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Ebay/PayPal Problems, Need serious help Please!

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H

HelSab

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Texas

I recently sold an item on Ebay, there were some shipping delays and the recipient claimed to have never recieved the item. He paid for it using PayPal and I just recently found out that PayPal took out the money that the recipient had put in my account back out and back into his account. I checked with UPS and he did recieve the item. Now his Ebay and PayPal accounts are both closed and the only way to contact him is through email which he has yet to repsond to. He lives in MI and Im in TX, is there anything legally I can do? Possibly take him to court or any other way to get back the money I have lost? Keep in mind the item he recieved is a very expensive cell phone which he ended up getting for free by making a "Fraudulent" credit card charge so that PayPal would stop payment and refund him his money.

Thanks for any help! :)
 


F

ForFun

Member
HelSab said:
Theres no way at all to do it from Texas?
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I'm of the opinion that you can sue him in Texas, and then domesticate the judgment in Michigan.

The buyer purposely formed a contract with you in Texas. That's enough for the Texas courts to have personal jurisdicton over the buyer.
 
Y

You Are Guilty

Senior Member
ForFun said:
I'm of the opinion that you can sue him in Texas, and then domesticate the judgment in Michigan.

The buyer purposely formed a contract with you in Texas. That's enough for the Texas courts to have personal jurisdicton over the buyer.
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I know you're a big proponent of this argument, but I don't think you have the case law on your side. I'm not aware of a Texas case on the issue, but most other cases seem to side with the seller. See http://www.nylawyer.com/adgifs/decisions/030607straniere.pdf for a NY judge's take. (The ED of Michigan is the only one who can't seem to get their head on straight - they sided with the seller in Winfield Collection v. McCauley, but then sided with the buyer in Dedvukaj v. Maloney. Go figure).

I guess you can still make a Zippo argument, but its a tough hill to climb.
 
F

ForFun

Member
You Are Guilty said:
I know you're a big proponent of this argument, but I don't think you have the case law on your side. I'm not aware of a Texas case on the issue, but most other cases seem to side with the seller. See http://www.nylawyer.com/adgifs/decisions/030607straniere.pdf for a NY judge's take. (The ED of Michigan is the only one who can't seem to get their head on straight - they sided with the seller in Winfield Collection v. McCauley, but then sided with the buyer in Dedvukaj v. Maloney. Go figure).

I guess you can still make a Zippo argument, but its a tough hill to climb.
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But the OP is the seller. He wants to sue the buyer.

Here's my take in a nutshell: eBay buyers can be sued in the seller's state or the buyer's state. eBay seller can only be sued in the seller's state. Of course, that is just a very general rule of thumb, since the determining factor is not whether a person is a buyer or seller, but whether they had minimum contacts with the forum state.
 
Y

You Are Guilty

Senior Member
I guess we'll just have to wait until Alito gets ripped off when buying some weird fetish porn on E-bay till we get a definitive answer :D
 
F

ForFun

Member
I have to admit that I haven't seen any eBay cases where a seller sues a buyer and personal jurisdiction was an issue.

But if you read eBay cases where the buyer sues the seller, one factor the courts seem to rely on is that the seller had no choice over who would bid.

That factor is not an issue in this case since the buyer does have a choice over who's auctions to bid on.
 
H

HelSab

Junior Member
ForFun said:
I have to admit that I haven't seen any eBay cases where a seller sues a buyer and personal jurisdiction was an issue.

But if you read eBay cases where the buyer sues the seller, one factor the courts seem to rely on is that the seller had no choice over who would bid.

That factor is not an issue in this case since the buyer does have a choice over who's auctions to bid on.
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Thank Yall so much for all your imput :)
 
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