Some of you may remember my story about buying a set of OEM MINI wheels for winter tires via eBay. The tires were described as "nearly new with 7 miles." When they arrived, I found they clearly were not as described. I filed a dispute with PayPal. A month+ later, they asked me to get documentation showing a qualified 3rd party's opinion. So I took the wheels to my dealer, who said "no way these wheels have 7 miles on them." I sent this statement to PayPal. Their final conclusion? I win the dispute. Yipee. Good news, right? But wait. Now all I have to do (per PayPal's instructions) is ship the wheels back to the seller, at my expense, for a refund of my purchase price, minus original shipping.

Excuse me???

So....I would be out $260 for shipping ($130 each way). The seller gets the wheels back, refunds my purchase price, and he's right back where he started. He can now sell the wheels again on eBay and won't lose a dime. Well, OK, probably not on eBay because of my scathing feedback (which I will now submit), but nonetheless he has the wheels back and is out nothing. He'll find some local sucker to buy them.

Me, the guy who was deceived in the deal, takes it in the shorts to the tune of $260. What an unbelievably cruel joke. Of course I'm not going to send them back, that would be stupid. So the seller gets some bad feedback and I'm sitting on $430 worth of wheels I don't want. And I went through this whole ridiculous dispute process for nothing.

I called their customer service center to argue my case, and the girl responded that she was sorry, but that's the best they could do per their rules. "So what if," I said, "I bought a Mercedes on eBay, paid $1000 to have it shipped to me, and ended up getting a Chevy Cavalier instead? I'm stuck paying the $1,000 to get the car to me and $1,000 to ship the car back? Even though I was defrauded???" Her response can be summarized with a simple "yep."

I'm furious that this is the "protection" PayPal offers its customers. I'm livid that this guy (the seller) gets to chuckle at sticking it to me. And I'm ticked that I have to put a set of banged-up wheels on my new car that I never would have bid on had I known their true condition.

Pathetic. Thanks a lot, PayPal. With friends like you...

In a just world, I could ship the wheels back with the seller getting stuck with all the shipping costs. Or at the very least he should be forced to give me a partial refund. I rejected his original partial refund offer of $50, which I thought was a joke. Now I won't even get that.

Lesson learned: never buy something from eBay that wouldn't be cost-effective to ship back if you don't get what you're expecting.

Beware.

 

ebay and paypal both suck becuse they are held accountable to....NO ONE!! if a local business of any kind anywhere in this country conducted themselves as ebay and paypal do, at least a dozen government agencies would be all over them. I avoid using both.

 

Best thing I can tell you to deal with these kind of people, I have one screw ball of my own, is to sell the rims to someone else so they can use them as snow tire/rims! You should get most of your money back, its that time of year!!
hope i could help. And get better pics of things you buy, with $$$.
15" rims are going for more money now since winter is around the corner and vice versa with 17" in the spring. Take advantage of the times on ebay.
thanks alpinamike

 

If ebay refunds you the $260 for shipping both ways then the seller would be losing the money.

Lets say you the buyer is the bad guy and gets the wheels exactly like describe. You then decide you don't want the wheels and file a complaint. You then show a 3rd party a different set of wheels to show proof to paypal the wheels were bad. You ship the wheels back to the seller and the seller loses $260.

So as you can see, it can work in reverse if ebay did what you have asked. Someone will get screwed either way no matter what ebay does. I have heard stories of sellers getting screwed and paypal refunded money to buyers. and vice versa for sellers.

Never to use ebay or paypal will only hurt yourself, not them. I've told myself never to rent from blockbuster, or never buy from bestbuy because of some bad incident. I then really limit myself and now I still rent from blockbuster but with more knowledge. I say just learn your lesson and be smarter about buying from ebay in the future.

my 2 cents..

 

Huh????? Sounds like a lot of work for me as the buyer just to burn the seller, no? What would a buyer gain by doing that?

Here's the deal: who should ultimately be responsible for the product that's sold? The seller. If the seller misrepresents the product, either intentionally or unintentionally, why should the buyer get stuck? That makes no sense whatsoever.

So you're saying in this instance, if someone is going to lose $260, it should be the buyer, who did nothing wrong but bid on an item he thought to be in a certain condition based on the description? I don't get the logic.

The seller should lose the $260. He misrepresented the product. His buyer got burned because of it.

 

Sorry but I've gotta side with ebay on this dispute.

1) the shipping was provided by a third party (UPS, FED-EX or the like) neither ebay nor PayPal were involved in that transaction.

2) the seller is the one who had physical possession of the goods during the entire sale, that is to say ebay didn't have the items under their control and couldn't therefore do anything more than take the seller's representation of them at face value.

