In article
,
Telamon wrote:

In article
,
CelticDude wrote:

Hey all,

A friend of mine helped me to put a couple of radios on EBay over the
weekend. He used Vendio, and listed them both under "Consumer
Electronics\Radios: Ham, CB etc\Shortwave". The 2 auctions were set
to start Sunday at 9:00pm. Today he discovers that they didn't start
because EBay says you have to allow PayPal for certain categories of
items.

WTF??

My friend won't take PayPal because it costs extra. He has had no
problem with bank checks and money orders in past auctions. I thought
maybe it's because electronics cost a bit more, but my friend usually
sells high-end guitars and other instruments, so cost doesn't seem to
be it. Then my cynical side kicked in, and I figure EBay must be
getting kickbacks from PayPal. Does anyone know the real story, or
have ideas?

Anyway, sorry for the rant...

If you are posting your experience I would not call it a rant. Your
experience with a service is valuable information.

PayPal is supposed to be an escrow service. An escrow service is one in
which the buyer and seller are both supposed to be protected. Money
deposited in the escrow account is not supposed to move out of the
account until both the buyer and seller instruct the service to release
the funds.

Here is how it is supposed to work. The seller wants to know that the
money is really there for the item. PayPal sends notice to the seller
went that money is deposited by the buyer. The seller can then ship the
item knowing that a third party in the transaction (PayPal) has the
funds that are supposed to go to the seller. The seller upon shipping
the item gives notice to PayPal to send the fund to them. At this point
PayPal takes no action. When the item is delivered at the buyers
address and the buyer has a chance to see that the item is as
advertised then the buyer sends notice to PayPal to release the funds
to the seller. This is supposed to protect the buyer. The transaction
is complete.

The funds should not ever move out of the escrow account until both the
buyer and seller agree that the money should move out of the account
for any reason. If the buyer and seller do not agree for some reason
they have to work the problem out between themselves. When an agreement
is reached between the buyer and seller and both parties send
instructions to PayPal then the money moves out of the
account.

There could be other results to the transaction. Lets say the buyer
finds out the item is not as described and wants to return the item to
the seller. If the seller agrees to taking the item back and upon
receiving the returned item the seller can instruct PayPal to release
the funds back to the buyer. Here the seller sends an instruction to
the escrow service and the buyer requests the funds returned to them.
Again the money does not move out of the escrow account until
instructed by both the buyer and seller.

This just the basics of escrow 101. If PayPal is not working this way do
not use it.

Do not ever allow a money transaction service to access your accounts.
The only way money should ever leave your savings or checking account
to an escrow account is through an expressed action on your part
period. You write a check or you goto your bank and have the funds
transfered or wired. You could also use a credit card because the credit
card company will protect you if you state that you did not authorize a
payment. Once that money is in an escrow account it is in
control of PayPal not you. If there is a problem you may have to goto
court to get your money back in a civil disagreement.

EBay is getting more aggressive with PayPal.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080510/ap_on_hi_te/ebay_paypal_only

--
Telamon
Ventura, California