Paypal destroy $2500 violin and give the owner nothing

[arc]

Pretty shocking of Paypal

I sold an old French violin to a buyer in Canada, and the buyer disputed the label.

This is not uncommon. In the violin market, labels often mean little and there is often disagreement over them. Some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, but they are works of art nonetheless.

Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world.

http://www.regretsy.com/2012/01/03/from-the-mailbag-27/

 

[Shadeyman]

Selling such things on eBay is obviously a mistake.

Items like this deserve respect and you'll not find it via eBay/PayPal.

 

[arc]

I can't see how they can legally do that, I'd be looking at bringing criminal charges against the buyer - it wasn't theirs to destroy.

 

[Most Easterly Pandas]

Unbelievable!

They seem to be becoming a law to themselves!

 

[jenks69]

That is blatant criminal damage I hope the seller takes both paypal and the vandal to court

 

[jip0]

just because pay pal told them too doesnt mean they should *sigh*

 

[wegi]

What a horrendous way to treat any musical instrument never mind the seller.

I would spend the rest of my life making sure I got compensation for this.

 

[Eklipze3k]

It's mentioned in their T's and C's a little further down on the link arc posted that they may ask for the item to be destroyed and evidence given of it's destruction (it's not in context but I assume that's in relation to 'counterfeit' goods). I'm guessing, as it'd been raised as a dispute, that the buyer felt that this was the only way they were going to get their money back - we may only be getting part of the story here, perhaps the seller was being unreasonable and refused to action a refund even if the violin was returned. Paypal put these rules in place to protect their users, not because they like watching people destroy expensive works of art.

 

[volxstu]

Pay pal are sposed to be expanding. I think they should be refused to be allowed to do anything until the sort their infrastructure including positive action to stop the sale of fake goods on eBay. If this stops the sale of any electronics from china the be it.

 

[DlightSwitch]

That's shocking, fair enough we don't know the whole story but I'm guessing we've all been done over by PayPal/eBay so we jump to conclusions.

Some of their rules are stupid, with the counterfeit goods I guess they say destroy them just so eBay can get them out of circulation/punish the seller, but that shouldn't happen with something such as a violin.

Sometimes they don't even stick to their own rules, a seller was once disputing with me over a 'broken' item. I said ok send it back and I'll give you a full refund, he refused, so I copy pasted from eBays T&Cs where it states that sellers don't have to refund until they receive the item back. Then I woke up the next day to find PayPal had just automatically refunded him and I never saw the item again :bang:

In the rare case I sell something over £50 on eBay, I make it cash on collection only.

 

[arc]

Some of their rules are stupid, with the counterfeit goods I guess they say destroy them just so eBay can get them out of circulation/punish the seller, but that shouldn't happen with something such as a violin.

What right have they to destroy something that doesn't belong to them though!!

In the rare case I sell something over £50 on eBay, I make it cash on collection only.

Can't do this anymore, you are forced to offer paypal as a payment method.


:bang:

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Simple solution don't use PayPal and don't use eBay there are plenty of site out there if you want to sell your good (and get a better price than eBay) and almost anything you can buy on eBay (new stuff) you can get places like amazon and play.com
If you really have to buy something second hand off eBay these is quite often a better way of doing business especially with car scrap yards