Is it possible for buyers outside of the US to have their Paypal accounts confirmed? I know that US account holders can do so, but can those outside the US do the same? Someone just bought an HP 48GX of mine, but paid with an unconfirmed/unverified account. I went ahead and refunded the payment (0 feedback buyer); but having searched the FAQs, it was unclear whether or not non-US Paypal accounts can even be confirmed or verified...
Edited: 8 Dec 2006, 7:10 p.m.
Yes, they can. I have.
Last time I checked I could not (yet?) be confirmed, but I am verified since 2001.
Massimo
Yes, it's quite cumbersome and it takes a month or so but it's certainly possible. I live in Spain and my Paypal account is verified (or confirmed or whatever ...).
Best regards from V.
Just checked again: In Italy you cannot confirm your address (the italian Paypal site mentions USA, Canada and UK as countries where this is possible).
Verification however, as I said, is available.
It's not easy to find such info, either...
Massimo
Somewhat off topic but: PAYPAL SUCKS! They can take their confirmation merit badges and stick them where the sun don't shine. They have no honest reason to need to get into my bank account without my supervision.
My latest paypal horror story began when i bought a set of paypal-payment-only Star Trek DVDs on ebaby. Paypal took the cost out of my credit card then; two days later (yes, two days after closing) ebaby canceled the auction. Paypal refused to refund my money, ebaby refused to do anything to help, and i couldn't even leave bad feedback because the auction had become a non-auction and was erased from the records.
Fortunatly; my bank saw things differently and refunded my money. Unfortunatly; considering the time i spent getting the refund i had to work for minimum wage to get it.
db-
I had a similar experience recently with ebay/paypal. But having read horror stories like yours I went to my credit card company (AmEx) first and it took only one phone call (and a one month wait) to get my refund. I didn't have to file a complaint with ebay/paypal, they took care of everything -- and I'm not even a platinum card member. :) My guess is that all the CC companies have entire departments dedicated to dealing with just paypal complaints, they must get hundreds each day.
Anyway, this was my first and so far only bad experience with ebay/paypal in 6 years/700 transactions, I guess I've been pretty lucky.
-kt
Edited: 9 Dec 2006, 1:40 a.m.
Even as a long-time member, with verified CC and bank account on file and hundreds of transactions, they will only provide a German (verified) status for me - which shows up as "unverified" outside Germany. I wonder what their data-mining is good for.
I have a verified Paypal account and live in France.
I have purchased a lot of stuff (eBay and others) through it, but I believe that even verified account holders can negate a payment, making the seller's position a bit uneasy.
Of course I never negated a payment, and am a 'pure' buyer, but if this can be done, it would explain why some people don't like overseas Paypa payers.
On the other hand, I don't really understand why some (usually US residents) don't want to sell overseas. From time to time, I send an email to sellers stating what I would have paid for their item if it had been available - usually 3 to 4 times the final price... But very few people agree to reconsider their local-only policy. They are fully entitled to getting less money, I just don't understand.
Just feeling bad when nice items are sold at rock-bottom prices.
I am just hoping this does not turn into my first I-hate-Paypal incident. Right now I have one concern. I presume that the money I refunded stays in the Paypal account. So if the buyer used a credit card, the card would show a deduction from Paypal but not a refund. To my knowledge, Paypal does not credit back to the credit card. Seeing as how the buyer has 0 feedback, he may not know that his money, while refunded, is kept in the Paypal account and not placed back into his credit card account. I just hope that this does not turn ugly due to the buyer not reading AND understanding the listing conditions (I stated CONFIRMED/VERIFIED accounts only).
The only reason for me to accept Paypal is that so many people use it.
Well, it's easy actually, wait some days to ship the unit after you receive payment.
If there is some problem usually the money transfer gets cancelled in the first days (about 48h).
A lot this discussion sheds some light on how I am being presently treated in a present transaction.
I won an article from a UK seller that, in fairness, I was not all that enthusiastic about in the end. The second place bidder is known to us and was eager to take the article off my hands--for a little less than I paid for it, of course (fair is fair). The seller would categorically not consider a third party or "gift" shipment to the other individual, even though I paid him immediately and I am both confirmed and verified on PayPal. That is fair enough--he has every right not to deviate from standard practice if he doesn't want to.
What has been more than I have been willing to take is the terse, brief, inflexible, unhelpful, and downright rude little emails oriented more to what he would not do for me rather than what he would. I have received no acknowledgment of payment received (though it cleared PayPal immediately), no word about when the article would ship (though he has made it clear it would not go to the requested third party), and, what really gets me, not even a thank you for my business and for my very quick payment.
I have been so unimpressed with the tone of this transaction that two outstanding bids I had had with the seller I retracted. I claimed "entered wrong amount", which is technically not untrue--I don't want to deal with this surly so-and-so at all now, and therefore any bid on his stuff is the "wrong amount" for me. If the eBay police suspend my account for misuse of the retraction feature, so be it--I have been spending too much money anyway. But I just can't bear to deal with the seller again after how crappy this one transaction has made me feel, so I am willing to take my chances. I don't know how the feedback will play out--I don't want to give this guy positive feedback, but if I get the article as advertised I have no case for negative feedback either. Maybe I will just not bother--the fellow has his 99.4% bevy of admirers, so obviously I am just a complaining misfit, right?
Maybe this is tied into the issues raised in this thread. Maybe this UK fellow, who is a high volume high feedback seller, has been scammed before and in a knee-jerk response simply assumes that my admittedly tentative requests to consider flexible options were an effort to cheat him. If that is how the climate has become, it is best for me to cut my losses and walk away from it. I assume that, with rare exceptions, eBay sellers, especially those dealing with calculators, are reasonable, honest, and friendly people, and I assume they are trustworthy until given evidence to believe otherwise. I like to be treated the same.
