I Smell Impending Suckiness...

[Nashida]

...and hopefully it won't be me...

To make a long backstory short, I was on eBay looking for a video game that has been out of print for a few years now and I wasn't finding it in any store or their websites. I found a seller who was offering the game for free shipping with a fairly low starting bid. I placed my maximum bid, and won the auction with the max bid I had placed.

That was June 16th. Right after I won, I paid with Paypal through eBay's "Pay Now" option in the invoice I got. I used an eCheck because I didn't have enough funds in Paypal itself. The eCheck would clear June 19th. Whatever, I thought. At least I don't have to drive around looking for it anymore.

June 19th I log in to chec and see if payment had cleared and the seller had shipped, only to discover that my payment had been canceled. The seller left no notes as to why it was canceled, and when I logged in to Paypal itself the entire payment was refunded to my Paypal balance instead of my bank account.

I asked for help on the eBay forums and they mostly said the same thing: rate all 1 stars on the DSR's and leave a neg explaining what happened. Said I could also file an INR if I needed to.

I didn't want to do that (the seller is relatively new but has 100% feedback as a seller and buyer, and the FBs for selling are pretty recent) because that'd ruin them as a seller, so I popped into the Paypal forums to see if there was anyting there that could help. Some users posted about Paypal having a glitch where it cancels payments made through Pay Now in eBay invoices, and suggested using the Send Money tab in my Paypal account instead to pay.

Okay, I thought. Let's try that. So I did. Instead, I got an error message not a minute later:

'This user is unable to receive payment at this time.'

All right...what does that mean?, I ask myself. I can't pay for my auction and will now face getting an NPB because I somehow can't pay them?

I've tried emailing them but haven't gotten a response, even though this seller has been active the past few days leaving FB for a couple other buyers. I was going to give them until Monday before deciding to leave negative FB and looking for this game elsewhere ( I actually spotted it at a game store two towns over when I was out this past Wednesday and was grumbling about how it shows up now, after I had won the auction...I might just give them a call and ask them to hold it for me or something and go get it).

Anyone else have any ideas about what is going on? I don't think this is a scammer, because they don't have a cent of my cash. The problem seems to be that I can't pay them.

Just trying to save the both of us here....

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Sellers on ebay are allowed to refuse e-checks as payment; however they must accept all other forms of Paypal payment if they state in the listing they accept Paypal or are flying the Paypal logo someplace in it.

Or at least that was the rule when I was still selling there.

As for why they can't accept payment, maybe they're in some kind of trouble with Paypal? That wouldn't stop them from conducting other ebay business such as leaving feedback.

[bainsidhe]

I agree with Irv. If everything was on the up and up, then the seller would have contacted you/responded. Leave your feedback and consider it done. Just a thought, but sometimes a seller cancels a bid because the item becomes unavailable (posted in error, wrong inventory count, etc). Not sure if that's possible in this case, but I wouldn't press further at this point since something seems fishy.

[Mr Hero]

As a gamer, I'm just curious what game you were looking for.

[Nashida]

As a gamer, I'm just curious what game you were looking for.

It's a Digimon game for DS that my younger cousin has been unable to get a hold of. It's been out of print for a couple years now, so I've resorted to using eBay.

Irv, I think the same rule is in place (I haven't bought anything from eBay for almost 7 months now, but they've done quite a few changes), except all sellers must accept Paypal as a form of payment. The eCheck was paid through Paypal as my bank account was linked to my Paypal, and I had more than enough money to cover a $24 purchase. It bounced, the money was put into my Paypal balancae, and when I tried to pay using that balance instead that also bounced and got me the same error message.

They could have run out of stock, I'm not sure....the seller had two copies of the game listed (I had lost the first one but won the second one) but maybe really only had one...I'm really not entirely sure because I still haven't heard from them. They've been logging in to eBay to leave FB...there's no way they could miss any of my messages.

[Andara Bledin]

If it says that the seller can't recieve payments, there's a good chance someone complained (or paid with a fraudulent card) and now the seller has their account frozen until things get sorted out. That means any buyers who pay will have their payments bounced with about zero information from PayPal about it.

