Persistent issues with Zenmarket, help

General
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Hey collectors, sorry to bother you once more with a problem but I’m slowly at my wit’s end, and with how things have been going, I have a really, really bad first impression of Zenmarket and I’m hoping for some advice from people who have been using the site more frequently.

For starters, Zenmarket is a Japanese middleman service you can use to buy stuff from Japanese websites like Yahoo Japan auctions. You transfer money to your Zenmarket account in advance and can then browse websites and buy stuff up to the amount of yen you have deposited. I had a problem a few days ago where after registering, they requested an ID confirmation and I provided a copy of my personal ID. The problem was that after providing the ID, you are blocked from bidding for 24 hours until they have confirmed your identity. Note that you are not blocked from bidding prior to submitting your personal ID. Makes no sense and the website never warned me of this, so I missed out on an important auction because of it. But this is not the reason I’m writing today, this is just an information for those who are planning to use zenmarket in the future and don’t want to make the same mistake.
Today’s problem is the following: I have won another auction and had deposited the needed money in my zenmarket fund in advance (as it is required), using paypal. Zenmarket offers multiple ways to transfer money to them, like credit card, alipay, and paypal. So yesterday, I received a message from Zenmarket that they have not yet finalized the deal because the seller didn’t provide a method of contact if problems arise in the future, and because the item was quite expensive so they don’t want to take risks. So far so good. But now they request me to transfer the same amount of money the item had cost once more, by using another method than paypal. If done so, they would refund me the money I had previously transferred using paypal. According to them, this must be done to make sure that I “take 100% responsibility for the purchase”. There are multiple questions here:

  1. Why does it matter how I transferred money to my Zenmarket account innitially? After winning the auction, my money was immediately subtracted from my zenmarket fund, so I assume it’s already considered “gone” and ready for transfer to the seller. The only reason I can think of why zenmarket is doing this, is that they fear some sort of chargeback from me in case the item gets lost. However, other money transfer services have a chargeback option as well, and you can even chargeback credit card transactions. Furthermore, it is questionable if a chargeback would be successful here in the first place, as the initial transfer of transferring money from paypal to my zenmarket account was successful. It’s not like ebay where you directly pay the seller. And to top it off, zenmarket explicitly states in their TOS that there will be no refunds for completed sales, so the risk is 100% on the buyer by default. So none of this makes sense to me, unless I’m missing something or there is a much more shady reason for their behavior.
  2. If Paypal is such a nuisance for them, why do they offer it as method of transferring money in the first place? Just to piss people off? Because I can imagine a majority of people using Paypal over things like alipay or wire.
  3. Have you faced similar issues with zenmarket? They have told me that if I can’t transfer the same amount of money I used to win the auction again (using something else than paypal), they might be forced to cancel my bidding win due to security reasons. I don’t know what to do. I really want this item, but the entire thing smells fishy as hell, and this amount of money that’s at stake is not peanuts to me. This is about thousands of Euros I had to work months for to be able to spend like this. What would you do in my situation? Play their game or cancel?
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Hm, that is very strange. I assume it got flagged because it´s your first purchase and already for a high amount.
I´ve exclusively used PayPal to deposit and never had a problem that way (but I have not done any 5 figure purchases via them)

I assume they would rather like you to use transferwise or crypto as it´s irreversible. Not sure what would happen if you deposit via cc or other reversible methods. From what you wrote they are concerned that the actual seller is trying to scam and since they have no real contact information are cautious about shenanigans with the transaction. You should keep in mind that if the seller scams and they have no contact information from them it will be hard(or impossible…) to get the money back if they can´t contact him.

I´d probably play their game if it´s for an item I really need from a reputable seller, as I wouldn´t be feared that zenmarket would scam me, but still very strange.

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I have been using Zenmarket to buy on Yahoo Japan and Mandarake for a while now, had multiple 4-5 digits purchases. I’ll give you my two cents since I’m also going thru a problem with Zenmarket.

I would like to preface by saying that up until this point I have not had a single issue. Zenmarket followed thru on every purchases I made and worked with me to get some items on Mandarake auctions too, the perks of going thru the former proxy service is that they’ll let you declare whatever value on package. Altho I’ve started off smaller items I have always exclusively used Paypal, they did ask me for additional verification such as ID and proof of adress for higher end stuff but that’s about it.

