Worst ever buying experience on eBay in 24+ years. Who is crazier, seller or buyer?

[khetzel]

Worst ever buying experience on eBay in 24+ years. Who is crazier, seller or buyer?

First off I hardly ever leave feedback anymore, a seller has to be really good or really really bad to earn it.

Secondly the last time I sold on eBay was at least 15 years ago, so I was dealing with outdated and probably wrong assumptions about his access to my PayPal address when I was initially communicating with this seller. But he was the one who initially offered to send me a PayPal invoice. Keep that in mind.

This story is really long so I'll try to keep as short as possible, I can reply and fill in details if necessary.

I needed an item on eBay so I put a few examples on my watchlist. On June 1 seller made me an offer, I accepted and paid immediately. Expected delivery June 5-7.

Morning of June 7 I check ebay, item tracking shows "PRE-SHIPMENT INFO SENT USPS AWAITS ITEM" it's obviously not getting here today. So I sent polite request for status update to seller.

Morning of June 8 I check eBay, no response from seller, no change in tracking status. So I push the button that puts seller on a time clock to respond. Item not received or whatever.

Later on June 8 seller responds "It was mailed. Im not sure". Ok I guess we wait. Later on June 8 eBay tells me I got a refund. Ok maybe it wasn't mailed. I immediately bought the same item from another seller.

June 11 the original seller notified me that tracking was now showing up and item was progressing towards me. And "Please return the item if you don t want it - or if you do we can do a PayPal invoice (per ebay)"

I agreed I had no problem paying him if it arrived safely. I'm expecting a PayPal invoice.

Two months go by. August 8 seller's account contacts me on eBay a little demanding/accusatory and terse, I never reached out to pay for my item. I need to go to pay.somewebsite I've never heard of.

Maybe I'm paranoid but I hear every day about phishing and scam websites and identity theft and bank fraud. I'm not going to that website. I'm not even sure I'm talking to the seller and not some hacker. Especially with eBay's strict prohibition against outside links, why would a legitimate seller brazenly violate that policy?

I politely responded "Send me an invoice through PayPal please. I don't know what pay.somewebsite is."

I'm sorry the story is dragging on, getting too long. The rest was all downhill. I dug in and said send me the invoice on PayPal. He eventually said he was going to sic eBay on me which made me privately chuckle. But I remained polite and continued to request a PayPal invoice. August 12 after eBay probably told him to pound sand, he came at me with all kinds of accusations I was scamming him, stealing, I'm a lowlife, etc.

That's when I left him feedback. I just said he was sending nasty and rude threatening messages and trying to bully me into clicking on some unknown payment website. Deal with him at your own risk.

I did also send a report to eBay and this could be the tl;dr version for everything above:

"Seller sold an item that was originally lost in the mail. Seller provided full refund without issue. USPS later apparently found item and delivered it. Seller wanted repayment or return of item, I said "no problem, send me a PayPal invoice.". Seller refused, insisting I need to go to some pay web address I am not comfortable going to. Sounds like a scam. Sellers messages are getting increasingly threatening and unhinged I can provide them all if needed."

PostScript: seller's last message to me was on August 17. It was a hate filled diatribe full of threats, creepy stalker veiled threat type stuff apparently based on internet info he dug up on me, and he is going to sue me, and tell everyone online what a scamming lowlife I am. But hidden nugget in there possibly was the claim that I was demanding a PayPal invoice but refusing to give him a PayPal address to send it to.

So long story short on August 17 I did reply and give him my PayPal address. 

I even apologized ONLY for assuming he had my PayPal address all along, and pointed out this could have all been avoided by just asking for it in the first place if he didn't have it.

I also offered to mail him a check if he prefers if he would give me an address to mail it to. He still hasn't sent an invoice or responded though it's only been 2 days. Everything else lately has been almost instant response.

Am I crazy or is this seller unfit to sell on eBay? The above story is just the high points, I did leave some stuff out. Like his August 16 accusation filled message where he first claimed I was withholding my PayPal address from him. Which I replied 'any seller with a brain would look at the address the original payment came from and send the invoice there' (this was probably wrong on my part). But I had quite enough at that point.

[kathiec]

Given what we see here on a daily basis I certainly don't think the seller fits in the "unfit to sell on eBay" category. I think your story (which forgive me, ventured into tl;dr territory) sounds like a case of massive misunderstandings and miscommunications. You're incorrect that a seller gets your Paypal information. EBay's payment processor hasn't been Paypal for several years; it's now Adyen. Certainly nothing justifies the seller sending nasty messages. But I'm reluctant to judge those kinds of interactions without seeing the message trail of both participants.

