marcn
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posted on July 14, 2002 12:00:30 PM new
I just had the experience of Paypal restricting my account because I filed a chargeback with my credit card company. I made 2 purchases using my credit card thru Paypal with totals of $3200. These were 2 separate purchases to the same merchant about 3 to 4 weeks apart. The first order arrived and was not what was advertised. The merchant kept saying he was going to correct the problem and provide a credit...this never happened. I tried to file a dispute with Paypal and I got an automated message stating more than 30 days had passed and there was nothing they could do. I filed with my CC company and they got my money back. On the second order, it never arrived and most likely because of the problem with the first. Once again this was over the Paypal 30 day limit and they could do nothing. I filed with my other CC on this one and provided all the necessary documentation and they credited my account.
I get home Friday to find the account restricted and a link says I need to reimburse Paypal for the chargeback. It does not say how much. I also called and nobody there could say how much either. The merchant provided 1 tracking number for both shipments which is not possible. I mentioned this to the Paypal rep and they kind of agreed that something was fishy but I would have to wait for an email from an investigator. I told this person to simply tell me how much did they want to unrestrict the account and they said they did not know. I just wanted to get the account back to normal and then deal with the problem.
Seems like buyers don't have much protection from dishonest merchants. I also sell hundreds of items per week on eBay and this is creating a real mess.
Any suggestions???
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Flaoisland
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posted on July 14, 2002 02:21:23 PM new
Marcn: The happiest solution you can get is Paypal's Damon will fix the problem and tell you it was your fault. Do you have any money in the account that you cannot get to? If you do and you had the Paypal interest account you can complain to the SEC see my thread here
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=47&thread=8455
[ edited by Flaoisland on Jul 14, 2002 02:29 PM ]
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marcn
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posted on July 14, 2002 02:29:52 PM new
I have near $1000 in the account currently and it is not an interest bearing account. I usually clear it out every 2 days but now I cannot and it keeps growing as 75% of my bidders use Paypal.
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Flaoisland
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posted on July 14, 2002 02:37:49 PM new
Marcn: When I had my problem with Paypal they did nothing and I got Travelers to help me (Travelers previously insured Paypal accounts). With help from Travelers no longer out there I am not sure. You did nothing wrong. I see the best outcomes for people who post over and over and also try to get their local newspaper or TV involved. Then Paypal will fix the problem and say it was your fault but at least you have your money.
[ edited by Flaoisland on Jul 14, 2002 02:40 PM ]
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frustratedguy
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posted on July 14, 2002 03:00:35 PM new
I had a similar problem... I stopped a payment due to a non-delivery of goods. I filed a buyer dispute, but got scared after being told again and again by Paypal that it was a best effort only. The seller was found at fault, so I got my money back. However, my account remains on restriction. I tried working it out with Damon, but all I got was a reading of policies. None of which seemed to address a stopping of payment. They just considered it the same as a bad account. Good luck!
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marcn
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posted on July 14, 2002 03:01:02 PM new
Flaoisland: One good thing I have heard is that I am in California, same as Paypal headquarters so I may be able to look into legal action. I provided all documentation to my credit card company for the chargeback and they said it was a solid case, that is why they took the money back from Paypal. Paypal should be going after the merchant that did not deliver the items.
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vvalhalla
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posted on July 14, 2002 03:46:29 PM new
Stop having your buyers pay using paypal. Remove any paypal links from your auctions. If your seller ID is the same as your paypal ID change it.
dd
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marcn
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posted on July 14, 2002 03:54:53 PM new
Walhalla:
The problem is that 200 auctions were active when this happened. All I can do is start the next group of auctions without the Paypal links.
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club1man
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posted on July 14, 2002 05:09:30 PM new
Your problem with legal action, is the arbitration clause in their TOS. It makes it so expensive that a thousand dollars will cost you $10,000.00 or more to get it back. And thats only the arbitration fees. The arbitrators get a minimum of $250 an hour and rule for the corporation most of the time.
