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PayPal hates violins

A woman recently sold an antique French violin for $2500 to a buyer who disputed the violin’s worth/authenticity. What happened next is maddening and asinine.

I sold an old French violin to a buyer in Canada, and the buyer disputed the label.

This is not uncommon. In the violin market, labels often mean little and there is often disagreement over them. Some of the most expensive violins in the world have disputed labels, but they are works of art nonetheless.

Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer DESTROY the violin in order to get his money back. They somehow deemed the violin as “counterfeit” even though there is no such thing in the violin world.

Hey Peter Thiel, instead of whining about the iPhone, Twitter, and internet not being innovative and life-changing enough, why don’t you fix this life-ruining piece of shit company that you crapped into the world? That would definitely be a “net plus”. And DAMMIT, you made me link to TechCrunch! Argh!! (via @ftrain)