PayPal orders customer to smash violin

[kk fusion]

Link

Ebay buyer sends $2500 to PayPal for a purportedly antique violin. After receiving the item, he claims fake and demands a refund from the company. PayPal say they'll refund after receiving proof that the instrument has been destroyed.

Even weirder, they apparently accepted the picture the buyer sent in, which could be of any other destroyed violin. So the vendor didn't get her money, nor her violin back, after what probably was a simple misunderstanding of the item's description on eBay.

I don't think I'll ever accept payment via PayPal.

[Orual]

... the fuck? What an odd course of events.

[OneCentStamp]

It's too late for eBay/PayPal to nudge out Netflix for title of "Worst Corporate PR Meltdown of 2011," though not for lack of trying, so they're hitting 2012 with a vengeance.

[Orual]

I cannot imagine the thought process that skips over 'return the product you are unahppy with' to 'destroy a perfectly functional musical instrument'.

[Myglaren]

Seems like total corporate insanity.

[Elendil's Heir]

Hard to figure out. My best guess is that they didn't want to be accused of taking the violin back, only to resell it fraudulently again as an antique. So they ask the customer to destroy it.

OK, I didn't say it was a guess that made any sense.

[Tuckerfan]

Hard to figure out. My best guess is that they didn't want to be accused of taking the violin back, only to resell it fraudulently again as an antique. So they ask the customer to destroy it.

OK, I didn't say it was a guess that made any sense.

It makes perfect sense in a society which deems intellectual property theft to be more important than anything else (see the recent SOPA/PIPA nonsense).

As with all corporations, PayPal seeks to make maximum profit from minimum effort, so they hire people who'll work for peanuts, then task them with a job like deciding if a complaint about a violin being slightly less than advertised is the same as someone selling knockoff Rolex watches. Experts in either of those fields would cost money, but if PayPal doesn't at least pretend to care about stopping people from selling counterfeit goods, they can be expected to be sued by anyone and everyone with any kind of intellectual property (after all, PayPal is a big US company, with lots of money, unlike some fly-by-night Chinese sweatshop which cranks out fakes on the same assembly lines legitimate goods are made), so they come up with a "Zero Tolerance" Solution, which doesn't really work, but gives the appearance of them doing something.

For all we know, the buyer bought a cheap violin, cut it up, and then glued a label they made in Photoshop on the remains so that it looked like the original violin. The seller's out their violin and their money, while the buyer gets to keep the money and the violin.

[CatInASuit]

As to whether the violin was a fraud or not - who knows.

However, having been through the procedure a few times, it does not jump straight to destroy the item. There is no mention in the piece about any communication between buyer and seller which PayPal monitor as they are supposed to resolve their claim without needing PayPal. It's cheaper that way.

I would be interested to see any email s back and forth between them and what they say. If it is along the lines of - no we are not giving you a refund - then I'm not surprised the violin was turned into matchwood.

Much as I hate to defend them, this isn't necessarily PayPal at fault. I need a shower now.

[Orual]

However, having been through the procedure a few times, it does not jump straight to destroy the item. There is no mention in the piece about any communication between buyer and seller which PayPal monitor as they are supposed to resolve their claim without needing PayPal. It's cheaper that way.

True enough, I didn't even think of that while I was reading. There probably is more to the story that we're not hearing. Still, even cheaply-made musical instruments deserve better treatment than that.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

[Zuul]

If the violin had been a counterfeit (which seems very unlikely, given that the seller had had it examined before selling it), then returning it to the seller would have meant knowingly sending counterfeit goods across the US and Canadian border. So I can see why PayPal would have a policy in place like this.

However, just going off of the word of some random idiot who bought a violin off of eBay seems like a very, very bad way to determine the providence of something like a violin. My bet is on the buyer being aware of this PayPal policy, printing up a fake label, and smashing a worthless hunk of wood with the label slapped on it. He ends up with a free violin. If it wasn't a scam this time, it's bound to inspire a scammer the next time around.