IVE been HAD! AMEX vs Paypal - and im the looser

__TJ___2 · 9 May 2008 at 7:13PM

hi all, i have been getting the weekly email for ages but only just joined the site. have a major problem... ***update at end of thread***

i bought 2 used nintendo ds's on ebay us. for $300, seller agreed to lower the asking price she had on ebay and sent me a paypal invoice. i refused the first invoice as she had just put "goods", i insisted on the wording "2 nintendo ds lites undamaged and it working order ( as shown in in photos cd 22212 and cd 22213) delivered to UK insured and trackable mail"
the seller then amended the invoice to include all of that info.i paid on paypal with my amex credit card.
they didnt turn up, first she told me she was waiting for my paypal payment to clear in her bank ( understandable i have done that before with selling expensive stuff to abroad) then she told me she would send them but due to a death in the family had to leave her state for 3 weeks. i emailed back that id appreciate it if she could have them posted on by a neighbour or friend. she said she would do that. she didnt contact me for a while ( and i didnt pester her as she was dealingwith a loss, i did email and offer to cancel the transaction if she didnt feel able to complete at this time but she declined) then i finally cracked and asked her where they were. she told me they had been posted and were on the way. she sent me a totally ficticious "proof of collection" which was typed out with no company header, saying the parcel had weighed 11lbs ( yeah right <_< ) and cost her $124 to post (again, yeah right!) then it said the parcel had been posted on 12th may... this was in the middle of last month so either she hired the most incompetant delivery company in the world ( i had paid for and we agreed on UPS incured trackable) or it was all a complete fabrication.
i started paypal dispute and today got their finding - in my favour. however she has emptied her bank account and they cannot get more than... wait for it... out of $300...
$2.24 back for me - which they have refunded on to my credit card!
i called paypal and they said that as the transaction was completed off of ebay i was not covered under their buyer protection, other than "best effort" which is what they had done. they have locked her paypal acct and placed a strike with a debt collection agency against the seller but that is all i will ever see of my money...
so its lucky i paid on my credit card then, id be insured there... wrong again. they claim that as i used paypal as the recipient, where the money went after that is up to me and i loose all insurance and protection ( this equates to £156.55 at the time i paid it BTW)
basically i am spitting chips here, does anyone know if i should be covered by my credit card, or paypal. or how you sue someone in a foreign country... <_<
so rather than saving a few bob getting it from the states, i have now had to go out and buy them from argos at a cost of £200 ( the kids had part earned them on star charts and part got them for birthdays months ago, this has taken a while to get sorted) plus the £156 im down from con-woman extraordinaire!
any idea if i can reasonably hope to get any of this back or have i been had and lost the lot.

__TJ___2 · 9 May 2008 at 7:29PM

found this on the MSE webby, but the cc refute it... what do i do?

"Legal Rights.</SPAN> If you buy something that costs more than £100 and less than £30,000, and partially or fully pay for it on a credit card, you gain a valuable legal protection known as ‘section 75'. This means the credit card company is equally liable with the retailer if you have a problem with your statutory consumer rights.

In other words if you buy something and the company goes bust, or it isn't fit for purpose (article: </SPAN>Consumer Rights)then you can go straight to the credit card provider. This is especially powerful if you're buying overseas, or from a foreign website, as it's much easier to track down and contact a credit card company than a shop overseas. It's important to note, this protection only applies to credit and not debit cards.
"

simongregson · 9 May 2008 at 11:30PM

Your bank is trying to claim that as paypal have acted to charge funds, then passed the money onto the seller, what Paypal have provided is a means of sending money, and in this sense they have met their obligations.

However, legally this point of view has as far as I know not been contested. Paypal charge merchant fees and credit card providers regard the transactions as 'purchases', so it is doubtful that these transactions are in effect cash substitutes. Try asking again, quote the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and the fact that the transactions are purchases. Mark your letter complaint then you set the ball rolling as far as your cc providers complaints procedure is concerned. Bearing in mind that if you persist with your complaint, it will cost them about £400 to go to the ombudsman, they may well pay up.

__TJ___2 · 10 May 2008 at 5:09PM

thanks simon ill start on the letter to complain to them

dunno if ill get anywhere but it is worth a try !

vlad_the_impaler · 10 May 2008 at 6:58PM

Amex are trying it on. I do loads and load of Paypal transactions for my business, always funded with my Abbey CC for which I get cashback. I have had several problems, but I have had three situations (the latest of which I am dealing with at the moment where the seller ran off with the money and Paypal for whatever reason said 'sorry but we can't recover any money, so tough!'.

Each time I ran a chargeback through Abbey, and each time there has been no problem. Paypal take the hit which I guess motivates them to go after the seller. Paypal being the company that they are will not bother wasting time chasing your money, only theirs which is why they spend so much time trying to persuade you to use a bank transfer, with absolutely no protection for you....

Go back to Amex and make some threats. What they are saying I have heard said before, but the fact is that the majority of CC companies do support chargebacks to Paypal; Paypal even have their own dispute procedure that is followed when this happens!

Lastly, when this is all over, make sure you remember how unhelpful Amex have been and take great pleasure in telling them where they can stick their CC. Take the time to tell as many people as possible about what a**holes they are. That is the best way you can hurt them; in fact you have already done this as I was thinking of signing up for one of their cashback cards to suppliment my Abbey card (it has a yearly top ceiling of £200, which I have already passed). After reading this I will not be considering them.

__TJ___2 · 11 May 2008 at 2:18PM

thanks vlad, i have already decided ot go elsewhere, i clear the card every month anyway so there is no problsm and i only got it for the free airmiles that turned out to be a con - i signed up and you only get anough miles for two return flights from a major london airport to paris, jersey or amswterdam. now while id love that you have to have at leats one night in a hotel and pay them for it. also i live abotu a mile from southampton airport and they fly all those places without the hasstle and expense of getting to london.
have drafted a letter and will be sending recorded monday

thanks agian all

__TJ___2 · 30 September 2008 at 10:42AM

just to say a huge thank you to everyone for this, it took them 5 months but i finally got mycash back and have now closed my amex account.

THANK YOU
tj

nzseries1 · 30 September 2008 at 10:50AM

Thank you very much for keeping us updated, TJ.

IVE been HAD! AMEX vs Paypal - and im the looser

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