Hello all,

We have all been scammed by various sellers.

Many (if not all) used Paypal (Ebay owned) to pay for the purchase.

Paypal boasts about customer protection - both for buyer and seller.

Well, when it comes to these hacked players, Paypal protection is just about useless. Once a claim is filed, Paypal requires you to provide documentation from a third party source to support your claim. Now, unless you are in the computer industry or know someone that is, it will cost you a fee to have the MP4 unit inspected. In my case, the minimum charge from the place was $20.

I faxed the information to Paypal and after they reviewed it, the case was found in my favor against ebay seller "buy_lowest" Paypal account "mp4.world@gmail.com".

GREAT, I WON!!

Wait, there is more to read.....

I must return the item to Paypal on my dime. Also, the cost of having this thing inspected is not refundable.
Great protection there, Paypal!

Just so I have this straight, I have to invest approximately $30 to receive a refund of $41.21 to my paypal account. This is after Paypal has concluded that the seller was, in fact, a scammer.

So, I'll file this in my "you're stupid" file. I'll add the $20 spent on this and just accept that I paid $61.21 for a hacked 1 GIG player.

I will be closing my Paypal account. Credit card companies offer far superior buyer protection. I'll go that route from now on.

Sorry for the vent.

Dude, what am I to say? "Sorry" doesn't nearly come close enough. You have done well in going through it all and getting the support from PayPal. I don't think I am going to go that far.

I have been ebaying since year 2000, and have had 100% positive feedback until e-britain gave me a negative. He has offered to mutually withdraw feedback - What's the point in aggreeing to withdraw my neutral feedback for him, if it only means that I maintain my 100%, since his feedback is kept private?

No, I'll take my negative as a battle scar, in return for his favour, I have put up a link to this site, so everyone who sees my negative feedback will get to know about one of the many scams on ebay.

Sorry to hear that, but the more that people understand PAYPAL are as much in bed with the crooks as are EBAY, the better. You should have told PAYPAL you never received your player. So long as the seller didnt ship via online tracking, and I think most don't, you at least wouldn't have had to shell out $20 for an "inspection fee", or another $10 to ship the player (because you never received it, right? . PAYPAL however, screws you out of the first $25US of your claim, even if you win. And your hopes of getting whatever's left depends on if your seller doesn't regularly empty his Paypal account.

I could rant a lot more against Paypal / Ebay for their lack of protection, because I currently bought an MP4 iPlatinum Nano clone from someone I'm over 75% sure is a scammer with no intention of sending the player to me. I'm currently trying to get Paypal to tell me if I will win AT ALL once the scammer sends me nothing, and its not looking good. Several days and only a canned form letter that doesn't answer my questions. Needless to say, I ain't going through with the deal. eBay will hit me with an UIS (unpaid item strike) but big deal.... you gotta be hit with two more within a certain period just to get suspended.

If eBay ever lets me edit my damn guide again (seem to be locked out of it), I'm going to add an elaborate section warning people about PAYPAL, cos I've seen WAY too many ignorant folk telling others how protected they'll be from these sellers if they only pay by Paypal..... people only find out when its too late. Then they eventually learn that not only did they get scammed by the sellers (usually out of Hong Kong), they also got scammed by eBay and scammed by Paypal. The only ones that may be on your side is the credit card companies...

mpj-mlj wrote (View Post): › Hello all, We have all been scammed by various sellers. Many (if not all) used Paypal (Ebay owned) to pay for the purchase. Paypal boasts about customer protection - both for buyer and seller. Well, when it comes to these hacked players, Paypal protection is just about useless. Once a claim is filed, Paypal requires you to provide documentation from a third party source to support your claim. Now, unless you are in the computer industry or know someone that is, it will cost you a fee to have the MP4 unit inspected. In my case, the minimum charge from the place was $20. I faxed the information to Paypal and after they reviewed it, the case was found in my favor against ebay seller "buy_lowest" Paypal account "mp4.world@gmail.com". GREAT, I WON!! Wait, there is more to read..... I must return the item to Paypal on my dime. Also, the cost of having this thing inspected is not refundable. Great protection there, Paypal! Just so I have this straight, I have to invest approximately $30 to receive a refund of $41.21 to my paypal account. This is after Paypal has concluded that the seller was, in fact, a scammer. So, I'll file this in my "you're stupid" file. I'll add the $20 spent on this and just accept that I paid $61.21 for a hacked 1 GIG player. I will be closing my Paypal account. Credit card companies offer far superior buyer protection. I'll go that route from now on. Sorry for the vent.

Something tells me that if you were to edit it warning about Paypal's protection, your guide will disappear.

Come to think of it, I think the trigger words are "ebay" and "paypal".

hmm paypal dont add claim fees for me, i just open dispute, escalate to claim, 2 weeks later i have my money wether i send item or not

I agree with most people here. Paypal is a bullshit artist.

I paid $80AUD for a hacked memory player (4gb pfft, 1gb) so i opened a dispute.

after sending the requested documents to paypal with a report from a computer tech guy's examination, they then cancel my claim in favour of the seller and reckon they never received my documents.

even though, after i sent each one, they sent me a confirmation email stating they HAD gotten my documents.

ive emailed them SO many times, fowarded the confirmation emails to them and everything, but i just keep getting a generically spawned 'your claim was cancelled because we did not receive your documents - for this reason there will be no appeal'

i am fuming. fuck paypal.

Aw man, Dritermius, that's pretty appaling customer service. I'd kick up a serious fuss if I was you.

mpj-mlj wrote (View Post): › Something tells me that if you were to edit it warning about Paypal's protection, your guide will disappear.

Well, so far I've condemned eBay in that guide, I got "political" on their ass, and pointed out how they were against online auction seller registration programs that some US senators are mumbling about, I talked about how they favoured the Chinese and turned a blind eye to their organized scam on the world, I condemned the CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, I included a (rather short) list of bad sellers (a very controversial portion that some people emailed me about threatening that eBay would remove the guide for that), and I also did have a few bad words to say about Paypal.

So if they haven't pulled it yet.... I don't see what diff it makes if I elaborate on the Paypal scam. But I honestly don't know if you're allowed to dis eBay in the guides. I know they have specific rules about doing that on the forums. It "diminishes trust in the eBay marketplace and community". Right! Like eBay itself doesn't do that enough.

Perhaps Ebay doesn't feel there is any impact on their net profits with these reviews and guides.
I can only speak for myself here but, I have never read ebay reviews on items prior to purchasing. I usually try to obtain as much info as I can searching the web. Apparently, this time I did not search good enough. Impulse got the better of me.

Gotta run, need to open a few new email accounts.