Paypal policy update

[vtwin@cox.net]

Again, you and I will simply have to agree to disagree.

When listing an item, eBay gives 5 choices: New, Open Box, Manufacturer Refurbished, Seller Refurbished, Used, or "For Parts/Not Working" Of the 5 choices, "New" seemed the best selection, since the item itself was new. Used, not working, and refurbished certainly were not applicable. I suppose "open box" may have been an option, except, as I indicated, I was selling the item itself and nothing else that normally comes in the box, because it had all been discarded. If you want to get "technical" by the description eBay provides when listing an item, none of their "Condition" selections are applicable to my listing.

Undoubtedly had I selected "Open Box" the buyer would have likewise complained because the definition of "open box" says "the item includes original accessories".

Had the buyer read the item description, he wouldn't have purchased the item in the first place, if he was indeed looking for an item in a retail box. Instead, it was clear he didn't read the description of the item, instead, relied on the eBay list and pre-filled-in-data and thought he was getting a $100-retail item for $24.95 brand new a the box.

However, this is getting off topic, which is, Paypal's policy, not eBay's.

[NorthGuy]

I was selling the item itself and nothing else that normally comes in the box

If someone bought a TV, then took an HDMI cable from the box and sold it, it would  be "used", without any doubts.

[james_s]

If someone bought a TV, then took an HDMI cable from the box and sold it, it would  be "used", without any doubts.

That doesn't make any sense at all, the TV hasn't been used, it's just missing an accessory you can get anywhere for almost nothing. "New - other" would be appropriate for this case, or "open box". I don't think it's unreasonable either to list it as "New" and then clearly list the circumstances in the description. That's what the description is for, they can't possibly account for every possible situation in the status. If the TV has never been handled and hooked up then it isn't used.

[MT]

I so wish a billionaire would set up a nonprofit to handle online transactions without political bias or excess tariffs. 

Thats a fantastic idea, minus the billionaire.

[sleemanj]

If I remember correctly PayPal backed off this change last year, but just got this announcement for my NZ account...

https://www.paypal.com/nz/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full

> If you refund (partially or fully) a transaction to a buyer or a donation to a donor, there are no fees to make the refund, but the fees you originally paid will not be returned to you. (This will not apply to residents of Mainland China who open a PayPal account and use the PayPal services.)

Edit: Googling tells me that PayPal re-rolled this change out in October last year I guess for US, and Asia Pacific is catching up (unless you live in China it seems).

[unknownparticle]

Once any any internet company becomes dominant in their market the greed motive kicks in, because they have no competition.  Paypal is nothing but an online bank, and we all know the track record banks have for exploiting their customers.  Paypal was started by Elon Musk by the way, for those that didn't know, and we all know what a sham artist he is!  Tesla won't last long though, when Chinese EV manufacturers really start producing!!

[ECarr1985]

It would be normal to have the "Other" choice where you could describe why your product is not in a specific category. But the customers should always read the description because it's not in vain there. I have never had issues with PayPal though, but I also have a Skrill account from https://baxity.com/skrill-vs-paypal because it's much more convenient for some transactions. This is a weird policy I think, because if a detail or a piece it's missing, it doesn't mean the object is used, and I think many customers are misled by this.

[Bassman59]

Paypal was started by Elon Musk by the way, for those that didn't know, and we all know what a sham artist he is!  Tesla won't last long though, when Chinese EV manufacturers really start producing!!

Actually, Musk was not a PayPal founder. He took the proceeds from the sale of his previous software com-any (Compaq was the buyer) and started an online payments company. That company was bought by PayPal.

[tom66]

I really don't like eBay...  not only are they are dickish company and treat their sellers like crap, the whole experience is terrible.

Amazon offers next day or same day delivery.
I can trust the quality of ~most of the items on Amazon.
I can trust the quality of ~most of the reviews on Amazon.

eBay:
Is full of dropshippers who lie about location.
With shipping charges is generally more expensive.
Is rarely next day.
Is full of items that lie about price (99p - £9.99 and the 99p item is completely different to the other items in the list, making sorting impractical.)
Got a problem and it takes a week to resolve whereas Amazon will refund or returns accepted immediately.

