Paypal is in the business of being evil...

[crafty_packrat]

twistedchick, this is your trigger warning -- I do not think you want to read this one...



Regretsy broke this one -- a seller sold an antique (pre-WW2) violin, that she had had authenticated by a professional, to a buyer who then disputed it. Paypal ordered him to destroy it -- apparently under the policy of destroying counterfeit (like fake Gucci bags and the like) -- before they would refund the cost of the violin. The $2500 cost of the violin...

And the buyer did it. And sent photos of the destroyed violin to the seller.

WTF?! I mean, seriously, who destroys a violin on the orders of PayPal? Even if it's a cheap modern factory-made violin, wouldn't you at least get a luthier to confirm it value or lack thereof? Especially since with antique and vintage instruments, the maker's marks are often faked -- people 100 years ago faked famous maker's names, just like now -- and often the instrument is quite valuable even though it's a 'fake' because it's an antique fake with good musical quality anyway.

Seriously, I think I can't use PayPal's services anymore. Together with the Christmas Gift debacle, and the time they tried to dictate the ToS for Dreamwidth, I'll just have to find a different money transfer service -- one that isn't run by nincompoops and malevolent jerks.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Comments

[twistedchick]

Okay, after the rage...

what needs to be done is education. People buy a lot of valuable things with Paypal; they need to be educated about confirming the value of things that aren't Gucci bags. They need a *lot* of education.

It's not always a matter of faking anything. My grandpa's violin that I play has certain features that are in the style of a well-known violinmaker. But the label indicates otherwise. What I've learned is that these instruments were made by a group of people sitting around a table doing the carving and fitting together, learning from one another. So it is possible to have something made by a famous person without that name on it, and to have something that looks like it was that was made by the guy sitting next to him. So what you end up with is the equivalent of a painting from the 'school of Rembrandt' or whatever -- it's still valuable and good, it's just not multimilliondollar because the master painted only the nose or the buttons (while showing how it was done) instead of the whole thing.

That's how apprenticeships worked. Paypal needs to get off its collective asses and off its regiments of high horses (who are uncomfortable carrying them, I'm sure) and get *educated* on how good things were made before 1900 -- which is when most of human history took place, so far.