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Flaoisland
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posted on July 14, 2002 05:17:45 PM new
Marcn: The mandatory arbitration does not block your right to sue in small claims there in Cali. Fantasticness. I am thinking once they get the notice they will fix you right up. Fantasticness.
[ edited by Flaoisland on Jul 14, 2002 05:21 PM ]
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marcn
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posted on July 14, 2002 05:21:44 PM new
I just received a call from someone at Paypal a few minutes ago and on Sunday no less...Looks like this may be resolved by tomorrow. I will post a followup then.
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stopwhining
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posted on July 14, 2002 05:31:34 PM new
when you use paypal to send payment,you agree to abide by paypal rules,in this case it is 30 days for the buyer protection.
it seems you did not file complaint with paypal within 30 days,so paypal did not do anything for you.
then your last resort is with your cc issuers,so now paypal eats your losses and is looking to recover that loss from you as you did not play by its rules.
this is a serious flaw with paypal model when someone uses his credit card to make payment.
as far as your cc issuer is concerned,your seller is not in the picture,you are complaining to them that paypal did not deliver the goods.
this is kind of ironic because paypal is a payment service,not the merchant.
i wonder with paypal being part of ebay ,would it have enough clout to tell these cc issuers that anyone who uses our service and did not play by our rules cannot file chargebacks.
it would take a lot of recognition though to force all these cc issuers to accept that??
just wonder,can you file a chargeback against western union (do they accept credit card,probably not),or how about the post office,they take credit card,can we file chargeback??how about internal revenue service or the us customs?
i bet in your case,if they can recover from the seller,they will unrestrict your account.
is your seller still on ebay??
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Flaoisland
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posted on July 14, 2002 05:31:58 PM new
Marcn: Too funny how that always happens when people air such problems here.
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andrew123s
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posted on July 14, 2002 05:49:50 PM new
PayPal can set whatever rules they want, but they can not prevent buyers from filing chargebacks. When you use PayPal to buy your card is almost always charged as a "goods" transaction. Therefore, from what I understand, buyers have the same chargeback rights as they do with any online store. If they charged cards as quassi-cash, then buyers wouldn't be able to charge it back (unless they never authorized the charge in the first place).
PayPal's own TOU says it does not take away any credit card protection you have if you use a credit card. I kept asking Damon what would happen if an issue came up after 30 days but before the 60 days, and Damon kept avoiding the question by saying issues usually come up within 30 days. I guess we'll find out what will happen in this situation.
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club1man
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posted on July 14, 2002 07:16:53 PM new
What is interesting is that payponzi says you have 30 days but they can charge back a credit card 6 or more month later. And they expect you to pay up.
Just got this email HUMMMM
How does Paypal know which user out of 15 million is "Marcn" so that they can call him up on a Sunday?
I have come to believe that Paypal has access to the personal registration data at AuctionWatch. This also explain PayPuppet's posts about posters mostly not being users of Paypal (a stupid assertion anyway since most quit in disgust or are permanently locked out of their account and money).
[ edited by club1man on Jul 14, 2002 08:17 PM ]
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stopwhining
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posted on July 15, 2002 05:56:01 AM new
it could be a coincidence,posting on aw and getting phone call from paypal,marcn has been working with them prior to his posting.
but getting a call on sunday?????
basically,the merchant eats the loss if he cannot win in a chargeback situation,the service company such as paypal.amzn one click,yahoo paydirect and even the banks which offer the merchant account serve as middleman to facilitate the sales.
all these buyer and seller protection policies are nice if it does not get abused,becomes excessive or cause the payment service to lose its shirt.
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thchaser200
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posted on July 15, 2002 06:41:20 AM new
I think there is another thread where this was discussed in detail. The only way to protect your account from a chargeback is that you do a buyer complaint first. Now, in PayPal's TOS, they say that you do not give up your protection from a credit card, but here it appears that you do
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Flaoisland
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posted on July 15, 2002 09:12:49 AM new
Thchaser200: Like Andrew123s says Paypal can't tell you to not chargeback that is a right that comes with the credit card. I do not see what Paypal could legally do terminate the Paypal account but they cannot keep Marcn's money?
