Ventriloquist Central - A Tribute To Ventriloquism

When you buy and sell on eBay, one of the greatest sales vehicles ever created, you must take care to protect yourself and one of those ways happens to be by using PayPal. PayPal offers it users a buyer protection. I will get into that in a second but first let me give you a story which opened my eyes very wide concerning eBay & PayPal.
 
I purchased a ventriloquist figure on eBay and I was thrilled to be the one who won the auction. It sold for hundreds of dollars. I used PayPal and paid for the item instantly when the auction ended. My procedure is to do this and never leave the seller waiting for his money. I also feel that this will get the item shipped right away which has proven to be very true. Although in this particular case I did not receive the item for just shy of 2 weeks from the date of purchase.
 
Upon receipt of my figure, which was shipped by way of a UPS shipping store, the figure arrived to me totally destroyed. It was supposed to be carved wood but it was in fact a composition.  I covered this in a previous blog. Here is where YOU have to be very careful. I know first hand. When you have a damaged item you MUST be able to provide to PayPal a tracking number for the item showing that it has been returned to the shipper. Without this information it will be almost impossible for PayPal to give you a refund on your purchase. The problem I ran into was that UPS was called and they came to me with a damage pickup slip and took the damaged item away. The only tracking I had was the initial tracking number for the item to get to me.
 
I waited the 10 days that PayPal requires and then put in a dispute for an item that was both misrepresented in construction and then poorly shipped. I just assumed that there would be no problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. After many emails I finally contacted PayPal by phone and was told by the PayPal representative that they wanted to find in my favor but…..without a tracking number confirming the item had gone back to the shipper they were going to find in the shipper’s favor. I was shocked to say the least and on top of that the shipper insisted that until he received reimbursement from the insurance he took out with UPS he would not refund my money. Insurance is always paid to the shipper and not the recipient. Boy I was losing on both ends.
 
All of a sudden I received from PayPal by email a survey to fill out telling them how I was treated by the PayPal representative and was there a resolution. Well this was great. I put into writing my total frustration and how I felt I had been done wrong by PayPal. This was the best thing I could have done because this red flagged a supervisor from PayPal who then called me on phone.
 
At this point I want to tell you that Michelle, the supervisor, listened to my entire story and she took over my case and told me she would see what she could do for me. It took a while but she was instrumental in causing the higher ups in PayPal to see exactly what happened to me and they did in fact finally find in my favor and I am receiving my money back.
 
Michelle also taught me something that I want to teach all of you about PayPal and the protection that they offer. I was under the assumption that you were automatically protected for $2000.00 but that is not the case. If the person who is selling has less than 50 for a feedback your protection is only up to $200.00 Michelle showed me that when you look at an item you are interested in, the block on the right hand side of the eBay add that shows his feedback score has a PayPal logo protection amount on the bottom of this block of information. Just remember if it says $200.00 and you pay more than that for the item you will not have protection for the amount over the $200.00. This is now a most important feature and from now own I will always look at this. If the seller’s feedback is all purchases and not many sales it will only give you the $200.00 protection. A seller must prove to PayPal that he is a true seller before the protection jumps to $2000.00
 
I wanted to give Michelle, from PayPal, accolades for the time she spent working on my case and getting me my refund and I guess my blog is the only way I could publicly accomplish this. I will call her and make sure she knows I have done this. My case had some very unusual circumstances and Michelle even said it was one of the most unusual cases she had ever worked so it was not the norm. Just remember if you have to return an item you must be able to supply PayPal a tracking number and also make sure you will be covered for your money!! 

THANK YOU MICHELLE

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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All writings here are copyrighted by Dan Willinger and Ventriloquist Central. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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It is Saturday Jan 5th and I can sit back and take a break from a few days of non stop work with my regular business. For those of you who do not know, I am a constable and work for the court system here in Massachusetts. I serve all of the papers issued out of the civil side of the court and also do Capias arrest work which are civil arrest warrants. I have been doing this for just 30years now and the holiday season is a forced vacation time for me so from the 15th of December until Jan 1 I have very little work. Jan 2 sent me into a whirlwind with a backlog of almost 3 weeks of work which I had to get done in just 3 days. Needless to say I am happy it is Saturday and I can rest. Monday will be a full day again.

I have not had a chance to really do too much on the site over the holidays and my webmaster Steve was also away visiting his wife’s family so we would like to both apologize for not responding to emails and the tardiness of getting things posted. 

But rest assure we are back and getting into the swing and there is much more information we will be sharing with all of you.
 
Please if you have a subject you would like me to cover or a question you need answered drop me an email and I will do my best to help you. We need YOUR input to continue to make this one of the best sites for ventriloquism on the web.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com
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All writings here are copyrighted by Dan Willinger and Ventriloquist Central. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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I know that winter has been very mean across the entire country but with this great means of communication we can show everyone instantly what it is like so here you are with the pictures of an additional 12″ of new snow that has fallen since 3AM this morning. We shoveled out but it is now going to change to rain and then super freeze to give a nice crusty topping.
 
Enjoy the pictures!! 

  
Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com
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All writings here are copyrighted by Dan Willinger and Ventriloquist Central. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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Unfortunately up here in the northeast winter can be severe and this year is no exception. Just a week ago we had 5 inches of very wet heavy snow and the temps have been in the 20’s and low 30’s for the better part of a full week. This morning I awoke to a nice sheet of pure ice. The steps and walkways looked ok but as soon as you put your foot down it was like an ice skating rink. I was smart this season and purchased a 100 pound drum of ice melt so that I can get rid of the ice.
 
For the first time I covered my car with a plastic tarpaulin and all I had to do was take it off this morning and my car was ice free. It was not easy to get off because of the weight of the ice but it did make the car easier to use instead of the scraping of the windows.
 
I am very tired of these New England winters and I do hope that in the not to distant future I will be able to make a move to Las Vegas. My wife and I vacation there a couple times a year and we just love the dry heat. We also like it there in the dead of summer. Temps reach upwards of 117 degrees but like being in zero degrees you don’t go out. I just love the idea of never having to shovel again or salt my walkway. No falling down on black ice and no exorbitant heating bills.

However, the dummies are nice, cozy, and warm in their rooms, plus they never complain about the heat or cold.

Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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All writings here are copyrighted by Dan Willinger and Ventriloquist Central. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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To all my Jewish friends out there I wanted to say Happy Hanukah !! It is very early this year and I didn’t want to forget to pass on my most sincere wishes to you for a joyous holiday. The holiday lasts for eight days and so I hope that on one of those days, usually the last , you get a wonderful ventriloquist figure as your big present. I know that is what I am wishing for for my present. You never can have enough figures. Maybe I will get 8 of them. OOPS that won’t happen the first night was last night and no figure. Oh well …..Again Happy Hanukah
 
Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com

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All writings here are copyrighted by Dan Willinger and Ventriloquist Central. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!