According to Regretsy, the seller of an antique French violin on eBay is now out both the instrument and the $2,500 she received for the initial sale. Erica claims she sold the pre-WWII era French violin to a buyer in Canada, who then disputed the authenticity of the instrument. As would be understandable under the circumstances, this involved filing a dispute with PayPal. The more unexpected part was PayPal’s response, demanding photographic evidence of the violin’s destruction before a refund would be issued.
Sure enough, a close look at PayPal’s Buyer Protection policy, under Dispute Resolution says, “For SNAD Claims, PayPal may require you to ship the item back to the seller – or to PayPal – or to a third party at your expense, and to provide proof of delivery. Please take reasonable precautions in re-packing the item to reduce the risk of damage to the item during transit. PayPal may also require you to destroy the item and to provide evidence of its destruction.”
As the original article points out, it doesn’t seem quite right for a payment service to make the final judgement call on whether or not a product is counterfeit. If there’s reasonable doubt, simply process the refund and perhaps even ban the seller from selling again on eBay. Ordering the merchandise’s destruction is beyond unreasonable.
Wait, what does destruction of the item have to do with determining whether or not the item is counterfeit?
I think it’s the idea that counterfeits should be destroyed, to ensure they’re taken out of circulation (to prevent them from being sold again as something they’re not and scamming future buyers). I know the U.S. government sometimes orders the destruction of counterfeit imported goods when customs catches them, for example.
But it’s over the top for PayPal to decide to enforce such things themselves, under threat of denying the processing of a refund claim. Obviously, they CAN’T determine whether or not an item is genuine. They’re just siding with buyers who cry “Counterfeit!” by default, apparently.
So basically a combination of organizational laziness and penny-pinching that naturally leads to overstepping the bounds of one’s legal authority. If I find time I’m gonna really have to read up more on this and see if there’s any cases or legislation that would defeat Pay Pal’s claims to be able to do this. Reading over the original story at Registry this practice seems to fly in the face of basic common-law principles regarding contract and resolving contractual disputes.
Good impetus to close my PayPal account… Which I just did! Good riddance.
Know of any alternatives given how dodgy Pay Pal is?
So they ordered the destruction of a perfectly good violin (which, even if counterfeit, would be worth SOMETHING), on the basis of a complaint from the buyer. Because it’s “the same sort of thing” as a counterfeit Frazetta painting, for instance?
The world is being take over by idiots who think “One size fits all” is the answer to everything. Yikes.
I actually had an experience with them where someone sold me something after I explicitly told them not to and their policy was not to until they received my explicit approval which I never gave (a hotel room). I paid via Paypal and had to go to their dispute resolution. They asked what I would settle for as part of the process and I told them something like 80% of the payment. They researched the issue and finally found in my favor…but since I offered to resolve it for 80% they only credited me that amount. Very sketchy. They do not protect you. I’d use a credit card first if at all possible.