Eh, and a lot of times if they try to screw you, eBay or Amazon will protect you so yeah. If they have like 50% negative feedback or something, I will look elsewhere, and if their rating is under 90% I may look to see what the negatives were and sometimes it's clearly just a lot of asshole customers or something that wouldn't apply to the item I'm considering or wouldn't be a concern for me in any way.
I got screwed by PayPal, and it was such a wild ride, I'm gonna sit down at my desktop and tell you.
Right before Covid 2020 kicked off, I had two waitlist conversions on Mezco come up - The Pink Skull Club. I had set a watch on three of my email accounts, and two came through. They arrived the very day my work shut down for the Quarantine.
Few months in (Canada had a little more Quarantine Time, if I recall), and we all know toy collecting was popping off as people were stuck inside with stimulus checks. In my Mezco groups on FBook, the Skulls starting hitting 700-900USD. Being out of work, and having an extra Skull set, that sounded pretty good.
Posted. Had an inquiry. Guy paid that afternoon. Shipped it out that night.
Delivery date sails by, and a few days later he claims he never got it. Tracking says it was delivered. He says no, refund me, please.
And what flagged for me was, "You have insurance, you'll get paid, too." It was a strange reassurance on top of his refund request. And in that weird Autistic Justice sense (pre-diagnosis, but now I know), I didn't care about insurance. I had sold something, and someone stole it, and this good man was stolen from and denied his honest purchase. It was a violation of the transaction and a wound on me. I had to Batman this shit out. For Justice.
I want to know what happened to it, so I look up where I sent it. It's a sign making business in a strip mall in Middle of Nowhere, Oregon. I call the shop up, explain I may have missent something. Nope. They know his name, he works there and "always takes packages" there.
Oh. Okay, because one went missing. "Oh, on Tuesday? No, I got that one. It was from Canada, which I thought was fun," says the desk clerk.
I respond to the buyer telling him I did some legwork and it was delivered to his job and signed and left with the clerk, and dropped her name.
Here he started sweating, because all grammar and punctuation and politeness ceased from here on. Threated me with bad feedback. Threatened my rep in the Toy Group. Demanded a refund.
A week later, PayPal hits me up and says "Hey, this guy says you never sent it, we have taken 900USD from your account, GFY, thanks."
I contest this. PayPal says the burden is on me to prove it was delivered. From Toronto. The tracking and USPS status isn't enough. They want Proof.
I end up dealing with the local postmaster, and again, this town is Middle of Nowhere, so the post office is three women and two drivers. Such a small post office and such a routine route, the postmaster was able to tell me the mailman's name. She looked it up on her Postal GPS intel. Told me it was delivered that day, at X time, and that time makes sense because that's always when the mailman pulls in there for that strip mall and lunch at subway, usually an Italian sub and Sun Chips.
Great. She also provides SATELLITE PHOTOS of the drop off - you can see the mailman in the truck and entering the sign shop. I didn't even know we were that accurate. That's horrific. Jason Bourne shit in the Post Office.
She co-signs all this and gives it to me for PayPal, with her own Postmaster Statement of Accountability.
PayPal got back the next day with, "... Nah. Sorry. Case Closed."
And that's why even with the buyer protection claim ("Never send friends and family.") I don't trust PayPal or eBay anymore.
The Epilogue is months later, this happened to other sellers in other Mezco groups. Ended up it was the same guy. Always Skulls or Gomez. Same MO. Nothing ever happened to him, last I looked. I left all those groups after I sold the rest of my Mezco at the time.
