Fed up with eBay? There IS an alternative!

First the background. Anyone who's tried selling on eBay for any length of time knows that if a scammer hits you -- e.g. by claiming they never received the goods and demanding a refund -- you're going to get the short end of the stick every time. eBay will send them a refund and debit your PayPal account (if that's how you're getting paid), which they can do because eBay owns PayPal. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it because the deck is stacked in favour of buyers.

Further reading from the WWW archives: "eBay seller screwed by scammer thanks to 'buyer protection'" and "eBay and PayPal -- complaints mount".

Now we have another entry in the looooong thread called "How to cheat eBay sellers and scam PayPal" on BenchmarkReviews.com. [I've edited it a bit for brevity. Ed.]

"Hi everyone. I just got scammed $2k. Buyer bought $2k worth of gift cards from me via Ebay and paypal checkout, now I knew he was fishy to begin with and there would be no seller protection for gift cards, but I'm a reasonably seasoned seller so I knew if I could prove the buyer had received them as mentioned by Ebay messages and post tracking, I would be bullet proof against any claim...WRONG!

"I received my cash in my account no problem, 6 hrs later I woke up to see the $2 payment had been reversed and a new case opened as 'unauthorised purchase' and closed due to no 'seller response' within minutes of each other according to the action logs. How can a case and decision be made within minutes, that leads to $2k worth of cash refunded?

"So ok, no problems, I thought I'd submit a evidence on appeal clearly showing the buyer had signed for the packages 'under their name' and mentioned in the Ebay messages they received the items and all was dandy/authentic. And the decision: well you guessed it, against me, apparently because I don't qualify for seller protection, so everything I submitted means absolutely nothing, even if the evidence is concrete by the book.

"Now I am going to once again reappeal, with all guns blazing, even collected evidence by chatting to another seller who was also 'scammed' by the same buyer. If I get the same response from Paypal....that's just bluntly ridiculous, I'd just admit defeat stop hoping for at least my money back and going straight to cyber-crime police at least assist in getting him arrested."

As Agent 78 would say, rotsa ruck! But there is good news today. Walt has discovered another online store, called (appropriately) Webstore. It works the same way as eBay. You can put your junque -- fancy junk -- up for auction, or sell it on a "buy-it-now" basis. You can have your own virtual store. The platform is easier to use with the "Easy Post" option. And best of all it's free!

You can use PayPal to accept payment but with better protection against scammers because Webstore is independent of PayPal. The only negative I can see (so far) is that eBay dominates the market, so Webstore and the other eBay wannabes are struggling to build traffic. You can help, though, by putting links to your items on Facebook and other social media sites. If you're sick, sore and tired of eBay, give Webstore a try!

ONLINE NOW: halal sex shop!

You couldn't make this stuff up. And let this story be a chastisement to anyone who says the Muslims are not entrepreneurial and business-minded.

Reuters reports that Haluk Murat Demirel, a young Turk -- well OK, he's 38 -- has opened what he says is the first online sex shop for Muslims. It's called Helal Sex Shop Bayan, and sells everything from lubricants to herbal aphrodisiacs.

And there's more! If you read Turkish, you can get advice on how to have "halal" sex. They'll tell you which sexual practices are banned by Islam, and which are not. [Don't go there. Ed.]

Mr. Demirel said he was inspired to launch the website by friends who wanted sex advice and products, but found the content on other websites and in specialist stores too explicit. "Online sex shops usually have pornographic pictures, which makes Muslims uncomfortable," he said. "We don't sell vibrators for example, because they are not approved by Islam." Walt suggests that perhaps that's because electricity was unknown in the days of the Prophet. [And still is, in parts of the Islamic world. Ed.]

In theory, Turkey is a secular country. [Like France? Ed.] However, the majority of its citizens are Muslims. [Like France? Ed.] So sexual mores provoke a lot of debate... a lot! There are relatively few bricks-and-mortar sex shops, even in major cities, although in parts of Istanbul those that do exist advertise themselves with neon signs.

Mr. Demirel said his website, launched only last week, has already proven popular, with 33,000 visitors on Sunday alone. And Walt is sure that the counter has ticked over by at least one, just within the last two minutes. So how's your Turkish? Could you figure out what "seks" means? LOL

Don't shop.nhl.com

This is a "Reebok Montreal Canadiens Women's Swirl Girl Long Sleeve Layered T-Shirt". That's what it says on the shop.nhl.com website. Agent 78 is a Habs fan and she wanted one. So she ordered one from the website, without checking out the online reviews. Here's what happened.

The package was delivered by courier within a week or so. Not bad. Shipping costs added around 8 bucks to the cost, but they told her that when she ordered, so fair enough.

When she opened the package, the shirt enclosed turned out to be red. Red is the Habs colour, but the website didn't say anything about a choice of colours. Even if it did, Agent 78 wanted the dark blue. To make matters worse, the cotton was not quite thick enough to be called flimsy. Says she, "I've seen thicker Kleenex."

What to do? Since Agent 78 had paid by credit card, Walt said just call the bank and tell them you're sending it back and would they please reverse the charge. Whoa!!! said the bank. You have to give the company a chance to make good.

So Agent 78 e-mailed shop.nhl.com's customer service. Not getting any response after a couple of days, she phoned them. Thank goodness for 800 numbers, she says, because after a considerable wait she got hold of someone who, without too much of a fight, said they would e-mail a shipping label which 78 could print out and use to return the item by the same courier.

A week goes by. No e-mail, no shipping label. So 78 phones them again.
Service Rep (so-called): "You want to return something?"
78: "Yes, I'm not satisfied with the 'Reebok Montreal Canadiens Women's Swirl Girl Long Sleeve Layered T-Shirt' you sent me."
SR: "What's wrong with it?"
78: "It's red."
SR: "Well it only comes in red."
78: "But on the website it's shown in blue and it doesn't say anything about red."
SR: "Are you sure?"
78: "[expletive deleted]! I'm looking right at the [expletive deleted] thing."
SR: "Just a minute... ... ... ... oh ... ... ..."

I'll spare you the rest of the transcript, the part in which SR says they'll e-mail 78 a shipping label because it seems the first one is, err, still being processed. Suffice it to say that, after another couple of days, the e-mail comes. Agent 78 packs up the garment, but El Courier Cheapo won't come and collect it. She has to take it to their drop-off point at Business Deport. It's only a 10-minute drive, so OK, she does it.

A week goes by. The courier website shows the package having been dispatched, but that's all. After another two days, Agent 78 calls the bank. The bank's SR won't take 78's word for it and says she will call shop.nhl.com herself. Go ahead, says 78.

After the banker calls the secret number only to find it out of service, she coughs up the credit to Agent 78's card. Every penny, including the taxes and shipping charges. This was in December, well before Christmas. All's well that ends well, thought 78.

Imagine her surprise, then, to receive only today an e-mail from shop.nhl.com! We've got your returned item, it says, and we're going to give you a refund of $28.46, only $8.99 less than you paid. Apparently the difference is the shipping charge.

Now Agent 78 asks Walt what she should do next. Walt passes the question along to you, gentle reader. Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, to the usual address.

Postscript: Click here to read "shop.nhl.com sucks!" on RedFlagDeals.com. And don't buy anything from an online vendor without checking them out. If you pay by credit card or PayPal, they might bail you out, but it'll take time and aggravation.