Paypal Protects The Buyer NOT Seller!!

[DreRoc]

I am besides myself this morning, after the phone call I had with a Paypal representative. In a nutshell I sold an item on Ebay and shipped it. The buyer received the item and it had been broken during the shipping process(allegedly). Assuming that the buyer did not take an already damaged version of the item and pull a switcheroo, Paypal agrees that it was the Post Office's fault. I asked the dispute representative, "just to get this straight, because it all sounds so crazy in my head... If I sell an item on Ebay, ship it, and then the Postal truck gets hit by a hydrogen bomb, it's my fault?" The representative replied, yes. 

With this policy in play, there is no system in place to protect the seller.  I recommend: 1) Use an alternative to PAYPAL, I know I will.  2) Do not ship anything without postal insurance or you may have to eat the cost of shipping and your item! Since there is NO COMMUNICATION between Ebay and PayPal, they do not see that the buyer in my case opted out of the more expensive shipping in lieu of cheaper shipping.  ...remarkably pathetic for a company that has been around for a few years and done well.  Say goodbye to any future business from me!

[BobsStore]

I had a simlar experience with shipping an item to Mexico.  The customer claimed it never arrived and had now way to prove or disprove it.  I shipped it via First Class International (an option NOT available with Pay Pal) using the Post Office's Shipping Assistant software.  I use this software with all my international shipments.  It makes customs tags so much easier because it is all incorporated on one label.

Well, I had my copy of the mailing label and the evidence that the item had been scanned at my local post office.  Unfortunately, Mexican Post Offices are not as diligent in scanning packages as they are here in the US.  And since I didn't use Pay Pal to do the shipping, I had to refund the customer's money.  To add insult to injury, they just took the money from my account and refunded it to the customer.

As such, I have revised all my listings and will only ship to Mexico via International Priority Mail (an option on Pay Pal) and that has increased the cost of shipping to that country so that I probably will have zero sales there.  That's fine with me too.

I ship to Canada and Europe with no problems at all.  And I ship 10-15 international packages every week.