Local shopping experience (fail)

[sundaymorningstaple]

I quite like PayPal, personally. Once set up properly, it's easy, hassle free and you don't have to worry about having a US credit card with a Singapore Billing address not being accepted by your online merchants like a lot of online sites. One time verification with PayPal and I have two credit cards and two banks (one of each in both the US and here but all with Singapore addresses) and I can used which ever I want, when I want. Works for me.

[JR8]

No one has a problem taking my credit card.

All #Iget is this hell-hole swarm of triple Id-checks....

No wonder I seek to do all my shopping abroad...

[x9200]

I also found Paypal very convenient, and what I mentioned earlier, from the buyer's perspective, it really provides great purchasing safety. Paypal has well established and hassle free procedures to claim money from dishonest sellers. I made use of it already few times also for on-line purchasing in Singapore. It is good to have such option because problems happen here frequently.

[zzm9980]

I've been almost-burned by PayPal selling from the US to someone in Spain via eBay. They did exactly what was described: Received my goods, and claimed not to have. The vast preponderance of the evidence was on my side. Luckily I removed the money from PayPal before shipping, and my bank account was linked in a way that they couldn't claw it back. They tried to via the linked Amex, but I just called Amex with the same evidence PayPal ignored and Amex refunded it. Once or twice a year PayPal still sends it to a collections agency (which can't do anything to my credit rating luckily), and I just send them a copy of the Amex dispute letter in my favor and they go away. Still quite a hassle, and not worth dealing with international buyers because of it. The risk may be worth the 15% premium to that company worth selling to you. Probably not for a larger merchant due to volume as they'd have to dedicate a headcount just to dealing with these incidents and eat into that premium.

Paypal itself is even worse. Their dispute resolution process is heavily rigged towards the buyer. It is impossible to send an email or describe your situation to PayPal. The buyer is allowed to file a dispute via a form with pre-populated options. You're only allowed to respond via pre-populated options and supply very limited data or upload documents only to support your exact point. You can present your own case. I had to resort to typing my response, printing, scanning, and uploading it along with whatever very specific paperwork PayPal requested. I have no idea if anyone even read it.


In my specific case, I sold a laptop to someone. I had photos of the laptop being packed at a UPS Store (shipping center) in the US, the official UPS customs form as to what was in the box, weight, etc. The UPS employee packed it themselves and signed a statement attesting that I actually shipped the laptop. The photos I took of the item being shipped were even geo-tagged, and the location showed up as UPS on Google Maps. (It was also a very popular location quite close to PayPal HQ, so no doubt at least half of them had actually been to that very same UPS store before). The buyer claims I shipped a broken shell of a laptop. Paypal told him to return it to me and ordered a refund. When it arrived, it was a piece of plastic. The shipment invoice for this plastic was 2kg less than the package I sent to him, < 1kg vs 3kg. All of this pointed out to PayPal made zero difference. Amex ruled in my favor almost immediately, and the local police department even said "It's a slam dunk if we had jurisdiction in Spain". lol. Again, Paypal didn't care about anything.

A friend used to work for PayPal in a department related to fraud. He said PayPal and eBay have some of the very best anti-fraud detection in their backend of any company in the world, but it's all tuned towards protection eBay and Paypal from being defrauded themselves. They don't care about buyer or seller.

[x9200]

IMO Paypal probably assumes that the business sellers (other do not count) should have an insurance against problems like this. It shows in how the filing process is structured and that it is enough not to receive the item and without any further explanation the refund is granted. Also many sellers just give refund in cases of low priced items (say sub S$20).

What I could observe is that many sellers are clearly afraid of a buyer opening a dispute like it was some kind of internal Paypal rating affecting them and provision paid.

[JR8]

Ah I see, I don't use eBay. I think I have twice*, years ago, and the process of setting up Paypal was so tortuous I think it put me off for life. That together with the end-product received.

If I were an Ebay seller, then yes I can see the value of it.

These days to get the kind of products I might have once looked for on eBay, if I don't go to a specialist supplier, then Amazon is my first stop.


*
1) to buy a PC download cable for my dive computer, that turned out to be home made!
2) to buy a 12-pack of Oral-B heads for an electronic toothbrush, that turned out to be counterfeit, and made my gums bleed.