Paypal Orders Buyer of Violin To Destroy It For a Refund 362
An anonymous reader writes "Erica was once the owner of an old violin that had survived through WWII, and decided to sell it on Ebay for $2500. The person who bought it decided it was a counterfeit and wanted his money back. Paypal decided to honor the request for a refund on the condition that the buyer destroy the violin and provided photographic evidence of the destruction. Couldn't he have just returned it?" Sounds like a hoax to me, but I guess it's possible.
Re:News? (Score:2, Interesting)
the point is that a "counterfeit" violin can still be an antique item worth $2500 and such things are common with violins.
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
1. But $100 violin, then claim it's a fake
2. Buy $5 violin, smash it up, send photo to PayPal
3. Profit!
Re:News? (Score:2, Interesting)
I had to destroy paintings and photographs damaged during shipping as well in the past to get replacement.
Said painting and photographs wouldn't happen to have been prints, right? Artists often request proof of destruction to be sure you aren't trying to get a free print from them.
But this was a WWII era violin. The buyer isn't going to be getting a replacement from the seller.
And plus, it wasn't fake. The labels are often incorrect and there are often disputes over them, but this is the first time I've seen one destroyed. Even if it was fake, the seller might not have known and would love to have it back either way. It's not a waste of money for the seller.
You just don't destroy old instruments. It boggles the mind. You can't create new old instruments.
Insane. Vigilantism at its worst. (Score:5, Interesting)
This policy probably stems from modern counterfeit goods such as Rolex/Coach or whatever else knockoffs of expensive products are floating around. And it's bad enough there, let alone antiques, since companies of modern goods have a good incentive to suppress any secondhand market of their own products and some will flag listings as counterfeit just for the sake of it.
But I have relatives in the antique business and in certain areas, you can really ask 10 experts and get 10 different opinions. Really. Or appraisers tell you different opinions based on what you pay and want to hear or their own agendas (if you didn't buy it from them, it becomes more suspect in some cases, petty politics like that, etc.)
But that is besides the point. Here, Paypal broke the piece, they should buy it, at full price. It's not their place to determine what's fake or not. Even if it was, they are not law enforcement, they are acting as self-appointed vigilantes. Return shipping in the condition it was sent should be a requirement. And moreso, if they determine the seller is out their to sell counterfeit goods or defraud someone, they should shut down the account and forward evidence to the proper authorities.
I hope the lady sues them and gets extra damages.
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
According to some people, the violin should have been sent back instead.
1. Buy $2500 violin, then claim it's a fake.
2. Buy a $100 fake violin, return it instead of the real one.
3. Profit!
Only possible option would be for Paypal to let an independant expert verify the violin's authenticity, then let the losing party pay for the expert.
Re:News? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is probably an orchestra program at a local school who would have loved the donation of a knockoff violin but instead paypal (if the story is true) decided to be a douche--and they wonder why people don't like them?
Paypal really needs to fix the gaping holes in their dispute resolution process. I could order an expensive cashmere sweater from you, wait until it arrives and then say "hey, WTF is with this t-shirt you sent me instead of the sweater, I demand a refund". You will know that you put the sweater in the box, but paypal will ask me to return the item with shipping confirmation and then give me a refund. You'll get a box a few days later with a $2 t-shirt from a thrift store and I'll get to keep the sweater and the money.
This happens all of the time...I don't know what the best defense is (except transferring money out of paypal immediately upon receipt so the worst that can happen is you end up with a frozen paypal account with a negative balance)--I suppose your best bet would be to insure the package for the full value and then claim that someone must have stolen it in transit and replaced it with a t-shirt (either that or they are a scammer). That should get the postal inspectors to show up who are more likely to look at the evidence and decide that the scammer is a felon for attempting mail-fraud.
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem in any case is, if the buyer swaps the violin, how do you prove the buy swapped it, or didn't?
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's an old 2-man scam for you.
The two of you are eating at a restaurant, separately. The first of you is dressed decently--not super well, but not shabby-- and has an old-looking violin. Personally, I make it a point of pride never to spend more than $10 on the violin. Anyways, after the meal, lament that you've forgotten your wallet, but here, hold onto my violin as collateral, and I'll be back in an hour.
