Warning to people who buy on Reverb.com

hyperben

Hi all

I am currently having a rather worrying experience with trying to organise a return from a Reverb.com purchase. The return I'm trying to do is for a CS Fender Strat which was very poorly described and is a potential fake (as I discovered when I tried to sell it on in the classifieds). I'm using the Paypal dispute process to get my refund - but there are some "irregularities" which make it far from straight forward.

It seems when you pay on Reverb.com using Paypal, you don't actually pay the seller directly. Instead you pay Reverb and then they pay the seller on your behalf. Under normal circumstances this should be ok, except when you have a return/dispute. Paypal will only cover you for disputes between you and the seller on your Paypal transaction - but the seller on the Paypal transaction is Reverb themselves - not the actual seller of the item. On the face of it this may not seem a big deal. The problem comes when you need to return the item. You must return it to the registered address on the seller's Paypal account and be able to provide tracked delivery to that address to be covered by Paypal. If you return it to a different address (i.e. the private seller's actual address) you are simply no longer covered by Paypal at all! And it makes no difference whether the seller approves your return, or if Paypal resolves it for you, the item MUST go to the registered Paypal postal address to be covered by Paypal - otherwise you will lose your Paypal protection and may not get your money back.

Personally I find this shocking. I pay for things on Reverb using Paypal because I know I have an extra layer of security with Paypal. Nowhere on the Reverb site does it say that they are used as a third party go between. This is completely different from how it works on eBay, where you do pay the seller directly and so the contract is between you and them with no third party involvement.

This situation is ongoing for me. Paypal are now stepping in to resolve the dispute between me and the seller (Reverb - not the actual private seller). As it stands I will be sending the guitar back to Reverb in Amsterdam to get my money back as that is the registered seller's address, and so I can't send it anywhere else unless I get something in writing from Reverb. And I have to foot the bill for the return too. Cost of sending a guitar to Holland? Quite a lot more than sending it within the UK.

The whole thing is a complete mess. From this experience I would seriously warn against using Reverb for the purchase of any gear of significant value.

not_the_dj

That’s really worrying. 

Isn’t there a reverb chap on here?

danishbacon

@iain.reverb ;

MikeS

I had a similar kind of thing a while back. The seller wanted me to send the guitar back to an address outwith the usual paypal address. After speaking to Reverb about this, it transpires as long as you have a message from the seller asking you to send it to a particular address within your Reverb messages, they stated that they would honour a refund once guitar had arrived at that address.

It seemed a bit hit and miss, the whole Reverb return process to be honest, and I even said to the Reverb customer service guy in chat that in future if I had a return that I would open it directly within my paypal account instead of through Reverb.

I think you'll be ok though, so don't stress.

I think what it comes down to is we're so used to the ebay/paypal return/refund thing working so well now, that we take it all for granted, and when a new platform with differing procedures pops up, It catches us on the hop.

MikeS

Further to add, I'm sure most of us are savvy when it comes to online Guitar purchases, and the payment/refund process if things go wrong. But for those who are not, may I suggest getting yourself acquainted with the whole process and staying on the ball.

The reason I say that is over the last 4 months I've encountered more chancers/fakers online than all the last decades put together. Either out and out fakes, or partscasters, or hidden repairs etc.

Maybe I'm buying too much, or maybe taking more chances than I normally would for that elusive bargain, or maybe more of the bad'uns out there are willing to take more of a chance passing off their tat.

Whichever it is, stay sharp.

coffeehouse

@hyperben , from what you say it sounds like the dispute / return should be raised within the Reverb system rather than paypal?

Has the seller been in contact? A poorly described item is one thing, but a deliberate forgery steps over the line and is illegal under the 1994 TM Act... I've no idea if the police even bother to enforce this these days... but if things get sticky you could threaten to report him if a refund isn't forthcoming? He may not want to take the risk...

What an absolute nightmare! Hope you get it resolved

JD

TeleMaster

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like I’ll stick with eBay and keep doing what I do now; wait for the £1 final value fee offers and stick it up for 30 days. I’m paying 3.5% + £1. No need to go elsewhere and potentially get myself into a pickle. 

GoldenEraGuitars

I’ve never bought or sold a thing on reverb although I have an account and I have listed one or two things. I’ve never used it as a revenue stream and I’ll continue to avoid it.

I hope you get this sorted @hyperben . Just keep at it and don’t stress. Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

hyperben

The problem is even if you have a dispute resolved through Reverb, the moment you return it to any address other than the registered PayPal address you lose your PayPal protection - even if you haven’t opened a PayPal dispute yet. I trust PayPal more than I trust reverb so I’m not going to do any returns unless through PayPal.

mgaw

@hyperben   I had a chaotic experience with reverb couple of times, they got there in the end but it aint as slick as we are used to with other sites...hope it pans out okay

wesker123

Blimey that's put me off Reverb. Good luck.

Octafish

I've never bought anything of Reverb because every time I look for stuff on there (mainly pedals) it either comes back with stuff in the US (even when I tick UK only) and/or second hand stuff that's overpriced.

New from £120.00

New from £113.00

New from £319.00

Fortheloveofguitar

These Reverb issues are now becoming a regular thing on here. 

