GL payment with paypal

[paulfarber]

I thought the OP had a paypal labeled CC, not simply using a paypal account.

The long story of treachery and deceit is interesting.... whats the other side of the story?

 

[AMX]

The paypal account is linked to my checking acct. as first to pay with a credit card as backup (2nd to pay). There is no indication that gl attempted to charge my account.

 

[AMX]

Thankfully they did take payment from my checking account today. Now I hope there isnt a bunch of transactions happening in AZ. with my card!

 

[Fredo Corleone]

I have done 4 auctions with paypal, with no problems.

 

[tcody]

Buy from GSA if possible, from my experience they are decent to their customers. I would not use paypal. They are an ebay company and their customer service is poor and limits your recourse if there is a problem with the transaction. If they want to they will dip into your bank account. Direct CC payment is the safest, if something happens they are more likely to stand behind the cardholder.

 

[pmramsey]

It is a simple gig for GL. Fail a small fraction of payments each week, collect the 25% penalty, and who is the wiser. When they did it to me, I lost a sale of $1500, missed final bidding on a current auction, and were held hostage over a previously paid large sale of two trucks because I did not have access to the web site to download my paid invoice and pickup my already paid for trucks. I could have lost the trucks if I did not pick them up and yet another 25% would be applied only this time it would have been to the tune of $3000 plus.

I wired the penalty money to open the web site back up to me. I spoke directly with a supervisor at AMEX and provided the threatening GL emails. No attempt had ever been made to charge my AMEX account for the sale. I had over 70 previously paid auctions at GL with AMEX.

The AMEX supervisor gave me his name, employee id number, and direct phone number and directed me to provide it to GL. STILL, not joy from GL. AMEX gave me the name of the GL customer service director and I wrote a personal, snail mail letter to the GL guy. STILL no joy from AMEX.

AMEX then had someone from the AMEX merchant approval dept contact GL and explained to GL that their policy violated the terms of the GL/AMEX merchant.

I had a refund from GL for my penalty payment returned to me within two days VIA FEDX. GL admitted nothing. However, my EUCs now clear in 7-10 days and my form 97s take no time at all since all this happened last summer.

 

[tcody]

SS should take over the contract and of course make members preferred customers! I could see it now - buy one trailer get one free, free SS towbar with every truck purchase, SS cash back, SS rewards cards, SS visa, low financing rates to SS members - wow this could be cool! Oh and the most important one - the "no forklift used" guarantee!

 

[Taurus454]

I spoke with Contract Officer/KO about the problems some of us are having. The information about GL is not very promising.

The way the contract is set-up is pretty sad. All of the surplus equipment the GL sells is given to them by title. The government simply takes a percentage of the sale.

According to the KO, there is nothing the government can do contractually regarding how GL conducts business as they are technically selling their property since they are given title to it.

I explained the problem people are having with how GL is handling PayPal sales, again, there is nothing that can be done by the government as that is considered to be a GL business issue. The KO suggested if there is a problem, GL customer service be contacted. Yeah, I know, that will really help

Also, the reason the SF-97's take so long is that the titles are given to GL. To transfer the property, GL needs to fill-out paperwork, mail it to Battle Creek. The Battle Creek folks then review, sign it, and mail it back. Needless to say, any mistakes on the paperwork result in mailings between GL in Arizona and Battle Creek until a signed document is generated.

The KO's name is Becky Bellinger. She is out of Battle Creek and works for the Defense Logistic Agency. Her number is (269) 961-7079. If you call, please be polite and do not curse as it will only hurt us in the long run. Best thing to do is be polite, state the problem, and accept what is said.

When the contract is up for renewal, the folks at Battle Creek may take the complaints into consideration when makiing the award. This statement is not to be interpreted in any way as being representative of the contractual process. It is merely my opinion.

In my opinion, the only recourse at this time would be to contact your Congress Critter and let them know how you feel about the way GL, A GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR, is treating law-abiding constituents in the disposal of surplus government property. If there are enough Congressional inquiries into the practices of GL, it is conceivable that GL could lose its contract. If you do contact your Congress Critter, please be sure to offer your opinion on how a problem could be potentially solved. It is one thing to merely complain about a problem, it is always better and helpful when you offer a solution to a problem.

