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A most welcome, and long overdue, change!

Amendments to the PayPal User Agreement
Effective Date: November 18, 2014

Dispute Filing Window

We’re increasing the time for buyers to file a merchandise dispute (Item Not Received and Significantly Not as Described) from 45 days to 180 days. All references in the User Agreement to “Opening a Dispute within 45 days” have been updated to reflect “Opening a Dispute within 180 days.” The Sections these changes appear include the Introduction, 3.15, 13.2 and 13.5.

A few other interesting items to check out in the full update as well:

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full

This was sorely needed as allot of scammers tried to get people to wait more than 45 days so they couldn't do a claim.

Good news. Well done paypal.


This will affect honest sellers though. With the window extended by so much I imagine they'll be far more open to frivolous dispute claims by unscrupulous characters. Guess we'll see how it pans out.

 Snrub wrote:
This will affect honest sellers though. With the window extended by so much I imagine they'll be far more open to frivolous dispute claims by unscrupulous characters. Guess we'll see how it pans out.

My mom sells a lot of crap on ebay (mostly my old toys ), and she has been hit a number of times by scammers.. who paypal likes to side with.

I just sent her this info, and she is planning on taking her business elsewhere now.

I don't know if it needed to be half a year. 90 days seems a better timeframe for this.

Not happy about this really. I sold some antique crystal rock glasses a while ago that the buyer started a dispute about a month later stating that one of the 6 glasses was cracked and arrived that way.

They had those glasses in their possession for that long and then suddenly they shipped broken. Paypal sided with them of course and there went nearly $200 had I not insured the package.

I was always relieved when the 45 day limit passed, as it meant I no longer had to worry about someone breaking their purchase and then trying to get a refund.

Laemos wrote:I don't know if it needed to be half a year. 90 days seems a better timeframe for this.

Agreed. 180 days is rather extreme. 90 days would have been far more sensible.

Cyporiean wrote:[My mom sells a lot of crap on ebay (mostly my old toys ), and she has been hit a number of times by scammers.. who paypal likes to side with.

I just sent her this info, and she is planning on taking her business elsewhere now.

Oh man. I'd be pissed if my mum started selling all my old toys. Ok, yes... 90% of my child hood toys was just Lego. Lots and lots of Lego. Obscene amounts some might say.

Where is your mum planning on taking her business that wouldn't likely involve paypal? It seems to be (unfortunately) the only thing people feel secure in using these days.

 Snrub wrote:
Where is your mum planning on taking her business that wouldn't likely involve paypal? It seems to be (unfortunately) the only thing people feel secure in using these days.

It's really annoying being on both sides.

As a buyer, and as someone who has had people try scam me, I do love the protection they can provide. I've purchased a headset from ebay once only to have an iphone charger sent. Got my $175 back in under 4 days. It's nice knowing that there is a nice layer of protection.

As a seller, I hate paypal. While most people are fine, get their product and move on, the few people who have tried to pull "Item never arrived" or "Item not as described" tend to have everything go in their favor, no matter what. The glasses above were my final straw for selling on ebay.

Yeah, bad apples can spoil things for everybody. But tracking should cover the "not arrived" part for most domestic sales. The "not as described" is a lot more nebulous and the language does seem to force returns to be allowed, along with not reimbursing you for the PayPal fees.

Still, 45 days was absurd, particularly for international sales. Some of those had become 180 already, so I guess they're just making it uniform across the board.

At least now the PayPal window won't be drastically shorter than credit card challenges.

 RiTides wrote:
Yeah, bad apples can spoil things for everybody. But tracking should cover the "not arrived" part for most domestic sales. The "not as described" is a lot more nebulous and the language does seem to force returns to be allowed, along with not reimbursing you for the PayPal fees.

Still, 45 days was absurd, particularly for international sales. Some of those had become 180 already, so I guess they're just making it uniform across the board.

At least now the PayPal window won't be drastically shorter than credit card challenges.

Most times Paypal doesn't make you return the item. The glasses incident left a fairly bad taste in my mouth as Paypal didn't require them to send back the glasses, and I had to call in to Paypal around 5 times to get them to have the buyer send in photo proof of the damaged glass so I could file a post office insurance claim.

Yeah its better for international sales.

It's getting harder and harder to really justify eBay as a non-professional at this point. Unless you do enough business to write off those losses, I think I'm done with eBay.

Yeah, ebay is hard for sellers, I agree. Particularly because they double dip on the fees! Since they charge on top of the PayPal ones.

