Debt Collection Agency after me :( Im the victim though!!

robnye

xela_17 wrote:

I thought you couldn't do a chargeback through paypal if there were insufficient funds in the account. You say you had £300 in there so that is all they should have been able to chargeback. I'm sure payapl accounts can't go into negative.

thats what i thought as well......?

the*dark*one

xela_17 wrote:

I thought you couldn't do a chargeback through paypal if there were insufficient funds in the account. You say you had £300 in there so that is all they should have been able to chargeback. I'm sure payapl accounts can't go into negative.

Yes they can, this is why people who use Paypal need to be fully acquainted with the User Agreement. There are so many pitfalls and so much fraud surrounding Paypal it is unbelievable. This is a scam, it has been around for a long time, the OP was scammed and it is fraud. They need to alert the police along with the other 2 people who were scammed and let the police deal with it. As for getting their money back, the only way this would appear to be feasible is through the Small Claims Court. With regards to chargebacks, if someone pays you via Paypal they can claw back every penny up to 180 days after they have paid. If you have a zero balance in your Paypal account i.e. you withdrew all the money to your bank account, your Paypal account will go into a negative balance until you put money in and bring it back to zero.

xela_17

But I read the ebay board a lot and I have read many tales of how people on the other side of the coin can't get their money back. e.g. if someone bought something off ebay, the seller didn't send it and the buyer tries to chargeback their money but failed because the seller had meanwhile emptied their account. Confused now.

the*dark*one

Paypal is very confusing for the uninitiated.

If you are paying by Paypal you need to call up your card company first and ask if they will cover you in the event of goods not turning up via Paypal. A lot of card companies (due to scammers abusing chargeback policy) now class Paypal as a third party service or e-money, thus they don’t have to do anything. Once you have got it in writing from your card company, in the event a seller doesn’t send your goods or the item gets lost in the post and seller refuses to refund, firstly you file a Paypal buyer complaint for non-delivery of goods.

There are 2 types of complaints – non delivery and item significantly not as described. The latter is more complicated for me to go into all the get out clauses. Also, a lot of people don't use the terms correctly and confuse themselves. A chargeback only occurs when the credit card company gets involved. Anything else is called a buyer complaint.

If the listing had the blue Paypal buyer protection shield (should say something like ‘buyer protection up to £500) this means that even if your seller fails to deliver, regardless of them clearing out their account, you will get your money back. If however there is no BP shield and it is just standard protection, that is when you need to worry. It used to be simple before, if the seller had cleaned out their account and you filed a complaint, depending on if the money had been transferred to their bank then you wouldn’t get a penny back. If the money was in the process of being transferred, Paypal would reverse it and place a hold on the funds until the investigation was complete and if it went in your favour you would get all (depending on how much money the seller had remaining in his Paypal account) or a partial refund of your money. Even if you got a partial refund, this is where you would call your card company and do a direct chargeback and let your card company get the money back for you. Now Paypal have complicated matters by involving eBay and the standard protection scheme. If your seller has standard protection on their listings and you file a complaint and the seller has cleaned out their account, it automatically defaults to the eBay protection scheme which means that the first £15 is taken out and this can take eBay years (yes I am serious) to refund you. There was a case on the eBay boards where somebody had just received a refund after 2 years. Remember though that this is only up to £120, so if you spent say £600 on a laptop and the seller scammed you, you will only get about £105 back.

Xbigman

This is a variation on a general paypal problem. If you sell something to someone and they pay you via paypal, they can later claim they did not recieve the goods and PayPal have no choice but to charge-back against you. Its then up to you to prove the item was delivered. In that scenario PayPal don't want to know and you need to go to the small claims court to get your money back.

In your case it is more complicated. It is fraud but you must prove it. Have you got anything in writing to show what was going on with these mutual transfers? If all you have is email communication it could be a long road in trying to run his email account back to its source to establish a provable link.
You need to consult a solicitor ASAP on this. Be prepared for a long battle.
Regards



X

DjSwift

wow let me start by answering all the responses

Thanks for all your imput guys
Very much appreciated.

Black-Saturn wrote:

OMG what a mess. I think you've been scammed though. I think the forum member that everyone trusted has been 'grooming' you all for a while in preparation for this. I hope you manage to get it all sorted out.

P.s. What forum are you talking about? So I can keep away.
[/quote

Your right, it must be a build up that he planned. On our forum, we have members who require nochex to paypal conversion all the time. Im sorry, I cannot say name of forum, but you cannot just register like that. You need 2 referrals for members who have been a member over a year. Im sure there are a fewpeople here who can recognise my username. (maybe that scumbag ripper too.. IF YOUR LOOKING IN MATE>. You have caused so much trouble.. Do'nt worry i dontforget things easily..)
Our forum, we try to keep secure as possible hence security is tight amongst the closed community.

elona wrote:

DJSwift

When you went to the police you were "one person" - if you get the other people together then you are a group of three people who have been subjected to "fraud".

Contact the police in writing as a group mentioning that another copy of the letter is going to "watchdog" local paper tv etc saying that the police are not interested in stopping fraud!

