As many of you know i have been using PayPerPost on this site and I have been paid from them so I had money in my PayPal account. Last night I decided to go on eBay and see what was available for the 24 Seasons. I am a BIG fan of the show 24. I found an auction that had a buy it now link for seasons 1-5 on DVD, after verifying that they were the US version and that they contained all disks for the seasons I opted to use the buy it now feature. I went through the payment process last night and everything seemed great. I was looking forward to getting the DVD sets. Or so it seemed…….

I woke up this morning to the following email in my inbox.

Dear codebowl (*******@codebowl.com),

Please be aware that item 180101603333 -24 Seasons 1-5. 1 2 3 4 5 DVD Box Sets! Brand New has been ended early and your bid has been cancelled as it appears that the seller’s account has been compromised and used by an unauthorized third party. The seller’s privileges to trade on eBay may be temporarily suspended while we investigate this matter further.

If this seller contacts you to complete a transaction outside of eBay, we strongly recommend that you ignore the request. Transactions of this nature are not covered by the Buyer Protection services offered by eBay.

If you have already sent payment, we advise you to take steps to protect yourself depending on the nature of your payment. For example, if you paid by personal check, you may stop payment on the check. If you paid for this item with a credit card, you should contact your credit card company’s security department right away to inform them of the potential problem with this payment — most companies provide consumer protection in these circumstances. If you have made a payment by money order or wire transfer, you may contact that company for further information at 1-800-325-6000 (Western Union), or at 1-800-926-9400 (Money Gram).

We emphasize that there is no definitive information regarding the seller or their items at this time, and our difficulties in confirming information about the seller may be the result of a mistake or misunderstanding.

There are many tips on how to protect yourself with any Internet transaction on our help page located at:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/confidence/isgw-fraud-buyer-tips.html

Do not respond to this email, as your reply will not be received. If you would like additional information related to this notice, please refer to the eBay Contact Customer Support page at the address provided below and contact us with your concern:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/contact_inline/index.html

Regards,
Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)

With this in mind I decided to contact eBay to see if this was a legitimate email or if it was spoofed. All they could tell me was that it was real and to contact Paypal. I tried hard to get the sellers information from eBay so that I could contact them directly. The seller is located in Austrailia and I would make every effort I could to contact them to get my money back.

I contacted Paypal immediately after I was done with eBay. The status of the payment is “Unclaimed” so you would think that it would be easy to cancel and get my money back. I dont have the money, the seller doesnt have the money… Who does? Paypal ofcourse. However when I contacted Paypal they told me that I have to wait 30 days to see if the seller accepted the money, if they did not then it would be returned to my account. Can you believe that? 30 Days? They also state that there is no way for them to recover the money before the 30 days. I don’t believe that. Would Paypal really develop a system where they *couldn’t* do something like that? Hell no! They just wont do it because it probably violates a user agreement with the seller.

Hmm eBay owns Paypal, the seller’s eBay account was terminated by eBay (or suspended whatever) yet Paypal can do nothing because it was an eBay transaction and NOTHING to do with Paypal. So I am told. I contacted Paypal again and they sent the seller an email asking that they refund the money. What are the chances that someone who was doing something fraudulent would actually take that into consideration? This is not the first time I have had to deal with Paypal like this.

A while back someone sent me an OEM version of Windows XP (which I planned to use for my business) but they violated the MS OEM agreement. When I called MS to make sure it was still “legal” for me to use the software they said no that I needed to return it to the seller. I had to wait 3 months just to get $149 back from Paypal that time. It also included faxing about 10 pages to paypal outlining the agreement and where they violated it, etc.

I am starting to think that I just might stop using Paypal all together. There are other payment processors and methods to use on the internet. Hell I could just send a money order from now on. I am sure if I called the company that issued the money order, I could cancel it easier than getting money back from Paypal.

Have you had a bad experience with Paypal? Share it in a comment, I would love to hear what others have had happen to them.