Les
Hello Les,
You obtained what you paid, nothing more. Did you plan to let a neutral appreciation?
By the way, it seems that to leave a neutral appreciation is almost an insult on eBay.
Best regards
My grandma always said that if can't say anything nice don't say anything at all. So I won't even bother with neutral feedback even--just accept the shipment, don't buy from this guy again, and philosophically chalk it up to poor "fit" between buyer and seller.
This still has got to be the most unpleasant experience I have had on eBay. Darn it, I collect and use HP calculators, which almost assures that I have a couple of more smarts than the average bear out there--I have yet to see a Ford pickup with a Confederate flag and stocked rifle rack in the window and an HP67 and numerical analysis text on the front seat--yet this fellow related to me as though I was a moron or, worse, a scammer. You can poke fun at my looks, weight, wardrobe, and various annoying habits--my other half does it all the time, or course. But nothing gets me more riled than questioning my brain power or my integrity. This seller seems to have done both. I would rather not do business with him.
Les
All of my ebay transactions but one have been good, and I use PayPal. The one that went bad consisted of a seller who didn't ship the product. When I contacted him the first time, he said that he /had/ shipped it, but would ship another. Neither arrived. When I told him that, and that I wanted my $$ back, he suggested that the amount was so small ($10USD) that I should not bother dealing with it. Instead, I contacted PayPal with a complaint immediately. There are time constraints in the complaint process, and I wanted to meet them. (I am under the impression from discussions with PayPal that possibly the seller counted on me not responding promptly, and the 'statute of limitations' would run out on my complaint.) I told them /everything/ that had occurred, with dates and an offer to send emails that the seller and I had exchanged. They addressed the matter promptly. The said that if the seller didn't have any record of having shipped the product, then they would refund my CC. They did so. I was out all the time that I spent dealing with the problem (several hours, all totaled) but the matter was resolved.
Rich
Shipping to a different address is THE main way Paypal scammers operate. They steal somebodys account, buy stuff, and have it shipped to their address. The seller was very wise for not shipping to an alternate address.
As far a terse responses, some people are busy and/or just plain not chatty. I suspect that when you asked to ship to an alternate address it peaked his Spidey Scam-Senses. As far as no "thank you for your business" some people are just plain alien probe holes.
Hi!
Quote:
... having searched the FAQs, it was unclear whether or not non-US Paypal accounts can even be confirmed or verified...
The question has already be answered, but to save you trouble in the future, why not add this line to the description of your items on eBay: "International bidders and unconfirmed PayPal customers please contact me before placing their bid!".
Altough I never went through the trouble of getting my PayPal acount verified, I never had trouble (nor had the seller!) buying anything from abroad after a quick exchange of mails.
I hope you get your money!
Greetings, Max
It is stated in bold within my listing (all my listings, in fact) that Paypal payments must be from at least a confirmed account. I have not shipped anything, so nothing is lost yet (just time and possibly eBay fees). The money has already been refunded since it was from an unconfirmed account, and since he also sent the wrong total (off by $5 from shipping). At first I was going to just not worry about the $5 difference; but the unconfirmed address was what made me worry.
Edited: 9 Dec 2006, 1:41 p.m.
Hi!
Quote:
It is stated in bold within my listing (all my listings, in fact) that Paypal payments must be from at least a confirmed account.
Good to hear that you didn't lose anything! But your "boldly" printed statement would exlude a lot of people like myself (all honest and established persons despite the fact that we live in Old Europe and PayPal is not able to confirm this) from your auctions...
Greetings, Max
Hi all,
especially you collecting fellows from outside US: here is a related question/problem: I've bought many nice old HP calculators on eBay over the past 12 months. Sometimes however, I've not been able to bid since the seller did not want to ship outside US (where most of these fine calculators were sold and still remain...) For an eager collector in Sweden, this can be frustrating. For example, I've missed out on 5+ 10C:s that have been sold at not so high prices in the last couple of months.
It has occured to me to try and find some fellow collector in the US who could transfer some deals of this kind for me. But with the discussion above about Paypal / scammers I just wonder if that's possible?
Any experience from other non-US buyers and US collectors too of course, would be interesting to hear!
Best regards, Anders
Hello!
Quote:
... I just wonder if that's possible?
Yes, it is of course possible, and I have done it already: Asking a friend or colleague in the US to bid for me on eBay and forward the item to me once he has got it. But it is a great favour to ask, there is some financial risk involved, there is always a chance of a misunderstanding about how much to bid and when, and it is quite time consuming for most Americans to go to the "next" post office and join the queues there and so on.
And since I can hardly return such a big favour, I prefer not to ask very often for it...
But there are enough (eBay) sellers on the other side of the pond who are happy to deal with us Europeans, so I dont worry too much yet.
Greetings, Max
Then perhaps I should request that all international buyers at least contact me first before bidding, if it is indeed the case that Paypal cannot confirm addresses unless buyers and sellers are "near" each other (e.g. within the same country).
Atleast in Italy, you can be "verified" but not "confirmed".
Verified, basically, means that the individual that provided the credit card number to PayPal, can also access to the credit card transactions informations. There's no real reason for anyone to not to perform the "verification" pass of the PayPal subscription.
In some countries and with some credit card types, you receive the transaction log only by regular mail, once a month, so the user MAY have created the account, performed the first step of the verification, and may be waiting till the end of the month to receive the log to perform the last step. OR may be using a stolen credit card.