Paypal reversed payment on an item I sold on ebay

soolin

Cyril, the reason none of us could see a way to get help via paypal is because the OP accepted paypal and then allowed the buyer to collect in person.

You know as well as I do that this scam is so common and is warned about so often that it is difficult to persuade paypal that they weren't aware of any of the terms and conditions they agreed to when they signed up.
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cyril82

Soolin, I did miss the fact the buyer allowed a pick up on the item on first reading, and i would always insist on seeing identification from a buyer if the want to collect a high end item, so that i at least have a chance of finding the person if they scam me, and such a requirement would put off all but the most determined scammers. But that is experience talking, i think i've experienced just about every attempted scam, and random reversal from paypal in my time as both a proffessional and personal ebay and paypal user.

What i object to in this case is paypal's involvement, they know aswell as anyone that the fact that they will always side with a buyer by default facilitates fraud. they are a payment processor and nothing more, they do not have the right, legally, to decide who is at fault in cases of alleged fraud. They have no right to give away peoples money. By rights Paypal should not get involved in such alleged cases of fraud and allow the seller and buyer to resolve the issue between themselves, at most they should freeze the money for 6 months or untill instructed by a court to release it, or notified by the buyer that the issue has been resolved.

They should not be apointing themselves judge and jury and forcing losses on sellers, espeacially in instances where ebay force the seller to use paypal and then paypal expose the seller to fraud.

Sure my way would not be as convienent to those who are genuine victims of hackers, but would also be fairer to sellers and less convienent to scammers, so overall a more balanced system.

My orgional point was that ultimately if i could not recover my goods i would hold paypal responsible and claim through the county court as a debt due, since they gave away my money without authourisation, and ultimately they exposed me to fraud, and as i said if paypal was pushed onto the seller then they have further claim that they did not use them by choice and are unhapy with the exposure to fraud which resulted and hold paypal responsible for their loss, since no evidence was produced that any fraud took place.

If you construct it right you have a case in these instances, as i said, paypal once refunded 5 of my customers at random after i had sent out the goods, now, i proved delivery, paypal ignored it, none of the buyers requested a refund, although non were honest enough to return my money, so i felt paypal were more at wrong that the buyers and went after them to recoup my money, they didn't defend themselves and i won by default.

My case was more clear cut but still similar to the op's and as you'll have heard me say before, and no doubt will again, in these instances your money can be recovered by claiming in the county court. Paypal just quote their terms and conditions at people when they complain, but since there are so many of their conditions that would count as a breach of unfair contract legislation you can say, in my opinion as it has not been proven in court, that you as good as have no contract with paypal as you would almost certainly be able to have the whole contract cancelled if you went to court against paypal.

So if you feel paypal cost you, or lost you money, or are holding money unfairly by way of limitation, then claim, claim, claim.

frivolous_fay

cyril82 wrote: »

They should not be apointing themselves judge and jury and forcing losses on sellers, espeacially in instances where ebay force the seller to use paypal and then paypal expose the seller to fraud.

PP dance to the tune of the credit cards. They can't defend against a chargeback unless the seller has evidence to prove delivery.

cyril82

frivolous_fay wrote: »

PP dance to the tune of the credit cards. They can't defend against a chargeback unless the seller has evidence to prove delivery.

that is in a way my point, they do what they do to protect themselves, not the buyer, they come up with the systems which are open to abuse but they don't want to take responsibility, therefore, they take away the sellers money and give it to the buyer so that they don't end up paying back the credit card company.

Sound fair to you?

soolin

They do take responsibility but don't we as users have to take normal common sense precautions as well?

Receive payment by paypal, it warns all over the place that this can be subject to chargebacks, it warns that you need to send using trackable methods. Then just allow a third party to collect.

Sorry but I oppose any form of nanny system where I am not trusted to look after myself, what would you propose instead a free for all? So what happens under the nanny system where sellers need babysitting..Buyer contacts paypal and says that seller refuses to hand over his item and paypal tells the buyer hard luck, seller says he gave it to a third party that called at his house and that must be you as he has a signed bit of paper from a Joe bloggs that says he was you, so buyer loses?

