In Nautiluso Case, PayPal May Be The Biggest Loser
Brian makes an interesting point in his comment in the article on the buyers filing $30,000 in claims against Nautiluso. He notes in the earlier fraud that emanated from Italy, most, if not all, of the buyers were made whole by PayPal. He mentions a maximum of $2,000, but I think there actually is no maximum. I spoke to one of the Nautiluso buyers yesterday who spent more than $2,000 and was fully reimbursed by PayPal and was asked not to talk about it, so I won’t mention his name. We also heard from one of our readers that he has already been reimbursed by PayPal. The challenge for organizations like eBay and PayPal is that their business model is predicated on creating a safe buying and selling environment, so something like this poses a major challenge to them. At the end of the day, they don’t want the negative publicitythat a scam like these can create, and they don’t want to alienate a core part of their audience. There are literally tens of thousands of jazz records sold on eBay every single week, and many of them, as we see, are selling for significant amounts of dollars. If it costs PayPal $132,000 to make their buyers feel safe, I’m sure they will believe that this is money well spent — and they’ll get it back from us some day in higher fees. So my advice to anyone who has been caught in this scam is to fight hard to get your money back, especially if you paid by PayPal. The person with whom I spoke said he called PayPal every other day, several times a day, and eventually spoke to a manager. In the end, it paid off and he got back every dollar. Also, please feel free to use Jazz Collector as a forum to keep the rest of the community informed on how this is being handled.
Also please remember: Since 2002 Paypal is owned by eBay !
…Am I the only one who sees a great “business” opportunity here ??? This may very well get me kicked out of the Jazz Collector “collective” for even suggesting such a thing, but maybe our good friend “Nautiluso” is on to something here… What a great way to recover years of ebay seller fee’s / Paypal service charges and possibly retire at the same time !!! (heh heh) I can see why he or she is now potentially living in South America somewhere…
Al, if you cut us all in we will start bidding lavishly on your LP sales for fun and profit… You could actually send one of the posted LP’s to the person who get’s the biggest payoff from Paypal each month after a claim has been filed… We could even add another column to the price guide for top grossing Paypal refunds !!! (heh heh heh)
…Just kidding guys ! I’m really just in it for the music. Personally, I wonder if something happened to “Nautiluso” before the auction ended. Maybe he had an accident or worse ! …Trust me it happens, especially with the old-timers down in Florida… About two years ago, I won a bid for a 12 LP lot of Mel Torme albums for around $10. A month went by and I never heard from the seller. I just figured he wasn’t going to part with them for that, and it wasn’t worth the hassle to go after him. A month later he contacts me very apologetic and said he had been in the hospital… He shipped out the order shortly thereafter and even sent me a bunch of extra LP’s as a bonus, so you never know right… It seems unlikely to me that someone would spend years establishing themselves on e-bay in hopes of perpetrating that one big score someday. Never the less it does make for some sensational reading on an otherwise uneventful day here at our respective offices doesn’t it ?
Al,I think your comment that paypal doesn’t want “the negative publicity that a scam like this can create” is on the money. Unfortunately,that is exactly what major crooks/scammers are betting on when they plan their theft. I would hope that this will serve as a memorable lesson for those of us willing to ‘go for broke'(no pun intended) in bidding with an unknown(or perhaps just a foreign?)seller. My golden rule:if I can’t drive to THERE from HERE-and I haven’t dealt with you before-you damn sure aren’t gonna get a lot of my money. Not now. Not ever. There are too many KNOWN dealers/collectors to take such a pricey gamble. Remember,whereever there is money to be made HONESTLY,there is money to be made DISHONESTLY. To quote an old EWF song,’That’s The Way Of The World.”
good point made, but lets be honest, isn’t ebay 1 big ripoff? sellers do all the work and the buyers bid.. ebay collects the fee’s, make up the rules, and even though ebay’s fraud numbers are down from when they 1st started, there is still alot of fraud on ebay..
i hold ebay just as responsible… since it’s their site, it’s up to them to police anyone selling on that site…
i remember when i got ripped off from a out of country seller.. ebay told me they could not give me the addresss/ phone number the seller had on file.. something about their country does not allow it…. i kid u not
but since ebay now owns paypal.. maybe they will do a better job of fraud prevention on the site.. my own fraud check list to anyone , i always ask for pic’s, grading, and sometimes references… when this seller gave me the old” i;m out of town excuse- that told me he was either lieing or was not serious… so i canceled all my bids ,
again ebay sort of makes it really easy especially with the bidders id’s being private… thats a scammers dream… he most likely was bid on the record himself , and we all know that most of the serious jazz collector on ebay bid at the last second to snipe a record
this guy or woman who pulled this off is a deadbeat, but ebay must be held accountable as well, for making it very easy for them
i only hope that most paid via credit card, as i have learned from past experience that paying via check or paypal funds when fraud occurs is not good…. nuff said !