Paypal claims - how do I ever win

B

blinchik

Member
Oct 13, 2007
109
0
#1
So, I've had some bad experiences on ebay as both buyer and seller... I've been scammed by a seller who 'is no longer a registered user' - I sent a payment for the keyboard and never received it. My claim was decided 'in my favor, however, Paypal was unable to retrieve the funds'. So, what kind of Paypal protection is that if they simply close claims if the user has no funds in their account?
So, recently I had a Canadian buyer for an expensive Salvage sweatshirt. The guy begged me to send the item First Class, so he can save money on shipping. I was an idiot and agreed. Sending something with tracking to Canada costs at least $17, so obviously I didnt have tracking. As he confirmed there is no tracking, he filed a Paypal claim 40 days later stating he never received the item. By that time he was kicked off ebay (no wonder) and was obviously trying to get some cash from sellers. As I have no tracking, I must pay up - or so I've been told.
So, how come when I try to collect money for the items I didn't receive, I get nothing, yet Paypal forces me to pay off my claims. What will happen if I don't pay?
 
#2
Scary esp. since I just sent two very expensive bags to Canada via Express Mail but w/o any insurance since he did not want to pay for customs. At least his paypal address was confirmed, but the scam artists are getting too good to keep up with! As a seller Paypal ruled against me once because the buyer said the item was "not as described" which was a total fraud and a lie. He did a paypal claim (chargeback?) and my paypal account was frozen until they settled, unfortunately in his favor. At least he returned the item to me. The very day I received it back, I sent out a 2nd chance offer to the next highest bidder (of course the high-bidding clown had outbid 20+ others in the auction!) who was thrilled to get the item and left perfect me FB.
I just don't know, it seems to be "win some, lose some" with Paypal. Maybe someone else can give you better advice. Good luck..:yahoo:
 
#3
What a bummer that you've had two negative experiences disputing PayPal. I've only had to dispute something once (non-receipt of an auction item) and it was pretty straightforward. As for your question about what will happen if you don't pay, I'm guessing they can either access the funds from your account (regardless of whether you consent) or kick you off PayPal, but I'm not sure...
 
#4
blinchik said:
I sent a payment for the keyboard and never received it. My claim was decided 'in my favor, however, Paypal was unable to retrieve the funds'. So, what kind of Paypal protection is that if they simply close claims if the user has no funds in their account?
Click to expand...

If you didn't get satisfactory resolution from paypal, if you paid with a credit card, you can do a chargeback. If you paid for the item with existing funds in your paypal account, I don't believe you have any recourse.
 
#5
The problem is you aren't following Paypal's policies - sellers are always responsible for getting the item to the buyer so if you don't quote tracking and insurance as part of your shipping costs you will have to pay it yourself. There is post after post on this board about this, it doesn't matter what you put in your auction listing or what the buyer says they will take responsibility for - they will always win a dispute where the seller can't show online proof of delivery. As a buyer you should use a credit card to pay through Paypal so that you can do a chargeback for what Paypal won't refund you, I hear Amex has the best policies in this regard.
 
#6
^ What if the seller does get both delivery/signature confirmation and insurance, but sends to an address unconfirmed with Paypal? I heard that even if you have proof that the item was delivered and you had insurance on it, the buyer can still do a (fraudulent) chargeback on you, and Paypal will do absolutely nothing to help if their address is unconfirmed. That seems a bit unfair..for both the seller and for the buyers who live in areas where they can't get their address confirmed (so sellers refuse to sell to them)
 
#7
Paypal makes up the rules to protect themselves. They are trying to keep the amount of refunds down by only giving them out in cases where absolutely everything was done by the book and where there was a minimal chance of a problem. Confirming addresses is another way they have to know that you sent it to a real address. I'm not sure why they don't confirm addresses in countries other than the UK, US and Canada. I assume it is something to do with privacy laws in the other countries. Or that they just don't get enough business to make it worth their while to do the work.
At the end of the day I don't see what Paypal could do anyway when a buyer wins a fraudulent c/card chargeback on an item that the PO is claiming is delivered, because the issue is between the credit card company and the PO. One party claims it is sent (the one who has to pay out the insurance claim), the other claims it isn't (the one who is giving the money back). I can't imagine that there are many credit card companies who would do that anyway if you really had the full proof of signature on delivery etc.
 
#8
^ yeah, I can see that. It seems like a CC company should'nt be able to put a chargeback through if the buyer is claiming she never rec'd the item, if there is proof of delivery/signature confirmation.

however, there are many cases i've heard where the buyer just claims that the bag rec'd was a fake (and it isn't)...then in that case it just seems like the seller is screwed, and Paypal won't do much. I've heard a lot of horror stories in these threads of sellers getting chargebacks from scam buyers.
 
#9
It's hard, because on the one hand people want their credit card companies to refund them when they get sold a fake, but don't want their buyers to be able to file fake chargebacks so easily when they are the ones selling. The rule has to be the same for everyone, but that means hurting the genuine claimers to avoid the scammers.
 
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