Following is a post I made at the Aussie Coins, Tokens & Banknotes Forum that I feel is appropriate here as well.
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The hoops and hurdles we put ourselves through to obtain certain issues for our collection.
Much has been said about unsatisfactory auction sites,unscruplous sellers and the postal/delivery service but the biggest rort merchants of them all are the Banks and bill paying financial institutions like Paypal.
It is great that Richard has raised this in the Forum.The purpose is not that we both are having a whinge but to make members aware of the problems you can be faced with from our recent experience.
To put matters in the right perspective, I recently came across a coin that I must have (yes the Brockage)but was faced with the problems of a) seller was located in the US b)Seller will not accept payments through Paypal if the buyer do not have a "confirmed" address c) Seller will not accept payments by credit cards from an International bidder.
Normally, when I read this sort of conditions in a seller's TOS, I hit the back button immediately,but caved in to my overwhelming desire to acquire this coin.
First step taken was a hasty email to the seller requesting a relaxation of his TOS expalining that I am a verified Paypal user but I do not have a "confirmed address" as I am not a resident of the US (Paypal's policy).
No response was received from the seller and I attribute this to the fact that it was the weekend and people do have a life elsewhere.
This auction had a BIN option and I did not want to lose it whilst I was waiting for a response from the seller.
Out of desperation,I contacted Richard to seek his assistance. Richard was magnificent in his response to my plea for help.
From heaps of emails that followed, it was decided that the best course of action was for him to BIN the item in the States.
Next issue was the question of payment. We thought that the best course of action was for me to transfer the funds to Richard's Aussie Bank account.
That was when the real problems started. It took close to 36 hours for funds to be transfered from a Westpac account to another Westpac account.
It will take 3 days for Richard to transfer the funds from his account to his US account with a limit of AUD$500.00 in international bank transfers. As the price for the coin was more than AUD$500.00 two transfers would be required emanating in more delays and more bank fees.
We then decided to abort this system of payment and took a new track by the transfer of the funds in US dollars into Richard's Paypal account.Transfer was immediate but we got slugged USD$ 28.00 by Paypal for using their service and I suppose Paypal deemed the transaction as an auction and just took the money from the funds transferred.
We have both grown a lot wiser from this experience and amrelating it for other members to learn from it.
Overall, given the obstacles we had to overcome and the additional charges I had to fork out, I am extremely pleased with the purchase....to me it is worth every penny.
More important was the manner in which a member of this Forum has responded to the plea of assistance from another member...this is what comradeship is about.
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Posted 06/04/2005 12:16 am
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