Jerry is once again trying to defend what I believe to be the indefendable when he writes:
"We've been over this ground before, but as I said at the time of the incident referred to, the PayPal policy of a 30 day deadline leaves a buyer no choice but to file a complaint on the 30th day or give up all right to recovery. As to bad-mouthing the seller, I stated that the goods had not been delivered by the 30 day deadline, which was an absolute and undisputed fact. I also stated that the seller claimed to have no responsibility for whether the item was in fact delivered. I disagreed with that. PayPal obviously agreed with me.
I would have preferred to have waited another couple of weeks before filing a PayPal claim, but the PayPal policy made this impossible. I would have waited well beyond the 30 day deadline, and have often done so when I have a positive history with the seller, but this was the only item I had ever purchased from him, so I had no way to know whether to trust him or not. As soon as the goods did arrive after more than six weeks, I immediately returned the recovered funds to the seller via PayPal, telling him I regretted the inconvenience, but didn't know what other course of action I could have taken under the circumstances. He took the funds, but never bothered to respond to my email."
Jerry,
You entered into the sale knowing full well that delivery within 30 days was not guaranteed. A simple visit to the German postal authority's website would have clearly shown this and that the sole way to ensure delivery within this timeframe would be to use airmail or faster service. Even here in the US, if you check on the USPS website, you will see that they state that you should count on 4-10 weeks delivery timing depending on the foreign destination (for Germany it is now stated at 4-6 weeks plus eventual customs clearance timing). In the schools that I went to, 4-10 weeks means 28 to 70 days. You stated at the time that the additional cost of such a higher service level than economy would have made the deal uninteresting from an economic point of view and therefore the shipment had to be made using the economy option. This is solely your fault, as you should have taken this into account when you placed your bid. Any honorable person would have done so.
You then bad-mouthed the seller saying not only that the object was not delivered within a totally unrealistic time frame that was determined by you, but also that he was totally unresponsive and belligerent. If I read what he wrote to you and take into consideration that you were obliging him to communicate in a foreign language, I would have been much more forthcoming in interpreting his words. You stated that he was not willing to work with you or supply the particular shipping receipt that you wanted and that he refused any responsibility for the shipping loss. You specifically brought into question his honor and truthfulness. As somebody who frequently ships packages, on a non-business basis, I can say that I do not always keep these receipts in an immediately retrievable place. To expect everybody to do so is not fair in my opinion. As for Paypal siding with you, I would, like Ray, dispute this statement too. What Paypal did was recognize that the seller had not fulfilled all of the requirements to be protected against action by them. This is far from stating that you were right. In my eyes, and very likely paypal's too, you were both in the wrong. The seller for a fact of omission.
If I had been the seller, I too would not have responded to your subsequent payment because you had already shown yourself to be unreasonable and impossible to deal with on a rational level. To therefore once again communicate with you was almost certainly counterproductive. Such unreasonable demands set out by people like you make international transactions much more difficult for all honorable buyers.
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ
USA