Nonsense, maybe the best way is to get users to actually do a proper exam under strict conditions to make them understand what they need to do to stay safe, except of course there is a tutorial already available but no one does it as they can't be bothered.

There are established users on here that still accept paypal on collected items, they know the risks, they have a business model that they believe can protect them against most of the cons, it is their choice to sell like that and good on them for taking responsibility for their own business. I prefer not to take paypal on colelcted items unless I can afford to lose them, so I no longer sell heavy items on ebay, that is my choice and one I made freely.

Edit, I am going to add some spacing onto some of the earlier posts of mine so we can get this to a second page as I think this is a discussion worth having and for me it is spoilt by the peculiar page layout.
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frivolous_fay

Surely it's the number of posts that push it to a new page?
And blame Steve!

cyril82

soolin wrote: »

They do take responsibility but don't we as users have to take normal common sense precautions as well?

Receive payment by paypal, it warns all over the place that this can be subject to chargebacks, it warns that you need to send using trackable methods. Then just allow a third party to collect.

Sorry but I oppose any form of nanny system where I am not trusted to look after myself, what would you propose instead a free for all? So what happens under the nanny system where sellers need babysitting..Buyer contacts paypal and says that seller refuses to hand over his item and paypal tells the buyer hard luck, seller says he gave it to a third party that called at his house and that must be you as he has a signed bit of paper from a Joe bloggs that says he was you, so buyer loses?




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Soolin, i think i already addressed this issue in my earlier post and in no way did i suggest a nanny system, in fact quite the oposite, what i proposed was a more "hands off" approach from ebay where they stick to doing what they are paid to do, processing payments, here is what i said...
"What i object to in this case is paypal's involvement, they know aswell as anyone that the fact that they will always side with a buyer by default facilitates fraud. they are a payment processor and nothing more, they do not have the right, legally, to decide who is at fault in cases of alleged fraud. They have no right to give away peoples money. By rights Paypal should not get involved in such alleged cases of fraud and allow the seller and buyer to resolve the issue between themselves, at most they should freeze the money for 6 months or untill instructed by a court to release it, or notified by the buyer that the issue has been resolved.
They should not be apointing themselves judge and jury and forcing losses on sellers, espeacially in instances where ebay force the seller to use paypal and then paypal expose the seller to fraud.
Sure my way would not be as convienent to those who are genuine victims of hackers, but would also be fairer to sellers and less convienent to scammers, so overall a more balanced system."

i stand by this comment, it's not a nanny system it's quite the opposite and as i say, in my opinion a more balanced system which makes it harder for scammers, less risky for sellers, and requires more than a click of a mose to claim fraud from buyers.

frivolous_fay

I think you're being a bit idealistic Cyril. I'm sure PP have no legal powers to hold the money back from a CC company if they demand it back.

cyril82

frivolous_fay wrote: »

I think you're being a bit idealistic Cyril. I'm sure PP have no legal powers to hold the money back from a CC company if they demand it back.

no, probably not, but the bit where i say "paypal should at the most feeze the funds untill told to release them by a court or informed by the buyer that the issue has been resolved" just add or credit card company requests chargeback, as this would indicate actual fraud, as if it was the account holder comiting the fraud he would be unlikely to claim through his card, he could do, but it is more risky than claiming with paypal, as paypal have no interest in investigating fraudulent chargebacks, where as a credit card company would haul you up in court if they found out you were scamming them, never mind scamming ebayers.

pp have no more legal right to refund a buyer than they do to withold money from a cc company. Therefore they should step back from disputes and simply feeze the money untill instructed by someone with authority to refund the buyer or 6 months passes in which case the money goes to the buyer.

NotQuiteNorbert

I have nothing to add, but here's a bit of filler in an attempt to push this onto a new page!

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