posted on December 6, 2002 08:27:18 AM new
I like to share my story about a problem I’m still facing with PayPal:
September of 2001, I was paypal’ing money to purchase a Michael Jordan basketball card. If you know anything about trading cards, this particular trading card is a very high end item. At that time, the card was selling for around $11k-$13k. But, there was this person selling the card for a bargain because he needed the money really bad so he was selling it to me for $8k. Over the next month, I was sending him partial payments for the card through paypal. During these payments, I did question him if I was being scammed but he assured me by saying that everything is documented through paypal and that the money is insured through paypal if I did get scammed. During the time that I was sending him money, he would mention about betting on sports. That’s when slowly I found out that he was using my money on sports betting and he didn’t have the card, I was scammed!
I contacted paypal in November of 2001 to have all the transactions reversed because I’ve been scammed. I emailed them and also phoned them many times but there was little help. Actually at one point, they did reverse the transactions, but for some reason they re-reversed it and this is where is gets all screwed up, paypal reverses the “buyer” and “seller” roles on me. What do I mean by reversing the roles? Please read a portion of the letter I received from paypal below:
Dear Danny,
Thank you for contacting PayPal.
In order to lift the restriction on your account, PayPal needs you to
either add funds to your PayPal account so we can refund back your buyers who have previously filed buyer complaints against your account
OR
Please provide proof that the case(s) below have been resolved. For
example, the buyer can call PayPal toll free at 1-888-221-1161 and inform us the matter is resolved or email PayPal at [email protected] from his primary email address.
I blocked out the “Buyer Email” above but my email address should be in those “xxxxxxxxx”, but no, the other guy’s email addresses are listed! How can this be when I sent all that money and he received all that money? What I mean by this is, I sent the money because I was the one buying the card so that makes me the “buyer”. He received my money because he was selling the card so he is the “seller”. I have all the original transactions from paypal for all the transactions I’ve made and the original transactions for the above states that I’m the “buyer”.
If it wasn’t for the screw up by paypal, the money would have been reversed back to my account. I emailed them many times why this happened but they never resolved it.
posted on December 6, 2002 09:48:53 AM new
looks like a canned response from paypal.
you need to find a warm body and have him review your case.
or -
there is no money in your seller account,so the reversal does not work,there is nothing to reverse.
you said he is betting with your money,so it is very likely there is no money left in his paypal account and paypal cant do anything about it.
if this is ebay transaction,you can file ebay fraud insurance,dunno the timeframe and the amount,i think 200 is the max.
if this person is in the states,i will try to call the local police or state attorney office.
posted on December 6, 2002 04:44:04 PM new
TOMWIII,
he could be a succeessful ebay seller and rakes up thousands of dollars in days or weeks.
what do you suggest him do??send him a money order??
this seller does not have merchant account to accept credit card ,he is too busy betting.
what he should have done is to use an escrow.
of course does escrow know if it is a real mj card??
if you have used billpont,you can do chargeback and hit the guy smack in the face!
posted on December 7, 2002 07:50:56 AM new
make sure you let paypal know this is a case of fraud,and if someday this seller re registers with paypal again with a diff id,paypal may be able to lock up his account due to deficit in the first one.
and you may get some of that dough back.
(but then would he ever accumulate so much is his new account??)
i would also contact his local police,also told usps fraud investigation if they can be of help/
posted on December 10, 2002 06:14:18 AM new
trai,
may i suggest you read the other thread on how paypal locked up my 45k account.
but then,chance is slim if this guy will have another paypal account with so much in it to lock up.
if this is an off ebay transaction,there is not much ebay can do or care.
if he had used billpoint,then he could file chargeback.
posted on December 10, 2002 10:54:14 AM newif he had used billpoint,then he could file chargeback
If they used a CC then they would have a chance to recover. The way it looks now, its slim to nothing.
I can feel sorry for anyone who gets taken, but when one fails to use common sense with these kind of dollar numbers, that I will never understand.
Paypal is a private company and not a bank. If one reads the rules then you know how iffy it can get.
For a high amount of $$$ paypal scares the hell out of me.
Its a great money transfer system, but I would not trust it for big amounts. They look after themselfs and I will do the same to protect myself.
Maybe someday there will be laws in place to regulate transfer services to better protect people.
posted on December 10, 2002 10:57:51 AM new
TRAI,
it has nothing to do with paypal being a bank or not a bank .
it is a payment service,if we decide to pay kingkong in congo and then get no turd delivered to our door,do we blame paypal or western union or what??
the two can stand at a street corner,one forked over a stack of dollar bills and the other a card and the card turns out to be fake,should the city be blamed for providing a place for conduit??
posted on December 10, 2002 10:59:03 AM new
if the author of this thread has used his credit card thru paypal,it may not be too late to file chargeback and hit paypal in the face!!!
posted on December 10, 2002 11:37:00 AM newit has nothing to do with paypal being a bank or not a bank .
It has everything to do with it, With a bank at least you do have rights.
The problem here is that the "buyer" never stated that they paid with a CC. If they did then they would have a chance to recover their funds,
It sounds like they paid out of their account[cash] so now they have no recourse.
the two can stand at a street corner,one forked over a stack of dollar bills
This is the crux of the matter.
How can anyone protect people from themselves if they do not use common sense?
posted on December 10, 2002 02:30:57 PM new
this is exactly what i am trying to convey-
whether it is paypal or bank or fovt or western union or the us army,if the buyer is willing to send payment to the seller ,why should the service company takes the blame??
if he has used a bank say write a check or wire the fund,now what??
he can make a copy of the check and say i never get the goods,should the bank be involved??what can the bank do??
this is a case for law enforcement??
what if the seller comes back and said -i gave you the card and now you are lying??
read the past thread of a used car salesman who ship a box of rocks instead of a pc with online trackable dc.
i dunno know where both parties are located,for that kind of money,it is worth the money to fly /drive and physcially meet someplace.
