Hi Jim,

you wrote:
Even worse is what happened to a young lady who sold a violin on eBay with PayPal (owned by eBay) payment. The buyer decided he didn't want it. She asked him to ship it back, and offered to pay for it. He contacted PayPal to cancel the sale. They said they could only do that if he provided proof it was damaged, so he smashed it to bits and sent them the picture. The seller is now out both her violin and $2,000.

Do you know this young lady personally? Or did you hear it as a story as it might be just an urban legend.

Because in this case Paypal was right to refuse to refund as there was nothing wrong with the sale. The right thing would have been that the lady had paid the amount back to her seller through Paypal. No need to smash a violin for that.

Gerda