Here's something to consider next time you place an order for a magazine subscription on ebay: most sellers say the subscription should start somewhere between 60 and 90 days. This falls outside the time period for ebay and paypal to consider refunding your money. If the seller turns out to be a crook (I've ordered a BUNCH of subscriptions through ebay and have had only a couple of deals "go south") the buyer has no recourse but to chalk it up to experience and take the loss. This is kind of a strange situation....probably one of the few items on ebay that by design usually falls outside of any buyer protection that ebay offers. Scams that I've seen sellers pulling are the shipping cost scam (low auction price, high shipping cost--there should NEVER be a shipping cost for a magazine...they do this to lower their auction cost), the multiple single year subscription ( seller will tell you he had to enter it as 4 one year subscriptions each year starting as the previous one expires...often the sub will expire after a year and not be renewed), sellers that offer "free subscriptions" (offered for free by the publisher) at auction for a couple of bucks, etc. This is an easy category to rip people off with...and the Ebay and Paypal policies give the seller time to make a getaway...but there are some marvelous sellers who run a tight ship and from whom the subscriptions always come through as promised. Check the feedback, look for high volume positive ratings, and if it seems too good to be true....from my experience....it probably is. A money back guarantee is useless if the person won't return emails or phone calls. 2/1/2007 Postscript: Here's something else to consider--if you are able to catch a questionable situation...say the seller loses his status as a member of the ebay community and won't respond to emails or phone calls...and you contact Paypal before the time to file a claim expires, Paypal will do what it can to get your money back. But...if they can't get the money back from the seller's Paypal account you are again up the creek. So all the promises of "buyer protection" when using Paypal hinge on whether they can get the money from the person you filed the claim against. So if a person has taken the money and ran...buyer protection won't protect. Paypal has promised to continue trying to get my money back...and they may still get it back for me...but consider the fragility of the buyer protection plan next time you order something and place any hope in Paypal protecting you.
Orignal From: Magazine Subscriptions--no Ebay protection
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