Also, check to be sure that the closed auction is still being displayed. It's possible it got cancelled for some violation (real or imagined, it doesn't really matter to eBay), and that would cause a payment to be kicked back to you, also. Again, eBay and PayPal are completely lousy when it comes to letting the person know why they've done something.

I've been doing eBay for years, and every case of a payment being kicked back to me was due to either the payment not getting "picked up" after 30 days because they gave the wrong email address (this happens a lot, and one guy even shipped my item, but never took the money ), when the item gets de-listed for some violation of the terms (this is particularly annoying when they've already shipped and you now have no way to compare the item to the listing), or once, when the seller got banned for having an account after the first one got banned for shilling (I reported the idiot, with my boss' blessing), and he was still up to his old tricks. (as an aside, the guy created a third account later, but dealt straight with that one, so I didn't report him again)

As an aside, try to always pay via PayPal with a credit card (or debit card, if that's all you have). The reason for this is for the added protection in case the seller goes sucky on you. Do that, and you pretty much hold all the cards.

Also, it's possible to do Feedback when not online. It's also possible to upload listings and bid on items while not online. My company does all of the above.

Finally, I automatically rate every single seller (no matter their performance) as 5 stars for everything because eBay's system is horribly broken, and even though they know that, they won't do anything to help sellers who become victims of it's brokenness, and it's far too easy for sucky buyers to abuse their sellers with it. If the seller is scum, I can say that in Feedback and I can get my money back from PayPal or my credit card, if I have to.

^-.-^

[Nashida]

OK...well, I checked my eBay and the auction is still there, so it wasn't taken down yet or relisted, which is good.

I've tried at least three more times to pay this seller and with different means through Paypal (debit and credit card, and then the balance that was actually in my PP account) and minutes later they'd bounce back with the message "This user is unable to accept payment at this time".

I'd asked about it on the eBay forums and they said if I can't pay the seller then I am no longer obligated to hold up my end of the deal and should just move on, which doesn't seem right to me because I'm one of those goody-goody buyers who always tries to hold up their end of a sale. At the same time, I still haven't heard anything from the seller from their end either, so I'm just debating now whether to let the auction die and look for my item elsewhere (I actually found it at a gamestore two towns over from me and was going to pick it up today for cheaper than the auction), and if the seller tries to file a NPB I've got the email receipt for when I paid them and the email that followed detailing the bounceback, so I can say "Hey, I tried to pay you, but something's wrong on your end."

[Andara Bledin]

You have a record of having sent the payment, so you shouldn't be able to be hit with an NPB strike, but even if everything fails and they did, it wouldn't be enough, by its lonesome, to give you trouble.

While it's nice of you to try to complete the sale, the fact that the seller can't receive payment is a major setback (don't use any alternate form of payment, by the way), and if you don't get a response by, say, tomorrow evening, then it's time to move on.

I don't know what forum you went to, but when I was a regular, the Feedback board was one of the fastest-paced and most knowledgable overall.

Also, as for ratings and Feedback, don't be in a hurry to leave anything. You've got a month; at least wait until the whole thing is over before giving any ratings. Always remember: Feeback is the very last thing you do in an eBay transaction. (and never use Feedback as a threat, either... that never ends well... not saying you would, just throwing that out for the masses)

^-.-^

[Nashida]

I've been using both the Buyer Central and Paypal community boards since the whole thing started. I've gone there for assistance as both a buyer and a seller in the past and have gotten quite a bit of help from them.

I won't leave any feedback unless I hear from them; haven't left any yet, and most likely won't. Thankfully they haven't asked me to try and use another form of payment (which I wouldn't do anyway).

[Andara Bledin]

I don't know if things have changed (probably) in the last couple of years, but I do remember that the PayPal boards were not well regarded. Buyer Central was ok, too. But the Biddies and Feedies were really the ones to go to for help. Biddies for before the end of the auction and Feedies for... well, for pretty much all occaisions, since it could always be tied to Feedback, and was technically always on topic for the board.

^-.-^