But I think bad cases, like with most things, tend to get all the press with PayPal horror stories... primarily as a buyer, I really like using it, and am very glad of the longer dispute window. It would make it very hard for Mandelbaum, for instance, to successfully resurface, since he'd have to sweet talk people into not disputing his fraud for half a year

Ah yes The Mendleboner. Haven't seen that dud in a while.

Postal insurance usually only covers delivery. If they wait half a year and claim damage, you won't see a dime.

If a buyer files a Significantly Not as Described (SNAD) Claim for an item they purchased from you, you will generally be required to accept the item back and refund the buyer the full purchase price plus original shipping costs.

Seems like they'd be required to return the item at least, from what I can see of the new policy.

Don't expect that to stop PayPal from refunding them even if they don't return the item.

Hmmm, my response to this is..

...as a buyer, great, will be nice to have that added time in case someone is stringing me along.

as a seller. I think I will be aiming to sell anything I don't want/need by November and then that will be it for me and ebay. I'm just not willing to sell things with the risk that someone can come back to me five months down the line and say it was broken, not as described etc.... unless paypal see's some sense and takes note of those who can provided tracking info and the fact they had it a long time before complaint. (I send everything tracked these days.)

I belive the major reason for the change is more and more people are using credit card chargebacks (justified or not) if paypal disputes are not possible,

and if a chargeback happened paypal looses out. By increasing their time for a dispute to match that of the CC providers the hope a lot more disputes will happen direct where they can at least have some input

Just more and more ways to making selling anything unattractive on ebay. I had to basically stop selling anything outside the USA due to the extreme ease of disputes..lost way too much money shipping stuff to random euro countries only to have them dispute it and needing so many shipping documents and pictures.

 Kirasu wrote:
Just more and more ways to making selling anything unattractive on ebay. I had to basically stop selling anything outside the USA due to the extreme ease of disputes..lost way too much money shipping stuff to random euro countries only to have them dispute it and needing so many shipping documents and pictures.

Yeah - I have to agree.

I used to sell old hobby stuff on ebay when it was too esoteric for my little neighborhood, but between ebay fees, paypal fees, shipping increases, and people claiming "undelivered" items - it's not worth it. I'm better off to toss the stuff in the trash if I can't sell it locally on Kijiji or Craigslist.

Last straw was an attempt to sell a whole set of Necromunda magazines to someone in England - I lost $10 on the shipping and he raised a paypal dispute saying they never arrived - 2 weeks before they were even due to arrive. Canada Post won't let you add tracking info to a small packet (basically anything hobby related smaller than an entire army) so no tracking info means ebay/paypall automatically gave him his money back despite me explaining that the item that apparently "hasn't arrived" is not late yet!

That's not a system I want to support and I haven't bought or sold anything on eBay since. It's local sales or garbage for me. Which kind of makes me sad - 5-10 years ago it felt like the world was shrinking - people were more connected and I sold and traded minis all around the world - now it feels like everyone has just contracted to either sell only within their own country or just local for cash.... progress?

What are these lucky scammers that get to keep gak and the money for not as described? Everytime I've tried to get my money back because some bozo knicked me I'm told to send it back even tho that would cost me more and put me out of money

 Theduke07 wrote:
What are these lucky scammers that get to keep gak and the money for not as described? Everytime I've tried to get my money back because some bozo knicked me I'm told to send it back even tho that would cost me more and put me out of money

Usually if there is a claim that the item arrive "broken", eBay/Paypal doesn't require you to send it back.

And if there is a claim of outrageous scamming, like when I ordered a headset and got a phone charger, Paypal didn't even ask me to take a photo of the item. In a few days they just paid my money back.

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering, duke. I know there are horror stories out there... but, for example, when Paypal tried to tell me I couldn't be refunded on an order from China that hadn't arrived after months, I talked to them on the phone for an hour and had all my paperwork showing that that was, in fact, already covered by the 180 day policy (which has applied to some international orders for some time) and I got them to refund me.

I would be on the phone for as long as necessary with them to get my items returned to me if I had proof of their delivery to the customer, and they were forcing a refund. From these new terms, Paypal has no right (except in the case of counterfeit items) not to get your items returned to you if forcing a refund. And even in that case, it is they who keep the counterfeit items, not the buyer.

Again, I have sympathy for those who have faced horror stories with Paypal, but from what I can tell they have no leg to stand on in their terms for your items not to be returned to you if forced to refund, and I would hold their feet to the fire with that and get the items returned! The idea that you have no recourse does not jive with what the terms actually say, and my experience of calling and prevailing upon them to do right by their terms (in my case, which I know isn't exactly analogous, but does show they are able to comply under pressure).

RivenSkull wrote:
Usually if there is a claim that the item arrive "broken", eBay/Paypal doesn't require you to send it back.

