PayPal destroys fiddle

This post originally appeared on the ‘fiddlefish.com’ blog. It’s here for archival purposes only.

I have had a ton of trouble with PayPal in the past. Specifically, I have been in a catch-22 whereby I cannot verify my account and have the monies in there released to me. I don’t have the patience to deal with them any longer.

I keep finding reports of PayPal users getting burned. And this one was a doosey! A dispute over the sale of a violin and its label led to the following as required by PayPal’s terms of service:

The seller of the violin explains:

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 violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world.

The buyer was proud of himself, so he sent me a photo of the destroyed violin.

I am now out a violin that made it through WWII as well as $2500. This is of course, upsetting. But my main goal in writing [sic] is to prevent PayPal from ordering the destruction of violins and other antiquities that they know nothing about. It is beyond me why PayPal simply didn’t have the violin returned to me.

I spoke on the phone to numerous reps from PayPal who 100% defended their action and gave me the party line.

It’s been pointed out that this is in keeping with the PayPal way from the PayPal website. The following showcases it as such: