This would make sense for new sellers and cut out on fraud. But fraud is still revenue.
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... I deserve it! ( Reverb Fraud)
- Thread starter emal
- Start date
This would make sense for new sellers and cut out on fraud. But fraud is still revenue.
Yeah, at least when you give some guy 50 bucks for a "rolex," you actually get an item in-hand
Well, this is 100% news to me!
So far, I guess I've been lucky using Reverb and Paypal. My worst experience was buying a bass advertised as "mint", when it was in fact NOT mint.
Thanks for posting all of this, and giving the rest of us a heads-up.
How much simpler things were back in the 1970's when we would show up at a music store with cash.
I had the same thing happen to me a few months ago. A vintage jazz bass popped up for cheap. The listing description said they were selling it for their church band bass player who recently passed. Sounded like one of those random estate sale scores you hear about. I payed through PayPal and I received tracking for a overnight shipment. They basically sent an empty envelope to a random address in my town to show that it was shipped and signed for. Reverb didn't want to step in and help saying it was PayPal's problem. And PayPal didn't want to help me because it was "delivered". It took about a month to get refunded. Then the scammer contested to reverb and they charged me AGAIN. So I had to fight it all over again . I've since seen the exact same photos of the bass I bought pop up on various fake reverb accounts all over the world. Ugh be careful out there people haha
On the other hand, if you're looking for some very specific bass and the music store didn't have one the scenario becomes potentially far more complicated than it is today when you can find most things with relative ease. Neither is free from complications.
Sorry you had this experience. I hope you can recoup the money from PayPal - it would make sense that they are able to go after the person because PayPal has to be tied to either a bank account or credit card.
I lived through a Reverb fraud nightmare and (thankfully) came out the other side mostly unscathed. Similarly, I also had to deal with PayPal instead of Reverb and it wasgreed and a hot pursuit of too good a deal that lead the way. Hopefully yours gets fully sorted. Mine did thanks to a gracious Ebayer. My saga is below.
NBD - Climbed the Mountain
Thanks for clarifying. Reading the correspondence below, it sounds like Reverb did what they said which was to assist you in getting PayPal's process started. It does seem frustrating but the records of what happened with your money once you chose to use PayPal would be with PayPal and not Reverb, so it makes sense that PayPal has to be the one to sort through the details.
The good news is it sounds like several people here have had similar experiences and PayPal has helped them get refunded, so hopefully that process will work for you.
Interesting... Would this suggest that they rely on credit card companies' & PayPal customer service to handle fraud reports? It would certainly take a lot of their plates.
Most of my buyers have been using "Reverb Pay" - does that include when they use their credit card at checkout, or is there some sort of "Reverb Wallet" it's connected to and they top off?
For me, things are so readily available that I find myself buying stuff that I don’t really need.
It suggests to me that the money trail is in the hands of whoever processes the payments, so they would have the needed records and electronic transaction details.
PayPal's not going to let Reverb or anyone else have access to their internal processing systems and records, and we'd all be clamoring over privacy concerns if they did. This is kinda much ado about nothing, really. Hopefully the OP follows up with PayPal and can get some closure on this.
A lot of people these days want the champagne experience for lemonade money. Some of these dupes even walk into these things knowing it seems too good to be true but the greed makes them take that risk.
and pay full retail for an item that dozens of people already manhandled and scratched to hell.
Do you deserve it, really?
Yeah, you feel bad... understandable... but I find that framing to be problematic, in general.
Yeah, you feel bad... understandable... but I find that framing to be problematic, in general.
Not quite.
The above only held true for the seller's first sale on Reverb. After the first sale was completed without glitches, once the item was trackable as "shipment in progress" the funds would be released to the seller.
I've sold stuff on Reverb both before and after Etsy takeover so yes, this is first hand experience.
this is becoming a fairly common scam, a new or near mint bass priced at sub 75% it's market value usually by a brand new seller or a seller with 1 or 2 feedback. My Dad taught me as a kid "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is" , I'd say that has covered about 95% of situations I've encountered in life. There's always that odd "once in a lifetime deal" but those are VERY few and far between. The good news is you can use both Reverb payment and Paypal, just open a Paypal mastercard. You can use the paypal funds in your account to pay your card plus you can get $50 cash for every 6000 points
I’m guessing this is the same bass I was looking at…some shop in Mexico selling an American professional II in that dark night finish for $899…