And if there is a claim of outrageous scamming, like when I ordered a headset and got a phone charger, Paypal didn't even ask me to take a photo of the item. In a few days they just paid my money back.

These are the terms, I don't know how they could be any clearer... if the item is not as described (for example, a phone charger instead of a headset!) the terms state the item must be returned:

If a buyer files a Significantly Not as Described (SNAD) Claim for an item they purchased from you, you will generally be required to accept the item back and refund the buyer the full purchase price plus original shipping costs. You will not receive a refund of your PayPal fees. Further, if you lose a SNAD Claim because we, in our sole discretion, reasonably believe the item you sold is counterfeit, you will be required to provide a full refund to the buyer and you will not receive the item back (it will be destroyed). PayPal Seller protection will not cover your liability.

Maybe it wasn't worth it for that seller to follow up on getting the item back, but if I feel a buyer is fraudulently claiming an item was not as described and trying to get it and their money back, I'm definitely going to have the item returned to me! Even if I have to pay return shipping, which isn't really clear here (it does say you have to refund the original shipping costs- who pays for return shipping may depend on the reason for the return).

Well, there's not too much you can do about claims about non-delivered goods as a seller. It's like shoplifting: you just have to build the loss into your business model.

That's fine, as long as you do enough business that you can factor it in. And online selling was, arguably, too profitable for individual players. At some point, it was going to be dominated by the bigger and bigger players (think powersellers here). It's just a shame, because for a lot of hobby stuff, it's one of the few good ways to actually recoup some costs.

You can just always get tracking for domestic orders. I agree that it makes international sales harder, but unfortunately that's the world we live in... you can still do sales and get tracking for that, but it's a lot more expensive and can be hard to navigate (and not available for every country).

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this change. I think a change to 60 days would be completely reasonable but I was frankly fine with 45 days. I recently had an ebay package that spent two weeks in an Italian post office doing nothing according to the tracking (thank you Chrome translate function!) and then another week sitting in a US one in addition to the actual travel times. I still would have been covered by the standard time table given. Six months is a change that benefits Paypal and dishonest buyers most frequently IMO and not one that I support. I suspect there will be a rash of "oops, I broke it months after receiving it so I'll make a claim to get my money back" stories after this goes into effect.

I don't ever sell anymore on ebay due to the unfriendly changes they've made there over the years and I'm not sure how much this will affect my habits at various trading sites like the Swap Shop and Bartertown. At least at bartertown, I have the potential response of leaving bad feedback but unfortunately with this policy someone could file a claim MONTHS after receiving good feedback and get their money back on a big purchase. They could effectively Mandelbomb the system and get some good feedback and then two to three months later start cheating everyone AND file to get their money back on the previously "good" purchases. As for the swap shop, the rating system has been broken there for years with the first post not updated in that time (last I checked) with the "new" system mentioned no where in sight. I don't have a heck of alot left in my to go pile compared with a few years ago but I may limit myself to trades only instead.

 warboss wrote:
but unfortunately with this policy someone could file a claim MONTHS after receiving good feedback and get their money back on a big purchase.

Only if they return the items! I don't know how everyone keeps missing that... so yeah, if they only wanted the items temporarily, they can game the system, but otherwise, they'll be back where they started. They don't get the refund unless they return the items according to these terms.

warboss wrote:but I may limit myself to trades only instead.

It's obviously up to you, but from seeing all the online trading horror stories, I long ago began trading in this manner: sell an item and get paid via Paypal, then use that payment to buy the item I want. You don't always get as good of a deal as a direct trade, but the risk is MUCH lower. Simultaneous trades are the riskiest type out there... (of course, if you can get someone else to ship first on Bartertown based on your having higher feedback, that is much safer).

What if they say they returned but really didn't? How does anyone prove it?

 Laemos wrote:
What if they say they returned but really didn't? How does anyone prove it?

I assume the onus is on the buyer to provide receipts and tracking that they have in fact returned the item.

 RiTides wrote:

 warboss wrote:
but unfortunately with this policy someone could file a claim MONTHS after receiving good feedback and get their money back on a big purchase.

Only if they return the items! I don't know how everyone keeps missing that... so yeah, if they only wanted the items temporarily, they can game the system, but otherwise, they'll be back where they started. They don't get the refund unless they return the items according to these terms.

I suspect it not being in the subject of the thread has to do with it. That said, they could return a chicken pot pie to you in the mail as long as that arrives, the tracking "proves" it with no recourse for the seller. If someone is willing to wait months to cheat another hobbyist, they'll likely know all the tricks.