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PayPal Frustration/Issue Heads-Up

In just over a month I have tried to sell 3 relatively expensive pieces of equipment on Audiogon (B&W HTM-1, B&W N801 and an Oppo UDP-205) and on each occasion had the buyers PayPal transaction refunded/rejected as soon as the buyer paid. I now know why.

Audiogon Admin were very helpful trying to resolve the problem. Turns out the problem has nothing to do with Audiogon, it is purely a PayPal problem. I have just been on the phone to PayPal, a very protracted and frustrating process (not recommended!) and found out why the PayPal payments were rejected/refunded. Apparently my account was not verified for a large transaction, it is now. What really annoys me is; this is the third time in just over a month I have tried to sell equipment on Audiogon and this has happened, why did PayPal not alert me to the problem?

If you have a balance on your PayPal account, the verification process (apparently) is simple and can be done online. However, in my case I do not keep money in PayPal. So I had to spend another 30 minutes on the phone contacting another PayPal administrator to get my account verified, again not recommended.

So, my advise to anyone selling on Audiogon is to make sure your PayPal account is verified. The best way to do this is to have a balance on your PayPal account so the process can be done online. Alternatively, if you like anger, frustration, boredom and wasting time; do what I did (not recommended)!
mgattmch
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,407 posts
 
Anyone who buys and sells here with a Paypal account shoul make sure their account is verified.  I did it when I opened my account 12 years ago.  It is not a fault of PayPal as it is there for fraud purposes, it is your fault for not verifying the account.  Why didn’t you call them after the first time you had a problem?  Did you think it would go away by itself?  I don’t keep any money in my PayPal account, but because my account is verified, I don’t have problems. The biggest transaction I have done is around 6K.  

PayPal fronts the money to the seller and without your account being verified, they could get screwed out of a lot of money.  Sorry, but this one is on you pal. 
mgattmch OP
572 posts
 
I recently purchased some speakers for $9.8k using PayPal, no problem. The 3 items I was selling are $5.5K, $1.4K and the last one was for $2.95k. The first 2 were originally rejected then processed on the second attempt. I have been using PayPal for maybe 10 years without issue, I am sure I must have verified the account at some time in the past. So I am still puzzled as to what went wrong now.

Re the comment from "riley804", your post concerns payments up to $10k, not the case in this instance.

Like the Audiogon Admin said, this is not an isolated incident. I am not complaining, just trying to give everyone a heads-up to prevent recurrence of the problem.
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,407 posts
 
Purchasing is different from selling as they don’t front the money to the purchaser, just the seller. . Glad it worked out for you.
jtcf's avatar
jtcf
1,620 posts
 
Same thing happened to me as a buyer here on Audiogon.I use PayPal often for large and small amounts and this is the first time it's happened.I don't keep a balance ever and my account is verified.It was terribly frustrating!Tammy reopened the ad for me and the next time It went through as normal.
I was freaking out a bit because it stated that the seller had been paid but in fact he was not.
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,417 posts
 
I thought if PayPal had your CC on file, then there's no problem. In case of a transaction gone awry, the account holder's credit card is used.


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