Warning to all coral sellers!!! Must read!

[Akwarius]

Sellers,

Beware of selling to new members with few or no posts. I was recently the victim of a paypal dispute and lost a lot of money/coral! Basically, if a buyer chooses to fail a claim with paypal, and selects "item not as described", paypal will side with the buyer 9 out of 10 times (approx. according to my research), regardless of the evidence provided by the seller. As long as the package is returned to the seller, then the refund is awarded to the buyer. In the case of buying corals, this means that they are stuck in a box for a very long time. In my case the corals were zoanthid frags that spent a four day weekend in a FedEx facility! I was completely unaware of this paypal "scam" until now. I say "scam", because I am sure that it was originally created to protect buyers, but has become a dangerous loophole that is exploited by con-artists and flakey buyers. Don't make the same costly mistake that I have. Sell to only people you trust or have an established reputation and/or feedback rating.

 

[GR808]

thanks for the tip..
Good advice as I am seeing alot more threads here selling livestock..

 

[Akwarius]

...and dishonest buyers. It's a two way street. That's why I dont mind selling corals on R2R- the participating members here are fair and honest.

 

[kershak]

...and dishonest buyers. It's a two way street. That's why I dont mind selling corals on R2R- the participating members here are fair and honest.

+1 thanks bro that is the reason i always tranfer the paypall money to another acount inmediatly if i dont now the buyer,if somting hapends i transfer back and pay

 

[Akwarius]

In my case a hold was placed upon my paypal account even though I had transferred the money! Now I have a negative balance on a premium account that has made hundreds maybe even over a thousand dollars for paypal (in fees) over the years. I talked to the claims rep and they wont even compensate me for the $80 in shipping that I lost! Thanks a lot paypal. Dont make this same mistake, folks! Sell only to people you trust and insist that they have a confirmed paypal address.

 

[kershak]

if you have the info of this guy please share whit us! people like that is garbage

 

[Akwarius]

if you have the info of this guy please share whit us! people like that is f$#%!!! garbage

The guy has zero posts, that's all I'm going to say. He could have easily just leveled with me and said that he could not afford the purchase and asked for a refund. But instead went immediately to a paypal claim. Huge red flag! I just wanted to warn sellers in general and provide a little info about paypal disputes. Paypal is NOT on your side, so be careful.

On the plus side my careful packaging kept half of the zoas alive. It could have been worse!

 

[Reloadeddevil]

Sorry to hear that travis. It really ticks me off as well that some idiot takes a prefectly good friendly enviornment to very uncomfortable situition among sellers and buyers especially involving live stock.

 

[Brent Ward]

Did you tell paypal it was live coral? There policy doesn't cover live items.

 

[sportzfish]

Just to be clear, the buyer did not fleece you out of additional funds above and beyond what was transacted? I guess this person in question just realized they could not afford what all they wanted? Sorry if I seem to be missing something here.

 

[_sludgefactory]

Paypal did the samething to me once. Sold a light to a guy, he filed a claim, I lost the freaking slips from the USPS. They gave him his money back and he had the light. Paypal is all about the buyer, so is eBay for that fact. Just look at the policies that they have set up in the past few years. Personally I used to buy and sell a lot on eBay, for close to the past 10 years. Now I don't sell anything there and I don't use Paypal for anything at all. If I want to sell something I got to craigslist and don't make a transaction unless I have money in hand, and don't give out any phone numbers or info until I know there person is serious about making a buy.

 

[xmetalfan99]

People have used this scam on eBay for a number of years as well. The buyer normally sends an empty box with a tracking number to prove it reached the seller.

This is why I don't use paypal when I sell stuff. Local pickup only. Can't get screwed with cash.

 

[Blackhawk Fan]

I was the victim of something similiar to this with dry goods a couple years ago. Unfortunately its a risk we all take. I'm sorry for everyone this happens to. It's not fun.

 

[SD Actuary]

Man thats terrible! Sorry to hear about it Travis

 

[fab1971]

sucks bro. at least it wasn't a complete loss and you got some of the stuff back alive. I thought you meant the buyer kept the merchandise, filed a claim and kept everything. That would have been worse.

 

[myzislow]

Sounds like its time for good ole fashion money orders or western union to make a comeback until PP recognizes the error in their policy.

 

[Reef keeper]

yeah man that really sux! good luck hope everything goes good for ya!

 

[Akwarius]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I hope no one is reading this and getting any ideas, if you know what I mean. You could really devastate someone with this. Thats what initially freaked me out. Not that this particular buyer was a scammer (he was just a dummy). But how little regard paypal for the sellers side of the story.

 

[soccerbag]

Please keep in mind that we do have iTrader feedback here and you can at least ensure that others don't get "taken" by posting feedback that way. Good of you to not drag a name through mud here on this thread. But there are are ways of letting others know. Sorry to hear about your transaction. Bummer for sure.

 

[SaltWaterDave]

Man, that sucks you got ripped off. Sucks there are people out there like that. Shady people are everywhere. thanks for the heads up.