Lidice Rosales is proud of her 10-year history of selling items on EBay.
“I have a 100 percent rating on EBay,” said Lidice.
But when she tried to sell a smart phone, what she thought would be a simple sale became complicated.
The buyer sent Lidice messages accusing her of being deceitful, pointing out that her ad said the phone was in “good condition” and “will work”, but the seller contended the ad should have said “this phone is missing a SIM card"
“I am surprised and frustrated,” said Lidice.
Lidice feels the picture of the phone made it clear that there was no SIM card included. She says an “X” symbol displayed on a photo in her post made it clear, a SIM card wasn’t included with the phone.
“For me, it doesn’t make sense to explain the phone isn’t coming with a SIM card,” said Lidice.
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The buyer filed a case with eBay and disputed having to pay $89.22. eBay sided with Lidice.
“I won the case. eBay closed the case,” she said.
And the money soon showed up in her PayPal account.
Lidice says she was happy for two days until the money was removed from her account.
“PayPal took the money from my account,” she said. “PayPal said the buyer opened another case.”
It turns out the buyer successfully disputed the charge with her credit card company. PayPal then sent Lidice an email stating they took the money out of her account. They also charged her a $20 fee.
“I never thought PayPal could take it off without any notification to me,” she said.
Lidice complained to PayPal without success.
The company told us in a statement: "…We encourage customers to scrutinize transactions to the fullest extent possible as any credit card transaction can be disputed by the cardholder outside of PayPal’s claims process.”
Lidice says the experience has changed the way she sells her items. She no longer accepts PayPal payments and says she’ll make sure she gives buyers more details about what she’s selling.
“Maybe I’ll be more careful, put more pictures or more explanation,” said Lidice.
We tried reaching the buyer, but never heard back. Early on, the buyer asked Lidice for a pre-paid return label to send the phone back, but Lidice hasn’t done that saying she doesn’t trust the buyer and doesn’t want to lose any more money.
