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Paypal Orders Buyer of Violin To Destroy It For a Refund
An anonymous reader writes "Erica was once the owner of an old violin that had survived through WWII, and decided to sell it on Ebay for $2500. The person who bought it decided it was a counterfeit and wanted his money back. Paypal decided to honor the request for a refund on the condition that the buyer destroy the violin and provided photographic evidence of the destruction. Couldn't he have just returned it?" Sounds like a hoax to me, but I guess it's possible.
They'd be able to tell from the pixels.
My work here is dung.
It's the world's smallest violin, playing just for... DAMMIT, PAYPAL!
Smashing idea! Simply smashing!
destroy an irreplaceable piece of history
Well, it is quite replaceable, just buy a violin and wait. Voila, an old violin. Personally I don't really see why anything old has an excessive value beyond its use.
Fear is the mind killer.
the bass bar shape has changed, the neck has been lengthened, the fingerboard has been lengthened, the neck has been mortised, the tailpiece, bridge, pegs, have had their shape changed. It doesn't even have original catgut strings! Antonio Stradivari wouldn't recognize this. Burn it, so that others may not have it, either.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Sounds more like a fiddle to me.
PayPal may also require you to destroy the item and to provide evidence of its destruction.
This sounds like a job for Pete Townsend.
Same thing happened here. I bought a "used" iPod Nano off eBay for a good price, which had normal looking pictures of a genuine model taken out of the box. When it came in the mail... it was a different color, quite a bit larger, and when I turned it on a horribly pixelated screen showed the Apple logo and the text "HELLO" below it. Right.
I disputed the payment and got my refund from Paypal, and they asked that I destroy the iPod clone and take pictures. I proceeded to clamp it in my bench vise and saw it in half with a hacksaw, while my girlfriend took pictures of the process. Well, I struck the battery with the hacksaw - smoke and fire ensued. Once it died down and I had aired the smoke out of my basement, I finished sawing the now burnt and discolored iPod clone in half.
I'm pretty sure those pictures are thumbtacked to someone's cubicle wall at Paypal now.
Yet somehow they can identify antique furniture without playing it. It is more than just sound to prove provenance.
Ah, the fools! I always play the sofa and end cushions before making a purchase. Always, I tell you!
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Zombieland, the girls did it with a ring in the gas station.
Two girls, one ring?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
The people in the Chrysler don't need to climb out of the car. The car is perfectly fine, and is ready to drive away with minor cosmetic damage.
It's true, the people that were in the Chrysler have flown out through the windshield, leaving you free to drive their car away.
1. But $100 violin, then claim it's a fake
2. Buy $5 violin, smash it up, send photo to PayPal
3. Profit!
Pfft, 95 bucks profit. That's chicken feed. Here's a better business plan
1. Buy $5 violin. Smash it up
2. Exhibit the debris at an art gallery, under a fancy name like "Postmodern deconstruction 7"
3. Buy drinks to an art critic until he writes an article about "the latest development in modern art" and quotes you as a founder of the new movement
4. Sell the debris for one million bucks
Yes, I just visited the local modern art museum, why do you ask?