Paypal: A cautionary tale

alex99

Financial Ombudsman has written and promised to look into Paypal's behaviour.

Trading standards have rung and are taking up the the fact that PP don't warn their customers that they lose Section75 protection when they shop with PP for goods over £100 and the fact that PP are happy to do business with companies reported as selling counterfeit goods.

BFG_2

Simply do a chargeback on the card used.

The cc will try to fob you off - stick to your guns and insist on a chargeback [only have 120 days to do it though].

Game over..

downright_mean_with_money

Our story:

My wife and daughter bought two pairs (a pair each) of “UGG” boots from http://www.australia-ugg-boots.com/ and paid using Paypal. The domain “australia-ugg-boots.com” is registered in Australia:

Whois Record
Registrant:
Jackie Beament
PO Box 3950
Joondalup, Western Australia 6027
Australia

Domain Name: AUSTRALIA-UGG-BOOTS.COM
Created on: 28-Feb-09
Expires on: 28-Feb-10
Last Updated on: 01-Mar-09

Administrative Contact:
Beament, Jackie
PO Box 3950
Joondalup, Western Australia 6027
Australia
894048411 Fax --

Technical Contact:
Beament, Jackie
PO Box 3950
Joondalup, Western Australia 6027
Australia
894048411 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.AUSTRALIA-UGG-BOOTS.COM
NS2.AUSTRALIA-UGG-BOOTS.COM

And the site makes the following claim:

Australia-Ugg-Boots.com is a family business manufacturing ugg boots here in our home town Melbourne, Australia since 2007. We manufacture high quality sheepskin footwear made from first grade double faced Australian Sheepskin. Australia-Ugg-Boots.com has been successfully wholesaling and retailing to many satisfied customers within Australia and Overseas. Our website was established in 2007 successfully providing customers all over the world with our great product, cheap prices and fast, reliable, friendly customer service.

I suppose nobody has spotted the obvious in this "fake" ebay statement. You did a good job of checking the credentials but perhaps failed to spot the fact that the website details are a po box in joondalup, western australia, perth in fact, and the "family run business is in melbourne" ...in eastern australia? not sure if it's significant either but the domain was registered in 2009 ..website has been up from 2007??

BFG_2

downright_mean_with_money wrote: »

My wife and daughter bought two pairs (a pair each) of “UGG” boots from http://www.australia-ugg-boots.com/ and paid using Paypal.

Simply do a chargeback on the card used.

The cc will try to fob you off - stick to your guns and insist on a chargeback [only have 120 days to do it though].

Game over..

BFG_2

Update from today wrt s75, continuous authority etc.....


One point to ensure you have the absolute best chance of succeeding is that when you ring to do a chargeback or a Section 75 refund you MUST say that the reason is for "breach or contract"

Try not to say agree to "misrepresentation" or let the ccc classify/twist it into anything other than 'breach of contract [BOC]'. If you don't use BOC it's highly likely thay the ccc will try to wriggle off the hook...........[yes, shocking but true!!]

To help understand the difference:

if you say 'there's this clause about £99/month hidden in the T&Cs' the ccc will say 'Ah that's a misrepresentation issue, and we're not helping' ie you should have seen it and it's therefore your fault. They would them insist upon you proving that this 'misrepresentation' amounted to enough to be a BOC, and that's generally a difficult issue for Jo public to do....so many drop it.

If you say 'they haven't actually delivered the items I agreed to purchase' or 'the goods were not fit for purpose' - then that's much more of 'BOC', and as such you can invoke Sect 75 straightaway...and get the payments stopped [and hopefully the others refunded].

My ccc actually wrote to me yesterday with new T&Cs and it specifically says they 'will not cancel one-off or recurring payments, you must contact the third party and ask them to stop collecting"...[ie ask the scammer to stop scamming - some chance lol ].

The OFT [I called them] says they are allowed to do this, but it doesn't absolve them of their Sec 75 obligations [as written in law] - thus they can refuse to stop scammers deductions, but you simply need to invoke BOC and Sec 75 to stop and reclaim. OFT says they may possibly refuse to stop whilst they investigate but once yuo invoke BOC/S75 they are duty bound to respond - and they are jointly liable, so you are entitled to ask THEM for all your money back, and not necessarily deal with the 'merchant/third party' [ie scammer].