So many people having major issues with the way they go about business be it returns, refunds as a buyer or receiving your sellers money 

Winny_Pooh

TeleMaster said:

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like I’ll stick with eBay and keep doing what I do now; wait for the £1 final value fee offers and stick it up for 30 days. I’m paying 3.5% + £1. No need to go elsewhere and potentially get myself into a pickle. 

FYI the £1 final fee listings are only within the first few days. For any period thereafter (even if you list for 30 days) normal fees apply.

JezWynd

Winny_Pooh said:

TeleMaster said:

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like I’ll stick with eBay and keep doing what I do now; wait for the £1 final value fee offers and stick it up for 30 days. I’m paying 3.5% + £1. No need to go elsewhere and potentially get myself into a pickle. 

FYI the £1 final fee listings are only within the first few days. For any period thereafter (even if you list for 30 days) normal fees apply.

I've never found. that to be the case. Once they send you an offer for £1 selling, provided you list it within the offer period (usually 2 - 4 days), if that item sells within 30 days then you are only charged £1 selling fee by eBay. Has it changed recently?

heavyrocker

hyperben said:

The problem is even if you have a dispute resolved through Reverb, the moment you return it to any address other than the registered PayPal address you lose your PayPal protection - even if you haven’t opened a PayPal dispute yet. I trust PayPal more than I trust reverb so I’m not going to do any returns unless through PayPal.

When you paid did you choose Reverb Payment or PayPal? It’s confusing but if you chose Reverb Payment then even if you paid with PayPal the Reverb buyer protection overrides PayPal’s protection from what I understand.

fandango

For the record, I've sold a number of things on Reverb without any problem. I wont touch Fleabay to sell. Too many chancers and bad eggs, who are now sullying the waters of Reverb. Sigh.

I’ll leave you with two thoughts: caveat emptor and buyer’s remorse. More of the former, and less of the latter, please.

BloodEagle

Winny_Pooh said:

TeleMaster said:

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like I’ll stick with eBay and keep doing what I do now; wait for the £1 final value fee offers and stick it up for 30 days. I’m paying 3.5% + £1. No need to go elsewhere and potentially get myself into a pickle. 

FYI the £1 final fee listings are only within the first few days. For any period thereafter (even if you list for 30 days) normal fees apply.

That’s incorrect, the £1 fee applies for the whole 30 day (or however long) listing period 

hyperben

heavyrocker said:

hyperben said:

The problem is even if you have a dispute resolved through Reverb, the moment you return it to any address other than the registered PayPal address you lose your PayPal protection - even if you haven’t opened a PayPal dispute yet. I trust PayPal more than I trust reverb so I’m not going to do any returns unless through PayPal.

When you paid did you choose Reverb Payment or PayPal? It’s confusing but if you chose Reverb Payment then even if you paid with PayPal the Reverb buyer protection overrides PayPal’s protection from what I understand.

I chose PayPal - and that is why I’m annoyed. I only bought this because I could pay directly with PayPal and thought I would get the same level of protection you normally do through PayPal. Reverb have now contacted me and asked me to close my PayPal claim as it’s a claim against them and not the seller. I spoke to PayPal customer services and they said definitely do not close the claim as I’ll lose my buyer protection. PayPal did say I could return it to a different address provided it is documented through the PayPal resolution centre, so I’ve asked Reverb to do that.

Bottom line - if you pay with PayPal on Reverb you do NOT have normal PayPal buyer protection directly with the seller.

DrCornelius

It’s a shame as I’m sure the vast majority of us want Reverb to succeed. I really like their online content , it’s one of the few guitar related bulk emails that I get that I actually click on. I don’t like EBay because of the dick ratio so I hope Reverb are quietly taking on board these frustrations and planning a few changes. Hopefully Ian isn’t staying away from here because of the criticism and is instead taking it on board as they add so much value as a platform compared with EBay.

heavyrocker

hyperben said:

heavyrocker said:

hyperben said:

The problem is even if you have a dispute resolved through Reverb, the moment you return it to any address other than the registered PayPal address you lose your PayPal protection - even if you haven’t opened a PayPal dispute yet. I trust PayPal more than I trust reverb so I’m not going to do any returns unless through PayPal.

When you paid did you choose Reverb Payment or PayPal? It’s confusing but if you chose Reverb Payment then even if you paid with PayPal the Reverb buyer protection overrides PayPal’s protection from what I understand.

I chose PayPal - and that is why I’m annoyed. I only bought this because I could pay directly with PayPal and thought I would get the same level of protection you normally do through PayPal. Reverb have now contacted me and asked me to close my PayPal claim as it’s a claim against them and not the seller. I spoke to PayPal customer services and they said definitely do not close the claim as I’ll lose my buyer protection. PayPal did say I could return it to a different address provided it is documented through the PayPal resolution centre, so I’ve asked Reverb to do that.

Bottom line - if you pay with PayPal on Reverb you do NOT have normal PayPal buyer protection directly with the seller.

Wow that is shitty then. They allowed a guitar that’s probably fake to be listed on their site and now they’re making it difficult for you to return it? Unbelievably bad service.