Top eBay news in Australia today is that the seventh largest eBay seller in the country, ebusiness_supplies is in receivership.
According to SellerDome ebusiness_supplies had average monthly sales in excess of $373,000 with an enviable sell through rate on items with an average GSV of $170+. Selling imported high dollar items like quad ATVs and home gymnasium fitness equipment, ebusiness_supplies has had problems in the past. New management took over April 1st of this year and an announcement was made on July 7th offering to refund all customers who had ordered before June 1st.
So what went wrong? More importantly will any of the buyers be covered by eBay's much touted PayPal Buyer Protection?
According to an article in The Age "Those who paid using PayPal, which is owned by eBay, would be entitled to refunds through a new fund set up to deal with this incident, PayPal managing director Andrew Pipolo said."
PayPal's User Agreement for all payments effected using PayPal on or after 12.01am Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on 17 June 2008:
Amounts that you may receive under PayPal’s Buyer Protection Policy.
IMPORTANT: For purchases made on www.ebay.com.au there is a maximum discretionary payment amount of $20,000.00 AUD.
PayPal is not obliged to pay any amount at all, or if it does decide to make a payment, to pay the maximum amount set out – you may, at PayPal's discretion, receive a payment which is less than the maximum of $20,000.00 AUD, but PayPal will not pay more than the maximum discretionary amount.
For payments made prior to that date but made on or after 7 June 2007 PayPal would exclude buyers from 'top tier protection' because ebusiness_supplies feedback rating was less than 98% at that time. Basic tier protection has a $400 maximum. There too, as always, PayPal's all purpose cop out "The decision whether to offer coverage under the PayPal Buyer Protection Policy on a given listing is at PayPal's sole discretion."
Either way I think there will be rather a lot of unhappy and probably ex-eBay buyers in Australia. It may seem unfair because eBay is not responsible for ebusiness_supplies poor management, but when you raise buyer expectations by deception (PayPal Buyer Protection has truck sized loopholes built in to protect PayPal, not buyers) you must expect to pay the price.
Y'all come back
2 comments:
Trust through deception. That's eBay's new motto.
For victims that have not received the EBS liquidators report, please contact:
SV Partners liquidators
phone: 07 3310 2000
email: ebs@svp.com.au
they will place you on the unsecured creditors list, and at the moment it looks like you may receive around 30% of your money once EBS assets are sold.
You can also try for paypal/visa/mastercard refund. Ask to speak to paypal supervisor, be prepared to argue a lot for a month or two, and you may get a refund, like i did!
The police will not do anything unless we can prove that EBS had no intention of delivering to customers. Because EBS are saying an 'agent' in China has taken money and not placed orders, the police are waiting on the liquidators to verify where all the money has gone, and whether anything illegal has taken place.
Post a Comment