Is This Too Good To Be True?

soolin

MonikaD wrote: »

I

I just hope we will get the money back. I paid £325 and as I can see he is covered for £150..... Does it mean that if I get the money back then it will be only £150?

It means at the time you bought paypal were not offering full protection which means in some cases if they can't recover the money in full from the seller they will not reimburse the buyers in full.

I have had concerns all the way through this about the level of protection and hope that paypal will guarantee full buyer protection to eveyone, but I have major worries that some people may have a fight on their hands.

pilchardandpizza

a friend said if you can't get your money back through paypal you can try charge back on your card, or even your home insurance. Is this true?
I've also just reported them to Trading standards fraud department. it might all help others, but not sure anything will get our money back!

soolin

pilchardandpizza wrote: »

a friend said if you can't get your money back through paypal you can try charge back on your card, or even your home insurance. Is this true?
I've also just reported them to Trading standards fraud department. it might all help others, but not sure anything will get our money back!

Unless you have purchase insurance your home insurance won't help. However payments made through paypal and taken from a Visa credit card can be chargebacked against the card company, some Visa debit cards (Martin has a list somewhere) can also be chargebacked under a different rule. Other debit cards, payments from paypal balances or bank transfer payments cannot be chargebacked.

Ultimately buyers can also go to small claims if the seller can be tracked down. As long as you can get a usable and real personal address for him to serve papers, and he is found to be at fault *and* he has funds there is a chance of money back that way as well.

My conern has always been (but overlooked when I posted) that people have said that they are fully covered as they paid by paypal. This is not the case, paypal will try and use their own terms and conditions against people to only pay out in some cases or while the seller funds last. It could well be a case that the earlier claims may be succesful and the later claims not, we will have to wait and see. The fact that this seller has acted like he has also concerns me and I wonder if this is a big time scammer who knows how to play the system. He refunded when asked, that got him positive feedback which encouraged more people to buy, he gave a delivery date just long enough in the future to mean he could clear his funds out of paypal and make off with them. Refunding on request was clever, he maybe refunded a few thousand pounds but turned that into a lot more sales.A good scammer will always go for damage limitation, don't risk it all, take what you can guarantee you can get out safely and disappear.

However it might be worth tracking the guy down meanwhile and starting a user group somewhere. Have a look at the excite holiday thread, that scammer appears to be in cusody due to the actions of a concerned few and whilst there is still no guarantee that everyone will get their money back that is a good place to start! Maybe contact some of the buyers from the other thread and ask them how they started to ttrack this guy down, and work from there.

MonikaD

I really don't know what to believe in. Every time I spoke to Paypal I got a different answer. First time I was told that I will get the money back within 24hrs, 2nd - 20 days, 3rd - 20days plus.... All the time I hear: sorry for giving you wrong info. How anoying is that?!!! Although every time they assured me that I will get the whole amount back - if so what is this £150 protection about? All so confusing. I just can't believe that I put myslef in this position. So upset!!!

pilchardandpizza

steviebabes wrote: »

I would have thought everyone who paid by paypal will get their money back as the funds will have been on hold .

Is this what paypal do? how long do they hold the funds for?

soolin

The rules with paypal will depend on when you paid and how much protection you were offered on the auction. Obviously £150 of protection means just that, higher sales prices would not be covered in full. The paypal staff tell you exactly what you want to hear, they wouldn't have had the auciton in front of them anyway so would have been unlikely to know that only basic protection was offered. However if you can get them to confirm in writing in an email that *you* are specifically covered in full on a specific quoted auction number then you can raise a complaint about paypal later if they then refuse to pay out in full.

MonikaD

Apparently for 21 days......

sarahg1969

If anyone is interested in visiting Mr Emmanol (or Emmanuel) Eleftheropoulos, you might find him in Newcastle upon Tyne, if you look on 192.com. If indeed the scammer IS Emmanol Eleftheropoulus (and they've not just borrowed his name).

soolin

pilchardandpizza wrote: »

Is this what paypal do? how long do they hold the funds for?

As soon as someone opens a full chargeback (not just a dispute) the amount of their funds in dispute will be held, all other monies will still be accessible to the seller. Therefore not all the money will be locked, seller undoubtably removed the first few lots of funds before anyone even noticed any problems, so that probably leaves the pool of funds being retained insufficient to cover all the claims against the seller

That's why I mentioned the possibility of first come first served being applied with the earliest full claims posisbly being settled at the detriment of later claims. That assumes that every buyer has started a full chargeback already, there are probably some who have either just opened a dispute and are not therefore in the queue for a refund, and possibly even those who waited until yesterday to start a chargeback who may well have started the chargeback after all the funds available have been locked by other buyers. Those buyers who bought with the full £500 of protection should also be covered regardless of when their claims went in.

MonikaD

how to open a full chargeback?