After you leave, the second fellow pulls aside the waiter and asks to inspect the violin. He then declares that this is a genuine so-and-so, worth thousands, and you'd be ever-so-interested in buying it and when did the violinist say he'd return? Oh no! I can't wait that long, I've a plane to catch. Here, give the man my card and let him know that I'm very interested in his violin.
When the first person returns, the waiter in all likelihood will offer whatever he can scrounge up, perhaps a few hundred dollars, for the violin, keeping the other gentleman's offer to himself. The worst case scenario, the waiter simply passes the card along and you're out no more than the cost of lunch.
(Kudos if you know where this is from)
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
And to play devil's advocate, the seller could have just as easily authenticated the $2500 violin and then shipped the buyer a $100 fake.
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
(a buyer with ~25 feedback gets hurt a lot more than a seller with 10,000 feedback when each leaves the other a negative, and they knew it)
eBay's whole feedback system is a circle jerk anyway. You give me good feedback and I'll give you good feedback. It's designed to bury negative feedback in positive feedback. Basically, most buyers don't care what good feedback a seller gets. Maybe neutral, but you want to see what kind of negatives a seller has. A much better system would be showing neutrals and negatives but only counting positives. Then a prospective buyer could see what neutral/negative feedback was received over how many successful/positive auctions. Currently you have to wade through thousands of A+++++++++++++++++++++ useless feedback to see how a seller handles an auction where both parties weren't happy. And if you were going to display ANY positive feedback, it would be from buyers who initially posted neutral/negative and choose to change it to positive after resolution.
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
In a double-blind test, even experienced violinists and violin makers cannot reliably identify the sound of a Stradivarius over a newly-made violin.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/01/02/violinists-can%E2%80%99t-tell-the-difference-between-stradivarius-violins-and-new-ones/ [discovermagazine.com]
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:4, Interesting)
There is one key thing that people tend to forget when these kinds of test results come out. As the wood in the violin ages its sound will change. After about 300 years or so (the average age of a Strad) the sound won't change much. With a new violin (average cost for a handmade one by an expert lutier being around $20,000) you have no way of knowing how the sound will change as it ages. Sure it might sound good today, but what happens in 10 years as the wood ages? There are violins made by Stradivarius that don't sound good because the wood didn't age well, and he was known to experiment with his instrument design a bit (for example the Chanot-Chardon Stradivarius [cozio.com] violin is guitar shaped). That same problem could happen to a modern made violin leaving the musician out the price of a small car and a nearly worthless instrument. Safer to buy an older instrument that has had time to age.
And on another note chances are if anyone buys a $100 violin they've bought a cheap poorly setup piece of junk that is almost unplayable.
Re:this Stradivarius is fake! (Score:5, Interesting)
For the sake of those that don't get the joke - the above describes virtually every genuine Strad that still exists. I can only think of one that has its original length neck
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be nice if you could also see the feedback weighted by the sell price. A reseller could sell hundreds of $2 items legitimately but run a scam for high value items selling less frequently and still maintain a fairly good feedback balance.
Re:Sounds Like a Hoax Right Up Until You Read the (Score:5, Interesting)
The violin had a label naming Maurice Bourguignon in it. The interesting thing here is that this doesn't claim that it was actually built by him or even in his workshop. It was used to denote that it was at least built in the image of his style and technique. Think a modern Les Paul replica if you must.
Now I can't imagine you'll get a certified and genuine Maurice Bourguignon at a price tag of $2500. So what we have here is a clueless buyer, corporate insanity and a smashed antiquity with an interesting history. It even was assessed by an expert before the deal.
The buyer comes over like a bit of a brat. The reasoning here is "I don't believe I got an original at less than a 10th of its price. So I will smash the thing because PayPal tells me so." And thus something of value or at least interest was lost.
What really depresses me is that in this discussion people actually argued how you could make a scam based on this work. Rotten, materialistc, greedy, spineless bastards. I don't know how your brain works but I really hope this kind of senseless profiteering idiocy is nowhere near the norm or actually put in practice.
If I felt malicious I'd say never ever send anything old over the Atlantic. But unfortunately this kind of moronic assumptuous Wikipedia fueled ignorance as displayed by the smashing buyer is ubiquitious.