OK here is what happened. I sold some dolls and accessories for a friend to this couple in Canada. Auction # 5666527688 It closed on Feb 19th. The buyer eventually paid via paypal. They had complained about S&H, so I offered to send it surface. The post office warned me and I forwarded the warning to the buyer that it could take a while but they said OK.

A couple days later, March 6th, I rec'd an email from the buyer and one from paypal saying they had requested a refund. I contacted the buyer and they ignored me. I contacted paypal and ebay, they said they would look into it. The next day I got an email from paypal saying they were refunding the full amount to the buyer in ten days. Paypal put a hold on my account. Ebay said that since feedback had not been left, they fully supported paypal's decision.

I contacted paypal and they said that it is in their rules that any item sent without USPS delivery confirmation, and in some cases full insurance, will be refunded immediately if the buyer simply asks. I contacted the post office and found that the item had passed customs so now I knew I was being ripped off. Of course I have the receipt for postage and the customs form, but paypal and ebay do not accept these documents. Also they do not promise to accept delivery confirmation, they will consider them on a case by case basis.

I called paypal and spoke to very courteous yet less then help full individual, Jessica. She admitted that the buyer I was dealing has a history of doing this but it was "my fault for not using the most expensive form of shipping", IE with delivery confirmation. She reiterated that the policy is clearly stated in paypal's user agreement. I went to this very large document and re-read it, I still can not find this this specific caveat but I am sure it is buried in there some where. I did see that Canadians who file a complaint will be charged $40. Obviously, this is a small amount to pay for several hundred bucks worth of collectibles. My wife is climbing the walls over this! Poor little Jessica is lucky she talked to me rather then her.

Since my credit card is thru my bank, I went there to close it. They cut it up and will be issuing me a new one. Just to make sure, I filled out a form at my bank (actually they filled it out for me) to stop paypal from ever charging my account again. My bank said this is becoming common place, go figure.

Next I logged onto "I hate paypal" and "paypal sucks .com". I found a lot of use full information there. They have forms to report the theft to The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, that's really gonna fry some Canadian bacon! There is a link to WWW DOT IC3 DOT COM This is where you file reports of "Internet Crime". This US Government office seems very proactive. Although they say that theft of felony amounts ($500.00 or more) are the main focus of their prosecution, they want to hear about all instances of theft or fraud. this is especially important to them when the crime originates out side the US. And they will track repeat offenders.

I also found credit card processors that promise to not steal my money the way paypal did. They guarantee this by not forcing me to sign away my rights normally provided by credit cards such as visa, the way paypal does.

The final blow came when I saw items I had sold to ALWAYSPRISTEEN being resold. I encourage everyone to forward this to anyone you know that sells on ebay. I had no idea that paypal's protection of sellers is so tenuous.