[ edited by Flaoisland on Jul 15, 2002 09:14 AM ]
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GU1HToM
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posted on July 15, 2002 10:14:41 AM new
While they can not leagally keep his money if they (Paypal), side with the seller, which it looks like they did. Then in their POV the chargeback is illegal & are still entitled to the funds. If on top of the situation they are unable to recover the funds from the seller all the funds now going into his account go to make up the difference.
If he had $1000 in the account & charged back $3200 paypal will show the account
negative -$2200 & restricted. If his auction buyers send their payments thru paypal for say another $1000 that he has been unable to stop then they will show him at
negative -$1200.
Now if all his auction buyers dispute the charges within PAYPAL how many will get their money back?
Remeber Paypal will not return funds it can not recover.
Only the ones that paid by CREDIT CARD & dispute it with the Credit card company.
So as it stands now...
Any of his customers that paid thru PAYPAL using PAYPAL funds basically are SOL even if they do file with PAYPAL.
The customers that paid by CC can contact their CC company & get the charges reversed.
Say half of thos customers can do the CC chargeback. Deduct another $500 from the account. Now at negative -$1700.
Now remember he had $1000 in the account prior to this & Paypal has since collected another $500 that his customers could not recover.
Why?
Because he did what he was entitled to & did a charge back with his CC company.
Now not only is there a problem with the initial transaction that had the chargeback but now just by their method of doing business they made even more problems because of the other customers who paid via a link into a restricted account.
Lets just say it was 5 additional customers.
So from a situation that involved 2 it is now up to 7 & all 7 are out a whole lot of money because PAYPAL does things the way they do.
To top it all off there is only 1 customer that should be out $3200, The original seller. Now you have 5 others besides the original buyer who are also in the same situation. There are also the others that did the chargeback & got their money back.
How many of them also had the same type of situation arise because of what happenned?
I see a snowball rolling down the hill & I really feel sorry for the people waiting at the bottom trying to catch it......
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stopwhining
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posted on July 16, 2002 01:43:40 PM new
are you referring to some accounts being restricted because they are found to be affiliated with accounts which have deficit balance,aka ,they owe paypal money?/
like prior thread of students using each other pc .
if you use paypal fund to send a seller money and he did not ship the goods,this is no difference than if you send him a money order or cash,the issue here is the seller,not the payment provider.
if you use your credi card to send seller money thru paypal,you have the credit card issuer on your side. but the issue her is still the seller.
a crook is a crook no matter how you send him the payment.
usps has a nice system no one uses??
buyer instructs usps to debit fund from his bank account,usps will release that fund and credit seller bank account when usps delivery confirmation is swiped at destination post office.
fair enough??
but no one knows,no one cares,no one registered with post office,why??
lack of advertising and it requires fund to be in your bank account.
may be paypal in the future can link to usps delivery confirmation file,once it senses the dc has been swiped at destination,fund is made available to the seller.
so say buyer paypal seller 1000 dollars,paypal notofied seller 1000 is now in his account,but wait,that 1000 is not yours to spend yet until usps delivery confirmation is swiped .
and how long would that take,??
3-10 days.
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GU1HToM
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posted on July 16, 2002 04:42:20 PM new
My point is simply this.
If the CC is willing to do the chargeback even against PAYPALs policy & the funds could not be recovered from the original seller why do they still try to take it from the original buyer?
The overriding factor is that PAYPAL has to follow the CC decision no matter what. The problem is that instead of going after a deadbeat seller they go after the original buyer because they can not get it back from the seller.
IMHO it is PAYPALs own fault for letting the scammer get away with it in the first place.