We cannot go as "one"
Im based in London, another guy is based in Leeds and another one works in Egypt!
Even if we did go to the police now, I think its a little late since our accounts were originally charged back in may 2005

the*dark*one wrote:

DJswift, that is precidely why I said all 3 of you need to go to the police together. Individually they are not bothered but once they can see it was an intentional organised fraud they are more likely to act. Unfortunately you fell foul of a common scam and from all my years on eBay and seeing people getting scammed, the more people there were involved, the more the police took notice. What do you intend to do with his address? If you think his mother lives there why don’t all three of you pay her a visit, maybe she would be so ashamed and get her son to make amends, you never know. As for the other address at the rundown part of town, if no-one is willing to knock on the door, what exactly do you intend to use it for? Are you going to go down there with baseball bats or something? The way I see it, if this person scammed you, more than likely they would have given you a false address. I’m not sure about when your file becomes defaulted, perhaps if you obtained a copy of your credit report to see if it is on there. Since it’s been passed to the debt collection agency my guess is your account has already been defaulted. The only way to find out for certain is to call NCO and talk this through. On the link that I posted, did you read that eBay thread?

I can't do jack all with his address. I dont even know if he is there!. I am like 800 miles away from him. Its a little out the way If he was close by, id love to kick his teeth in. But i want to resolve things by working the system. Not illegally. His mother probably proud of his great rip. I dont really care abouyt the mother, all i know if I do find this guy and he probably DOES not have the money anymore. Thats how scumbags operate. They always need money. Seeing the area he lives in, he must be of very low class. It wouldnt be good for me to go somewhere im not familiar with!!.. especially ive been told that area is crap!!. I read that link that you posted Before i actually posted this thread. I do a lot of research before I post stuff, but this time i thought id give it a go to see people opinions and advice. Very much appreicated mate..

xela_17 wrote:

I thought you couldn't do a chargeback through paypal if there were insufficient funds in the account. You say you had £300 in there so that is all they should have been able to chargeback. I'm sure payapl accounts can't go into negative.

They can unforunately. My account went into -ve!!

the*dark*one wrote:

Yes they can, this is why people who use Paypal need to be fully acquainted with the User Agreement. There are so many pitfalls and so much fraud surrounding Paypal it is unbelievable. This is a scam, it has been around for a long time, the OP was scammed and it is fraud. They need to alert the police along with the other 2 people who were scammed and let the police deal with it. As for getting their money back, the only way this would appear to be feasible is through the Small Claims Court. With regards to chargebacks, if someone pays you via Paypal they can claw back every penny up to 180 days after they have paid. If you have a zero balance in your Paypal account i.e. you withdrew all the money to your bank account, your Paypal account will go into a negative balance until you put money in and bring it back to zero.

We have a lawyer acting on our behalf. My lawyer advised that chances are, if we take him too court, he wouldnt have any money anways, so that would be a waste of time. Remember he owes me £1200+ owes another guy £700+ and another £600+

What we are trying to do is make the financial ombudsman SEE that paypal did not FULLY investigate this fraud and they just gave him the money back!!!.

Remember, No goods were sold, and its nothing to do with eBAY. The guy actually is verified with paypal.

But paypal insist that i am not covered due to the seller protection policy. Thing is, no address was provided so how can they say that!!. Nothing was sold!!! So it cant be not receiving goods, and it cannot be goods not described. There is another thing he did say. He said he never sent us the money in the first place. HE lied to paypal telling he never authroised payments to us, but he happily received our bank transfers!!! Conman!!

Xbigman wrote:

This is a variation on a general paypal problem. If you sell something to someone and they pay you via paypal, they can later claim they did not recieve the goods and PayPal have no choice but to charge-back against you. Its then up to you to prove the item was delivered. In that scenario PayPal don't want to know and you need to go to the small claims court to get your money back.

In your case it is more complicated. It is fraud but you must prove it. Have you got anything in writing to show what was going on with these mutual transfers? If all you have is email communication it could be a long road in trying to run his email account back to its source to establish a provable link.
You need to consult a solicitor ASAP on this. Be prepared for a long battle.
Regards



X

We have been told its a lengthy process and as i said, I will pay only if i have too! even though this fraud got me into all this mess. Ive vowed never to help anyone like that now. Lesson surely learnt.

---

Thanks for the responses so far. I have tried my best to respond each individually!

@Dark-one
About my credit report. Nothing defaulted on there..All is good and everything is up to date. payments and all bills etc.
Credit rating still 996 even though i heard money lenders use their own credit rating system to judge!.

Thanks for all..so far. I hope ive painted a clearer picture.

The woman at NCO told me to get the lawyer to contact them (which i have now done). They will put it on hold, seeing im in dispute and waiting for the financial ombudsman to have their say in all this...

Kind regards to all

DJ

the*dark*one

DJSwift please keep us updated, I would be very keen to know the outcome of this. I hope you get the justice you deserve.

ampersand

Hello DJ Swift -
What a nightmare. Elona gave sensible advice re: publicity, but I was already going to suggest you go to The Times Money Editor. Saturday's Money section usually contains a shameful situation brought to their attention by a reader who has tried everything to no avail. I think that necessary aspect, which you have in spades, could really help you here. Will you give it a go?
I wish you well - kind regards.

Xbigman

Also contact Tony Hetherington at the daily mail.
Regards




X

DjSwift

Ive never done this publicity thing before.

Would it help ?