3) the only thing that ebay could actually control - payment via PayPal was resolved in your favor. They stood behind their auction/payment system, and you weren't a victim of anything that ebay did.

4) take your claim against the seller to small claims court.

 

The only thing I can say is, DO NOT TRUST PAYPAL!

I had filed a claim (refund) recently for not receiving an item purchased online. I paid $230 for it and guess how much I received from PayPal as a refund, $4.00. Yes, $4.00 was all I had back. What a joke. They said that's all they could draw from the seller's account.

 

A little side note not directly related to the original post.

If your going to use Paypal use your credit card only and not funds within the Paypal account to pay for a transaction. (This requires transferring any funds out of your Paypal account previous to making the credit card charge).

If a seller screws you and doesn't ship the item you can first file a Paypal claim then if Paypal doesn't reimburse fully (lame lowball protection policies) you can DO A CHARGEBACK AGAINST PAYPAL with your credit card company for the rest of the funds charged to your credit card. Paypal has no recourse because they can't prove the item was ever shipped or received without a vaild tracking # from the seller. Your credit card company sees it as "non-receipt of goods" and will not pay it.

I have been a long Paypal user but I am concerned they are getting less customer oriented.

 

as you may remember I advised to do just this ... take the $50 ... keep the wheels and resell them yourself and make your money.
give bad feedback and move on with life.

don't forget the time and effort you put into this whole BS ... that has to be worth a few hundred bucks as well.

next time listen to someone with 10k feedback on ebay ...

"sticking it" to the seller might be what you wanted ... but a simple negative would have solved it.

time is money as well ... and you probably would have made out better financially.

 

Exactly!!!

 

Sorry to hear that you went through such a crappy experience, it never fails to sadden me when I hear of scamming and poor treatement among people.

Best of luck with future stuff, you'll get some wheels that you love in the longrun

 

Are these the wheels from the eBay seller from Western NC?

 

No, Maryland.

 

Did the seller have pictures posted, or just verbage?
It sucks to get screwed.

 

That's why you always read the seller's feedback, make sure they have a high rating, and never bid on anything without pictures.

Since '99, I have had only one problem with a seller, and it got resolved. The only thing I hate is that seller's will not give you positive feedback UNTIL you give them positive feedback. Personally, I make it a point to leave feedback ASAP, whether I'm the seller or buyer. So, if you ever have a problem with a seller, NEVER leave negative feedback until the problem is settled...otherwise you may never hear from the seller again.

 

Was the seller a MINI owner? It seems very unMINI to deceive like that.

 

Yes, there were pictures. Typical eBay pictures though, nothing you'd be able to use to recognize dings and scratches on individual wheels.

Had the seller said "wheels in excellent shape" I probably would have pressed for more details and/or higher-res photos.

However, with the description "nearly new with 7 miles" I assumed (understandably) that these were take-off wheels, since most new MINIs have that mileage on the clock on the dealer's lot anyway. And the seller later confirmed that they were take-offs, per the person who sold them to him (yes, he passed the buck, go figure).

He's not a MINI owner. He bought them for an MR-2 (I believe?) and they didn't fit. So sez he. Yes, had it been a MINI owner I would have expected a much better experience.

Ultimately it's $450. Some of you spend that much on a single wheel, so I don't expect a lot of sympathy. However, there's a principle involved here, and I'm disappointed in PayPal's dispute process. Had I known at the onset that the best they could do is get my money back minus shipping, I wouldn't have bothered. Again, I'll never buy anything again on eBay that isn't cheap to ship. I'm not going through this again.

 

Just wonder since your from Utah and have a red MINI, I saw some there a while back, and i almost bid on them.
alpinamike

 

I feel for you

However (theres alway a however) ... Paypal started out on their own. eBay bought them.

eBay IS, and always had been, an intermediary. The contract is between the buyer and seller, not eBay. People making LARGE purchases (as in 100K plus), usually for paintings, have tried to sue eBay and always lose. Being an intermediary, they only bring the buyer and seller together. Its also in their fine print

Its a contract between the buyer and seller. You cannot blame eBay ... in fact, they try to help ...

Bottom line, as in everything we buy ... caveat emptor.

I am sorry for your experience

 

Nope, not me.

 

eBay OWNS paypal. No matter what they are going to make money. I've been in similar situations and have found that the best way to avoid these situations is 1) always pay by credit card. Since I have used a credit card I have not had any problems. If there is a problem, I'm still not sure if I can dispute because I am paying through PayPal, who pays the seller basically. I'm not sure if I can dispute the seller then. And 2) Feedback is your friend. A guy with 750 feedback and 2 negatives is reputable. A guy with 10 feedbacks all positive, I'd be leary of doing business with. Just my opinion.

All I know is that PayPal needs to be separate from eBay. Fat chance

 

This most important message should not be overlooked!