@jradmacher wrote: Raveninred, I was reading your post and got so tired of all the rambling I had to stop. You clearly are not in touch with what PayPal is letting some sellers and especially buyers get away with. I had an individual buy an expensive guitar from me, a 2008 Gibson SG 61 reissue in perfect condition. The box was packed just like it was when it came from the factory but I went ahead and bought a new box to be on the safe side. I also took pictures of the guitar and had it inspected. When the box got to the buyer there were holes punched in the box. The buyer sent me an email claiming the guitar was damaged and described the details but failed to tell me about the hole that was punched through the top of the box. He tried to get Gibson to pay for the damage under warranty instead of getting the Postal Insurance to cover the damage. In my return email I asked him if it could have been damaged during shipping and that is when he told me about the damage to the box. He shouldn't have accepted it at his house, he should have refused it and picked it up at the Post Office after inspecting it and documenting the damage. Next he tried to get me to give him 150.00 dollars to have it repaired. I am not going to do that I bought insurance to cover any loses. Now here comes PayPal to the rescue. Papal freezes my money because of a stupid mistake by the buyer. So now I have over a thousand dollars tied up and he gets to send me back a damaged guitar at no cost to himself but shipping. Of course in good conscience I have to report this damage if I re-list it and I will lose hundreds of dollars. So he bribes me again and says he will split the 150.00 with me because he really wants to keep the guitar. I am not going to give a crook a dime so I turned him down again. After he finds out he has to pay for shipping he says that he will split the difference and I only have to give him 50.00 dollars. I turned him down because if the guitar is damaged then I will file a dispute and then they will hold his money up until he pays to have it fixed. I have had my money tied up for over a week now. They gave him ten days to provide the tracking number 7 days ago and he still hasn't shipped it. He has three more days and then if he doesn't return it I will finally get my money back. PayPal should have a policy stating that if a buyer accepts a damaged box that is insured he should either not sign for it until it is inspected. If a buyer does accept it he should not be able to file a dispute. This is a good example of buyers abuse and to be honest as soon as this is resolved I am going to shut down my PayPal account and find an alternative. You know, if you don't want to read what I wrote above, that's fine but it was a dialogue about people scamming PayPal. What happened to you was an automatic dispute - if one partly lodges a complaint, there is an automatic hold on funds. That's an absolute. The best thing is you had all the evidence in the WORLD to back up your claim, including pictures and purchased shipping insurance, which he never took advantage of. The decision would have been resolved in your favor, especially if you had contacted Customer Service using the (NOT E-MAIL SYSTEM - THAT DOESN'T WORK - IT'S AUTOMATED) "Contact Us" button when you sign in to your account, getting a Web Pin and a special Customer Service Phone Number good for one hour (you can generate another if you can't call at that particular time) but you're calling right into the top tier of customer service who, once you've identified it's your account, has access to see the problem, you can present your issue, ask them if you need to e-mail or fax them your paper-trail of his blackmail, our photos, your Federal proof of his receipt of item, his continued blackmail, and wham-bam - you're in the clear with your money back and your account cleared. You can think I'm a "meanie" all you want, but I did know what I was talking about above. Hope this advice helps you out a little and you get some recompense. Best of luck. Raven
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