Hope this helps!

Tom

 

[SouthwestUSA]

I thought I had my GL account to automatically be paid from my PayPal account but I've been through the ringer with Government Liquidations in getting this matter resolved. My CPA wife had to rush over to our bank and to a wire-transfer, which was a pain since she has a busy schedule.

If a CPA thinks Government Liquidations is "screwy" in their manner of being paid, I'd say all the gripes in this thread have a lot of validity.

Last night I won several bids on trailers. I hoped the mess had been straightened out with taking funds from my PayPal account (I had 5 times the amount of what my items/invoice would be) and I saw no activity suggesting any attempt by GL to "extract" their invoice total. Then, at 12.55 a.m. I tried to actually send the invoice amount to Government Liquidations using "send money" from my PayPal account. I got this message when I tried to pay them, "The recipient is unable to receive money." I've previously paid for two auctions in October and November with PayPal, but now, it is a total pain.

I'd like to add a photo/screen shot of "The recipient is unable to receive money" to this thread, but I don't have this image on the computer I'm using at the moment.

Using Ebay, Auction Arms, and all the other online auction services is a breeze in regard to paying for items, but GL is convoluted.

(EDIT 12-3-2011... I finally received a paid invoice for my last items. I think our expectations (or at least mine) is that Government Liquidations should rival Ebay, GunBroker, Auction Arms and Amazon in that the customer knows nearly immediately if they won an auction... have proof of their payment ASAP. I suppose the bean-counters at Government Liquidations are still working with hand-crank adding machines and it takes them a while to generate an invoice, unlike Ebay's immediate "CONGRATULATIONS, YOU WON THIS AUCTION" and the "PAID" feedback you get when using PayPal for payment with Ebay and other auction houses. They probably have computers do the accounting for them while Government Liquidations has some guy in a time-warp going back to the 1950s cranking out invoices on an IBM adding machine made during the Eisenhower administration... )
Army Volunteer, 1970-1973, Vietnam Volunteer 1971, 1972
B.A. Degree (thanks to the G.I. Bill) 1980
Officer Candidate School, Newport, Rhode Island 1981
Old fart on a farm, E.I.E.I. Oh! 2011

 

[Taurus454]

The problem is really in the contract given to GL as part of a multi-billion dollar profit making scheme for GL! Under the contract, GL is "given" the property to sell by the US Government and after the sale is complete, the US Government receives a small percentage of the sale. As the property technically belongs to GL, GL can legally engage in questionable sales practices as the government is willing to look the other way in order to make money on its surplus equipment. Such questionable sales practice includes the charge of fees for failing to pay IAW with GL's timeline despite any failure or neglect on GL's part.

It is furthermore highly uinlikely to see any change in the contract anytime soon. Despite contract regulations regarding over familiarization, government personnel are extremely hesitant to change contractors once they are in place because they become accustomed to the process they have set up to oversee the contract regardless of the quality of service simply because they do not want to try anything new.

Just my two cents after speaking with the GL Contracting Officer (KO's) and having worked with KO's for nearly 20 years as a federal employee!

 

[Ripcord01]

I prefer to use the Payal option. HOWEVER on my last purchase GL did the same to me. I almost lost three trailers. They never removed the money from paypal but were more than happy to use the CC on file. Go figure. They get a kickback bonus for the amount of CC's processed. Joke.

 

[73m819]

Everybody bitches about GL but still bid, so guess the crap is not that bad, the bottom line is if you don't like the crap, don't do business with GL, this is like opcorn:

 

[jaxsof]

Everybody bitches about GL but still bid, so guess the crap is not that bad, the bottom line is if you don't like the crap, don't do business with GL, this is like opcorn:

Even if we dont bid, the scrappers still will. GL will still sell stuff that get for free, Stuff WE paid for, BTW.

And we thought Levy-Latham were corupt!

 

[PROSTOCKTOM]

I bought my first purchase from Gl a few weeks ago and paid via PayPal.

They took the money right out of my PayPal account just like I was using it on eBay.

Not one problem from purchase to EUC being sent to Battle Creek.

Tom