I very rarely buy from eBay now.  Only use it for auctions from private sellers or very infrequently when Amazon does not have the item needed.

[NorthGuy]

Amazon offers next day or same day delivery.

I liked Amazon when they were selling books.

I don't like them now. Descriptions are often misleading, if not totally wrong. Reviews are lumped together. Say, you want to buy a 4K monitor, but you get lots of reviews, many of them may be for similar 1080p monitors. For many things, they work just a portal for the seller, and the item gets shipped from China - same drop-shipping as everywhere else. So, you can really buy a small subset of what you see. And even from this subset, something is no longer available, others don't ship to my address etc. Prices constantly change. A while back I wanted to buy a WiFi router, add one for $100 to my shopping cart, then had to go to lunch before checkout. Guess what. I come back and the router is $120 already. Do they really expect me to buy it in such situation?

It is a long way for Amazon to go to match the level of electronic suppliers, such as DigiKey. But guess what, Amazon doesn't get any better, but DigiKey is devolving towards Amozon - they now have products listed which are not shipped by DigiKey ... just as Amazon.

AliExpress is getting better. They descriptions, and feedback/rating systems are much better now than they were 5-10 years ago. Shipping options are much better. The quality of merchants improved. If they add parametric search, they will be very hard to beat. They don't accept PayPal though.

eBay, on the other hand, hasn't improved over last 20 years ago. I rarely use them now, if at all.

[SilverSolder]

Amazon's search function has to be the worst ever designed - no matter what you type into the search box, you get pretty much the entire Amazon catalog as the result set.  I've given up using Amazon search, now I search with Google and point it to Amazon.  (Not that Google search isn't broken, but you can get it to work half decently when you set it to "Verbatim" mode, which makes it work like anyone would expect it to work...)  - still I do shop on Amazon and live with the "dumbing down" as the world marches towards perfect idiocracy.

eBay used to have a very good search function which allowed wildcards, and so on.  They dumbed down their search function to follow idiocracy rules and it is much more tedious to search on eBay nowadays.  I still like eBay, though, and use it frequently.

The good news about eBay is that at their last earnings call (in the last week) they seem to be finally realizing that they are not going to become Amazon, and that they shouldn't try to do that, and that they need to get "back to basics".  Time will tell if the new found cluefulness will manifest in actual product, but we can at least hope...

[Bud]

It depends on what you want to buy. You cant buy Old Good stuff from Amazon and the like, you can only find it on eBay and similar auction sites or in local lists.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Amazon offers next day or same day delivery.

I liked Amazon when they were selling books.

I don't like them now. Descriptions are often misleading, if not totally wrong. Reviews are lumped together. Say, you want to buy a 4K monitor, but you get lots of reviews, many of them may be for similar 1080p monitors. For many things, they work just a portal for the seller, and the item gets shipped from China - same drop-shipping as everywhere else. So, you can really buy a small subset of what you see. And even from this subset, something is no longer available, others don't ship to my address etc. Prices constantly change. A while back I wanted to buy a WiFi router, add one for $100 to my shopping cart, then had to go to lunch before checkout. Guess what. I come back and the router is $120 already. Do they really expect me to buy it in such situation?

It is a long way for Amazon to go to match the level of electronic suppliers, such as DigiKey. But guess what, Amazon doesn't get any better, but DigiKey is devolving towards Amozon - they now have products listed which are not shipped by DigiKey ... just as Amazon.

AliExpress is getting better. They descriptions, and feedback/rating systems are much better now than they were 5-10 years ago. Shipping options are much better. The quality of merchants improved. If they add parametric search, they will be very hard to beat. They don't accept PayPal though.

eBay, on the other hand, hasn't improved over last 20 years ago. I rarely use them now, if at all.

Amazon, annoyingly here has a parallel universe of available products thanks to our GST system. 9 times out of 10 any support links on youtube channels point to items that are not available here. 

Hey Bezos: FIX YO SHIT.