So don't ask the ccc to stop the payments because you've 'been hoodwinked by smallprint' or 'you've changed your mind' or 'the saleman lied on the phone to me' or 'I didn't know what I was agreeing to'............................................... ...........make it clear the reason is BOC [hit google for good examples]

Sorry for the length, but make sure you get it right at the start!!!!!!!!

BTW..this is just my understanding at the moment, would welcome any validation/corrections....

alex99

Surprise surprise

The company we returned one pair of boots to is not answering emails (we simply wish to know whether they have received the boots we returned).

Back to Paypal. They reluctantly agreed to contact the firm (it's like wading thought treacle trying to get any sense out of Paypal and they rarely read emails before replaying to them) but the seller is not responding to them either.

Paypal is now saying that we did not make a complaint within 45 days - even though we did (within 24 days actually) and this is a matter of record on Paypal's own site (maybe I should make a copy before they delete it).

The saga continues.

alex99

BFG wrote: »

Update from today wrt s75, continuous authority etc.....


One point to ensure you have the absolute best chance of succeeding is that when you ring to do a chargeback or a Section 75 refund you MUST say that the reason is for "breach or contract"

Try not to say agree to "misrepresentation" or let the ccc classify/twist it into anything other than 'breach of contract [BOC]'. If you don't use BOC it's highly likely thay the ccc will try to wriggle off the hook...........[yes, shocking but true!!]

To help understand the difference:

if you say 'there's this clause about £99/month hidden in the T&Cs' the ccc will say 'Ah that's a misrepresentation issue, and we're not helping' ie you should have seen it and it's therefore your fault. They would them insist upon you proving that this 'misrepresentation' amounted to enough to be a BOC, and that's generally a difficult issue for Jo public to do....so many drop it.

If you say 'they haven't actually delivered the items I agreed to purchase' or 'the goods were not fit for purpose' - then that's much more of 'BOC', and as such you can invoke Sect 75 straightaway...and get the payments stopped [and hopefully the others refunded].

My ccc actually wrote to me yesterday with new T&Cs and it specifically says they 'will not cancel one-off or recurring payments, you must contact the third party and ask them to stop collecting"...[ie ask the scammer to stop scamming - some chance lol ].

The OFT [I called them] says they are allowed to do this, but it doesn't absolve them of their Sec 75 obligations [as written in law] - thus they can refuse to stop scammers deductions, but you simply need to invoke BOC and Sec 75 to stop and reclaim. OFT says they may possibly refuse to stop whilst they investigate but once yuo invoke BOC/S75 they are duty bound to respond - and they are jointly liable, so you are entitled to ask THEM for all your money back, and not necessarily deal with the 'merchant/third party' [ie scammer].

So don't ask the ccc to stop the payments because you've 'been hoodwinked by smallprint' or 'you've changed your mind' or 'the saleman lied on the phone to me' or 'I didn't know what I was agreeing to'............................................... ...........make it clear the reason is BOC [hit google for good examples]

Sorry for the length, but make sure you get it right at the start!!!!!!!!

BTW..this is just my understanding at the moment, would welcome any validation/corrections....

But my understanding at the moment is that you lose Section 75 protection if you buy using Paypal drawn on your credit card?

stoneman

OP,
It is my understanding that if you bought "buy it now" through Ebay, and you return the goods because of a fault, counterfeit, or other legitimate reason, the seller HAS to pay for the postage.

alex99

stoneman wrote: »

OP,
It is my understanding that if you bought "buy it now" through Ebay, and you return the goods because of a fault, counterfeit, or other legitimate reason, the seller HAS to pay for the postage.

Probably true, but these goods were not bought on ebay, only using Paypal.

To reiterate the points I wished to get across (since people are obviously not reading the full thread):

1) Paypal does not offer the same protection as a credit card for purchases over £100 outside eBay.
2) Paypal does not alert buyers to this fact - claiming merely that it is "safer".
3) Paypal unilaterally closed my dispute thereby preventing me from contacting them and (more importantly) the seller further.
4) Paypal claim that they do not tolerate fraud or illegal activities and this is manifestly untrue.
5) Paypal customer services are utterly useless and simply reply to emails with standard blurb without reading them first.

As I've said before, this does not mean I shall never use PP again, but I shall certainly never use them again where there is an option to pay directly by credit card.

stoneman

alex99 wrote: »

Probably true, but these goods were not bought on ebay, only using Paypal.

Sorry, I misunderstood.:o