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Paypal destroys violins!

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If you buy something via PayPal, and dispute the authenticity of the item you purchased, their terms of service might require you to destroy the item in question. This makes sense if we're talking about a pirated DVD, but in other cases…

I sold an old French violin to a buyer in Canada, and the buyer disputed the label.

This is not uncommon. In the violin market, labels often mean little and there is often disagreement over them. Some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, but they are works of art nonetheless.

Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violinin order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world.

Naturally, PayPal blames the government: "The reason why we reserve the option to ask the buyer to destroy the goods is that in many countries, including the US,  it is a criminal offense to mail counterfeit goods back to a seller."
 
Pictured: the destroyed violin. 
 
The title of this post is a reference to the YouTube hit song United Breaks Guitars, penned by an annoyed musician after seeing baggage handlers throw his guitar case.

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Comments

  1. My point, Donald, is that while I agree that the law in this instance IS an ass, there is little recourse for anyone but to remake the law.  You miss the point:  proof WAS the issue.  There is no provenance provided; there is no proof that the seller’s CLAIM of its origins is true.  It’s a “he-said-she-said” situation, and while I would agree again that the buyer could have taken steps to have proof PERHAPS proven, the buyer could A) have disputed the proferred proof of the supposed “expert”, putting all parties right where they started from; or B) perhaps was not in a situation to have an expert readily available (if this were sold to someone in some very small community “out in the boonies” it’s not likely someone who is a recognized expert is available).  Perhaps the real lesson here is that the old saw, “caveat emptor” (let the buyer beware) should have a corresponding equivalent in this day and age of easy sales across state and international borders – “let the seller beware.”  Believe me, I’m as bothered as you seem to be by the destruction of a perfectly good instrument, irrespective of its age or origins or whatever; but also please remember that the law is designed to cover the broadest possible circumstances.  Yes, the law is frequently unable to distinguish specific cases when seeking to protect the broadest number of people; that’s because very imperfect people make very imperfect laws.  But the onus in this case is on the seller for two reasons:  he makes a CLAIM he cannot substantiate (and admits as much) about the origin and age of the instrument; and he attempts to profit (not necessarily vastly) by putting the instrument FOR SALE PUBLICLY which means he is reponsible for all matters involving its sale – to include choosing the method of advertising and movement to the potential customer.  Don’t blame PayPal for protecting itself in accordance with a(n admittedly) imperfect law – I don’t believe you’d be willing to stand up in court and finance their court costs when/if they were brought to court!  The law is attempting, imperfectly, to minimize the risk to the seller and the company producing the means of movement against a seller who MAY be selling something counterfeit.  The difference with the claim of a counterfeit coin is that provenance is NOT an issue – there are sufficient neutral proofs available that the coin was minted where and when the claim is made, so the likelihood of what your proposed is minimal – though admittedly more so with paper than metal currency.  I don’t disagree with your anger about the destruction of the violin – it’s just that a risk was taken, known to have existed when taken, and it all fell wrong – perhaps as much the fault of the buyer who wouldn’t trust the claim as the seller for sending it the way he did.  “Let the seller beware” – and let us all mourn the lack of faith in the world we live in.
     
    Oh, and incidentally, the last time someone called me by both my first and middle names was when I was living with my parents.  You ain’t; so don’t.
     
    Ron

  2. Well, the law *may* be clear but this is total bull excrement. I have been on the losing end of a PayPal dispute recently, involving online registration for a state ACDA chapter workshop. The person who purchased the ticket (and who attended the full conference) decided they had some problems with the credit card they used and disputed *all* of their recent charges, including the PayPal transaction for the workshop. I was using my business account for the registrations, and after going back and forth with PayPal, submitting evidence that the person had indeed attended the workshop (including a statement from them to that effect, and even photographic evidence), and spending hours of my time cooperating with the dispute “resolution” process, I never received the money back into my account, despite the weight of evidence supporting my side of the dispute.
     
    Justice has never been very important to PayPal, given that it was founded by Peter Thiel, an extreme Libertarian (an absolute anathema to me) and a member of the controversial Bilderberg Group, who then sold it to Meg Whitman. You can read countless horror stories of vendors given the shaft by PayPal, and I think that this one is going to be the “final straw” for me. I think I’ll turn to alternates to PayPal for online transactions from now on, as they don’t deserve a penny of profit from any of my transactions.

  3. The law IS an ass! That such a crime can be committed, i.e. a perfectly good violin has been demolished – and that is the crime! – speaks to the idiocy of the law. Of course the mails are not to be used for illegal purposes. BUT, DID ANYONE EVER PROVE THE INSTRUMENT WAS COUNTERFEIT? NO!!! The buyer had no right to destroy this item simply because he or she thought the instrument was counterfeit, and should be sued by the seller. If he or she had not been so lazy, they’d have taken it to an expert in old instruments. Just imagine: someone purchases a gold coin via PayPal, receives it and says the coin is counterfeit, destroys it and sends a picture to PayPal to prove it, and gets the payment back. Then what? He melts down the ‘counterfeit’ coin and sells the gold to a dealer, thereby realizing a 100% profit! Any difference? Don’t blindly trust the ‘law’, Ronald Richard!

  4. I’m sorry, but if indeed the government has regulations which PayPal must adhere to, are we willing to pony up and help PayPal go to court to do otherwise?  I don’t think so.  And I understand the government’s position:  the mails are not to be used for illegal activities.  Even if the issue does not involve an identifiably counterfeit item, PayPal is in no position to determine the rights or wrongs of the issue.  There were probably some alternative means of returning the item, but the individual in question wanted his money back from PayPal – and apparently only the US Postal Service is used.  Looks like a Hobson’s Choice to me.  That an interesting, perhaps valuable instrument was destroyed as a consequence is unfortunate, perhaps even devastating – but the law is clear.  Sorry – and it makes it all the more important for people dealing in these items to have provenance – the chain of ownership/manufacture that makes such a claim indisputable, or at least easy to uphold in court. 

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