make it your personal policy that when you ship something to a buyer
with tracking, print the label WITHIN ebay OR PAYPAL and your tracking
number will immediately record into both their systems...

Nope,priority mail (per avion) isnt trackable in the European Union.Registered mail is trackable only. So I dont have any proof of posting.And his feedback on ebay isnt a proof for the paypal as I saw somewhere.So,he get his money back.This is only 1 story about ebay and paypal.They only like sellers when getting enormous fees.

You can ship by Priority Express International with full tracking,
and Paypal will protect you... if they don't recover funds for you
they don't make any money either... you're only covered if you have
the tracking information, and Paypal will dispute the chargeback
with the issuing credit card company anywhere in the world...

Thank You for the comments. I know how can mail be sent by the Croatian Post. It can be sent registered letter or standard (isnt trackable, dont have a proof of posting). That standard can be priority (par avion) but still isnt trackable. But dont know why You talk about the posting, when there is all about my buyer left positive feedback on ebay about receiving that stamps. In the feedback he state receiving but it doesnt mean anything to the paypal. Ebay/Paypal is the place that support criminal activity. And Yes, I am mad. This isnt a first blasfemic thing happend to me using ebay/paypal.

disi the Pope is not located in the US, so your comments are not applicable (there probably is no such thing as Priority Express International in Croatia). Some countries still do not have mail tracking.

The Pope, unless you can prove that you mailed the stamps, Paypal will more than likely refund the buyer. Keep writing them about the buyer admitting receipt in his feedback. Don't give up until you have no choice.

Unfortunately there is not much you can do about buyer fraud on ebay. What country is your buyer in? If in the US, you can file a complaint for postal fraud, but the chances of recovery are pretty slim.

Thats right Jenny, You got the point. Think that the same situation is in the all EU countries.

I was once told that "registered" mail from overseas is no longer treated the same as registered mail within the US. once a "registered" letter/package from overseas hits the US, it is integrated into the normal system of delivery. I know that most all of the "registered" packages I have received in the last couple years have arrived in my box, without any signature needed. as a matter of fact, I am currently waiting on a package from Serbia, that according to the USPS website, hit San Fransisco about 10 days ago, and there is no tracking progress since. will most likely show up in my box sometime this week, without any signature needed.

I don't see why this post is called a "horror story."
It seems to me that ebay is working as an honest broker between a buyer and a seller.
If there were no ebay & PayPal here, there would be no talk of anybody getting their money back.

When you're shipping to non-USA customers, you also have to remember that many times Express Mail and Registered mail will be held up in customs, sometimes for weeks. In December I sent a registered letter to the Czech Republic enclosing a post card that I sold on ebay. Obviously it was a rather high valued post card. I took a chance on registered mail because it cost about $20 while Express Mail would have cost about $60.00. The card itself sold for $175.00. After 8 weeks the customer filed a non-recepit with ebay and paypal and eventually paypal refunded the customer's payment.

Did you know that you can't follow registered mail yourself but the post office can. I initiated a claim with the USPS for loss. After about a month a received a letter from the USPS saying that the Czech post office had delivered the letter 2 days after paypal had refunded the money. So the USPS wouldn't honor my claim either.


Still trying to figure out how to get ebay and paypal to rescind the previous refund.

This site tracks EVERYTHING: http://www.17track.net/en/

I think any time an honest person feels that they were screwed in a business transaction, that person who feels victimized may think they experienced a "horror story". I have sold several dozens of stamp items on ebay without incident. However, I have very little experience with international shipping. Frankly, I am leery about the lack of tracking outside US, as well as the sometimes poor level of security within some countries by their local postal service. I recently read that one ebay stamp dealer will not ship to Italy due to the high frequency of lost shipments. I also recently sold a selection of album pages with stamps to a buyer in Canada who did not want to pay the added cost for customs. The buyer asked me to ship the stamps at the lowest price outside of ebay's International Shipping. I'm not sure I care to worry about deliveries. lost items or inability to track just to save a buyer a few dollars.

I ship stamps to Italy all the time, never had any go missing

Same here. Paypal took the money out of my account the SAME day as UPS reported the item shipped and revived.

All ebay stamp sellers make sure you block any ebay id who does this sort of thing, raising paypal case for money back when they clearly got the stamps, its online fraud when they get the items for free.

A claim back from ebay or PayPal means the buyer either did not receive the item OR did receive the item but it was not as described. This alone is satisfactory for a claim back process to start happenng through PayPal or the nuyer's credit card or bank.

A good way to defend against this to to assume that not all transactions are going to be 100% completely satisfactory to you the seller.

Thus a part of every sale is to be set aside as a personal insurance against any kind of loss or mistake made by others or you, however unlikely.

Maybe 10% of sales can be seen as unsatisfactory to a seller.

Different actions can be taken but seeing what actions any larger sellers have taken prepares you for selling online, which is actually worldwide mail-order business.

Separate insurance can be purchased from an insurance company for this but for smaller sellers or part-time sellers the best option is to price a bit higher or assume 10% of sales earned are for insurance against future losses.


Re: Italy ammd other hard to ship to countries or areas I recommend Stating the address in the counry's languge as well as your own., and in a readable and legible font and writing. This halps immensely to speed the mail along on it's appointed duties. Perhaps a Google translations can help or a scan or photo cropping of the actual address in the language.

Different countries also use different ways to list and address addresses. Pay attention to this.