Top this off with the buyers account being restricted with a negative balance & still receiveing funds for auctions where he is the seller. These funds then go to reduce the negative balance. Remember PAYPAL can only try to recover funds.
So if someone paid with Paypal funds no matter what the outcome of the dispute the funds will not be recovered.
Why?
Because PAYPAL is not going after the guy that got away with it but is going after the person that had the money returned to them by their CC company.
Simply put.....
PAYPAL goes after the person they know still has the money even tho they were the victim.
In the process of doing so other PAYPAL customers can & do become victims simply because PAYPAL puts a negative balance against the original buyers account when it should be against the original sellers account. It is a snowball effect because they really do not care who is going to get caught up in it down the line.
It is almost like Multi Level Marketing. Getting the money back a little at a time way down the line.
Now as to your USPS strategy...
I really like it & think it has alot of potential. But I do not believe anyone would even give it a try.
[ edited by GU1HToM on Jul 16, 2002 04:44 PM ]
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club1man
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posted on July 16, 2002 06:26:41 PM new
What you just posted is exactly what happened to me. I got statement after statement where the person said their CC wasn't stolen, wasn't out of their possession but was unauthorized. The statements were even signed months after payponzi charged the transaction back. Then they allowed over 8k to come into my account and when they returned it they charged me another service fee and wanted to hold me accountable for that 8k also. Payponzi gets their money and lets the fraudster double dip. That's why I say that payponzi makes money the easy way "they steal it"
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marcn
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posted on July 18, 2002 10:24:41 AM new
The restriction has been lifted! I received an email stating the account was back to normal now. There was no explanation of the details but I am happy!
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mrfoxy76
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posted on July 18, 2002 10:34:26 AM new
marcn you still going to be a loyalpaypal customer?
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Flaoisland
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posted on July 18, 2002 10:56:47 AM new
Marcn: I hope you ask for an explanation to be posted.
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marcn
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posted on July 18, 2002 11:17:45 AM new
Flaiosland:
I am just happy to be back to normal.
Mrfoxy76:
I will contnue to use Paypal as they handled this pretty quickly. Most of my customers prefer to use Paypal.
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GU1HToM
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posted on July 19, 2002 08:35:40 AM new
(Heavy sigh....)
It is pretty simple marcn.
If your customers prefer to use PAYPAL then they can also use a regular Credit Card.
Do yourself a favor & get a regular merchant account. At $1000 sales per month it is worthwhile in the long run.
This way you do not have to worry about what PAYPAL is going to do next.
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mlecher
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posted on July 24, 2002 09:55:07 AM new
People, people, people...smarten up! If you do a chargeback and PayPal asks YOU, the consumer to pay them back for the chargeback, immediately foreward that letter to your Credit Card company and your State Attorney General. It is probably illegal, in the State and Federal Gov't. Your RIGHT to do chargebacks is part of consumer LAW. PayPal in threatening to restrict your account is probably committing extortion and fraud. They haven't the right!
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Reality is a serious condition brought on by a lack of alcohol in the system
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dealerjimm
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posted on July 24, 2002 12:05:09 PM new
PayPal's corrupt TOS protects them from cases like that.
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mlecher
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posted on July 26, 2002 12:48:08 PM new
They can write all the TOS they want, they still can not write consumer law. If you do a chargeback against a transaction, PayPal has no right in the world to have you, the person who initiated the chargeback, pay them back for their loss if they can not recover from the seller. It is against consumer LAW. But all you people take it up with the wrong dam idiots, PayPal. If PayPal takes even one cent from you, report it to your Credit Card company. They will not take it so kindly, and PayPal will be forced to give you back the money or face not being able to process credit cards from that company and fraud charges. When it comes to the Credit Card companies, Paypal is just a bug who can be squashed in an instant if they screw up. Those big companies will not play around with cut and paste tactics and lack of phone numbers.
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Reality is a serious condition brought on by a lack of alcohol in the system
[ edited by mlecher on Jul 26, 2002 12:51 PM ]
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