Overall, they do work extremely well and the service they provide is flawless when everything goes right, until it doesn’t. I have always been extremely selective on the sellers especially on higher end items. Checking every feedback and often went out of my way asking questions/off site contact to verify they’re legit.

I’ve been pleasently surprised with how well it has been going so far with both Zenmarket and japanese sellers in general, however a little over two months ago I bid on an auction for an item from a 500+ feeds 100% positive seller that quickly went south. I set a max bid of 408k yen, the auction was quickly shilled far above my price and shortly after it ended the higher bids were canceled and a bid of 407k came in. Needless to say I was left paying my maximum, the same happened to a few other high end items the guy had running at the same time, prices skyrocket to set back right before the end.

Not a big deal I thought, in the end all I wanted was the card and I was fine with the price. Zenmarket followed thru on the payment. Two days later it was confirmed and an estimated date of arrival at their warehouse was updated, as usual. The seller’s account however was nowhere to be found anymore, he was suspended from Yahoo and couldn’t be tracked from Zenmarket either, gone with all his feedbacks and everything. Needless to say the card never made it to Zenmarket’s warehouse, it’s been two months and communication has been on and off, they said they’re working directly with Yahoo to try to get the money back but haven’t been able to confirm to me that they’re capable of doing that. Basically they don’t know if they’ll be able to and I’ve been left in that limbo.

I am in this weird spot now where I have this roughly 4k stuck god knows where, paid with Paypal. I can open a claim to try to get it back, however I am certainly going to be banned from Zenmarket which would suck. I am fine with all the risks involved in buying from Yahoo when it comes to quality of the cards, terrible pics, the international uninsured shipping. I make these choices and factor these risks in the price I pay. I am not sure I am fine taking a loss where I have no fault whatsoever and no decision was made on my end, the seller just ran with the money and Zenmarket never even got the item to begin with.

At the same time, I am not even sure a claim will get me my money back so I also run the risk of being banned and still losing the money, has anybody else had any experience in a similar scenario?

If a claim doesn’t work there’s basically no reason to use Paypal over a banktransfer or other methods because the fees and currency conversion rates are atrocious.

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Thanks for your answers!

@evaner, sounds like a nightmare scenario. I’m now hesitant to see the deal through (although I don’t know if zenmarket canceling the deal would even work as I legitimately won the auction already and I don’t want to be one of “those guys”). The seller has mostly positive feedback, but not that many (92 feedback). I find it particularly risky to buy something from Yahoo auctions when services like Zenmarket abdicate any responsibility by saying that there is no way to get your money back, even if the seller turns out to be a scammer. And I really dislike buyee’s numerous restrictions on bidding. The only one left is noppin, I hope they combine the best of both worlds.

@shadowless, yeah, it’s a tough choice. The seller doesn’t have that much feedback, but what he does have is mostly positive. I’d ask him for contact details myself but I don’t know how to contact him personally. Would you consider not giving contact details a red flag? Not sure if they is trying to pull shenanigans or just doesn’t know zenmarket and doubts their credibility

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Imagine paying over $10,000 for an item, and the company is like “no again”. Perfect example of how ridiculously cumbersome it is buying from Japan. I went through the same thing on a $22,000 item. Luckily I’ve done business with the seller for a long time and didn’t have to send another payment.

Honestly zen market is amateur hour. They put their inefficiencies on the customer. Buyee is much better, but of course caps at a certain price. Sorry this is happening to you. I’d just emphasize to them you already paid and their request to pay a second time is completely ridiculous. Hopefully they capitulate as this scenario is Instagram raffler tier.

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@smpratte, thanks for the kind words. I hope everything works out fine, and I am dedicated to seeing this through. But if the whole thing backfires even more, it will probably be the last time I’ve used zenmarket.

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I’d highly recommend buyee, you can pay in real-time as you win auctions using PayPal and also in your native currency instead of converting your payments to yen. Yes there is a 900,000 yen cap for items, but there are direct individuals you can work with in the area to buy larger ticket items outside of buyee.
Nothing about zen market is easy on the customer, including having to upload funds ahead of purchasing… :face_with_spiral_eyes:

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Can you please elaborate? How would one get in touch with said individuals?