Bottom line, since you have the item, which you got for free, a personal vendetta against the seller seems to me to be overkill. YMMV

[khetzel]

Yes, no vendetta here.  Even after all the abuse and accusations I'm ready and willing to pay the guy like I always said I would.

Sorry it was so long, you must have missed that in the last couple paragraphs.  When he finally told me he didn't have my PayPal address on the 16th, I did provide it to him on the 17th.  A couple of days ago.  But he still hasn't sent me an invoice.

[vintagecraze50]

That was a complicated transaction and it appeared that the seller got into some issues with USPS. Some selling situations well for me most of the buying and selling situations really run very smoothly on here with a few that get messed up sometimes not the the sellers fault. Sometime yes, the sellers fault, but most even in that case work with the buyer to make it right.

[khetzel]

Yes that is why I always wanted to pay this seller.  I believe the post office misplaced the package for 9 or 10 days and never scanned it.  That's not his fault.  At the same time, I didn't ask for a refund, I merely wanted the seller to give me a status update.

What is crazy is I offered to pay him, been ready to pay him since June 13 when the item arrived.  But haven't been given any method I am comfortable with to do so.  

August 8: pay.somewebsite you never heard of.  Would you click on that?

I'm not a big fan of PayPal but I stuck to asking for that because that's what he initially offered and they already have my banking info.

[ajs_coins_and_alchemy]

As a seller, personally, I would've created a listing for the item and had you purchase it (although you already have it). The same way you had originally prior to INR/refund. That way you pay for it, there is no "outside" requirements, it's fully above board, and clearly everyone knows whats going on and is capable of doing that very simple thing.

I suppose a PayPal invoice would have lower fees paid by seller, so that could be a "work around" so seller pockets more, but the ebay listing is no different than the original method and keeps everything consistent & kosher, nothing more or less than original agreement(s).

[campanaelia · Accepted solution]

You don't need to give the seller your paypal email address , they can send you their paypal.me link instead.

[khetzel]

" You don't need to give the seller your paypal email address , they can send you their paypal.me link instead."

Kinda crazy in the August 8-9 timeframe when he was demanding I go to pay.somewebsite I never heard of, his excuse for not sending a PayPal invoice or PayPal.me was that he didn't have a PayPal account.  

I realize now that is possible, but at the time it sounded like total **bleep** to me.  How the heck did he get my initial PayPal payment then?!?!  (Based on my very outdated experience selling on ebay) it just sounded impossible and had me almost convinced I was talking to some malicious hacker trying to get me to click on a dangerous link!

[buyselljack2016]

Short of any other method, I could send a seller a USPS money order to satisfy myself that I did the right thing after receiving an item that I had been refunded for.

[khetzel]

I offered to send a personal check I suppose I could spend a couple more dollars on a money order though I'm not crazy about it.  This is a $20 item.  

I still need an address to mail it to.  Seller has not responded to my request for his address or me providing him my PayPal address.  That was 2 days ago.

[khetzel]

I actually don't have his name or his address.  He never even signed his name to any messages.   I know literally nothing about this person who knows everything about me.

[kathiec]

How the heck did he get my initial PayPal payment then?!?!  (Based on my very outdated experience selling on ebay) 

Yes, your selling experience is very outdated. Buyers can use multiple payment methods now, not just Paypal. Sellers have no idea what method a buyer has used. All they know is that Adyen, the payment processor, transfers money to their bank account. So as I said, there was miscommunication and misunderstanding on both parts. And I'm curious what the "somewebsiteIdon'tknow" was? There are many payment websites out there now. A quick Google search is sometimes all that's needed to determine one's authenticity.

And a random observation: apologizing for something being too long doesn't make it any more readable.

[khetzel]

That's fine you didn't read it.  The whole point was:

June 11 seller said he would send PayPal invoice.  

Seller did not send PayPal invoice.

2 months later seller comes at me with guilt trip that I had not yet paid for item and I needed to go to this other website to pay him.  eBay has retroactively deleted the links from the messages I assume due to the prohibition against linking to outside websites.  I do remember it had Chihuahua in the name because one of my repetitive replies was "Send me a PayPal invoice please.  I'm not clicking on a Chihuahua link.

[khetzel]

And I really don't know or care if it was a legitimate website or actually a scam.   I agreed to pay a PayPal invoice but he never sent one.  He still hasn't.  Waiting 2 months to contact me then insisting I needed to pay some other way on some other website I never  heard of was unacceptable to me.  

[khetzel]

And then several days of harrasment and name calling before changing his excuse from "he doesn't have a PayPal account" to "I was refusing to tell him my PayPal address" (to get out of paying him.)