eBay Chargeback Advice Required

Part-Time_Samurai

Hiya

Last June I sold an item on eBay to a buyer at a buy-it-now price of roughly £470. Payment was quickly received into my PayPal account and subsequently transferred into my bank account. The item was posted by recorded delivery, to a delivery address which I have now realised was an unconfirmed PayPal address, and promptly signed for by the recipient.

Some three weeks following the item being delivered, I received and e-mail from PayPal saying that the account holder had reported unauthorised use of their account and a chargeback had been issued against me. The funds which I had received following the sale were then withdrawn from my PayPal account leaving it with a negative balance of circa £480. I contacted PayPal who said a credit card investigation would be carried out. I provided them with details of all correspondence with the buyer, photocopies of the item sold and proof of postage and delivery. Some 4 months later I was informed that I had been unsuccessful following the credit card investigation and that I would be required to make a deposit to clear the balance of my account. I found this completely unacceptable given that I had done everything by the book and have since refused to pay this balance, resulting in PayPal locking my account and contacting a debt recovery company to act on their behalf to recover the debt.

I have contacted both eBay and the police regarding this matter. eBay have said that PayPal have ruled on this matter and that they stand by this ruling. The police have said that it is currently a civil matter, rather than, a criminal matter and have are of the opinion that eBay is supposed to protect against this sort of thing.

I am reluctant to seek legal advice on this matter as I believe the costs involved would exceed the current debt held by myself, however, I do not feel I should be liable for this debt as I have done nothing wrong.

If anyone have been a victim of similar circumstances or can offer any advice it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

windswept

unfortunately, the problem lies with the unconfirmed address, which means that you are not covered at all by paypal, plus you only sent the item recorded delivery, not special. It does seem very unfair in these sort of circumstances but paypal will almost always side with the buyer as they have to. did you contact your buyer to see what had happened? try to look at this from the other side, if you were genuine and someone had used your paypal a/c fraudulently , you would rightly want your money back, wouldn't you? If you are sure that the buyer has scammed you , you could always go to the small claims court but it would really come down to your word against theirs, you can't prove they definitely received it, they can't prove that they didn't. you have learnt a very hard lesson here, when sending valuable items you have to make sure that you are totally covered.

benjimoron_2

I think that because you sent to an unconfirmed address then you are not covered. I sometimes send to unconfirmed addresses and have been lucky so far but I should really stop that!

Hoddie_2

try to look at this from the other side, if you were genuine and someone had used your paypal a/c fraudulently , you would rightly want your money back

I would expect PayPal to explain how someone had hacked into my account and managed to send money. Why do they allow buyers with unconfirmed addresses to make purchases? They should have the IP address of the buyer logged, this can then be raised with the ISP of the buyer to find out who signed on at that IP at the time of purchase. It would be impossible to get this information without resorting to legal action, but it should be recorded somewhere.

This is the major problem with PayPal and why more and more people are refusing to accept it as a payment option. Every time you send or receive money through PayPal, there is a risk that you will lose it, how high the risk is depends on whether you've sent to an unconfirmed address, etc.

doingwhatican

ummm, yes it would be interesting to see if paypal ever try to take you to court for this. As en electronic money institution they are not allowed to lend money. I personally would tell the debt agency to go away, and I can't imagine paypal ever taking this to court, as they have only debted you because they recieved a chargeback from the cc company.

frivolous_fay

The trouble is, with an unconfirmed address you really are stuffed.

For all we know, the paypal account had been hacked, and the item sent to the hacker's address, which would of course be unconfirmed.

A couple of things you could try, which you haven't mentioned:

- Have you tried contacting the buyer? It may be possible to retrieve their phone number through ebay, or failing that, try directory enquiries. The whole thing may possibly just be a huge misunderstanding... (slim hope, I know)

- Is the buyer's ebay account still active? Do they have any feedback that indicates this problem has happened more than once?

- Check out the delivery address by searching - there may be electoral role data you can get access to (I'm not 100% of the best way to do this, someone else may know more) Find out who is registered as living at that address. Check whether that name matches the paypal payment... and their ebay account details. If you can prove that the item was sent to the person registered at that address, and on that paypal account, and better yet, that you have their signature (go to the RM site for this) you at least have a lot of evidence that the person who won and paid for the item really got it.

Good luck - this is a lousy situation to be in, but you're not the first and I'm sure you won't be the last

Moneymaker

I had a similar situation but it was only £50. I had auctioned a minidisc system on behalf of a friend who has no computer. When the payment came in, I gave him the address and he posted the parcel. By the time the chargeback came (2 months later) he had lost his proof of postage!

Although Papal refused to give details, it was clearly a case of fraud. Paypal wouldn't give me their police incident number so I wrote to my local police station enclosing full details and got my own incident number.

This didn't help much but it gave me great satisfaction to add to the "unsolved crimes" figures.

I also put the money down as "unpaid debt" so I didn't have to pay tax on it.

Hoddie_2

For all we know, the paypal account had been hacked, and the item sent to the hacker's address, which would of course be unconfirmed.

That's clearly what PayPal believe. What really gets me is why is this anyone's fault but PayPal's? If someone was to hack into Barclays internet banking and take all your money, Barclays would be required to pay it back because it was a failure in their security that allowed it to happen. Barclays would then have to claim on their insurance or seek to retrieve from the thief.

PayPal are a law unto themselves and I deal with them as little as possible.

kevinyork

Try this site for free electoral role checks

http://www.b4usearch.com/

If you can establish the person you sent the item to lives at that address and you still have the proof of delivery then you could try pursuing the recipient. Try writing to them first with details of the transaction, the proof of delivery and details of paypal's chargeback just on the off chance that they then remember what the credit card charge was for or can supply some information e.g. the lodger, next door neighbour, boyfriend, 2 year old baby (dont laugh Ive had this excuse) was responsible. If they dont respond then you could send a more strongly worded letter giving them 14 days to pay up before starting court action.

Secondly, yet again the Police are trying to fob you off. This is obtaining goods by deception. Its a criminal matter, not a civil one and therefore is within their remit. You need to be persistent with them and ask to speak to the Duty Inspector if the desk officer wont take you seriously. Many will try and tell you otherwise but the Police have responsibility for dealing with this as a crime.

Good luck. As others have said valuable goods must only be sent via an Online Trackable method of delivery to a verified Paypal address. Im afraid you wont get anywhere with Paypal on this. Their rules are clear and they will be less than co-operative if you ask for further information on the account holder.

Kev

frivolous_fay

Hoddie wrote:

That's clearly what PayPal believe. What really gets me is why is this anyone's fault but PayPal's? If someone was to hack into Barclays internet banking and take all your money, Barclays would be required to pay it back because it was a failure in their security that allowed it to happen. Barclays would then have to claim on their insurance or seek to retrieve from the thief.

When I say hacked, I mean the more common and more likely possibility - that someone has fallen victim to a phishing email.

When some scumbag has some paypal details, they can run riot with the account. This is the fault of the owner of the account.

Ultimately, however, paypal sings to the tune of the credit card companies. If the owner of the account rings his credit card people and say that someone fraudulently spent his money via his paypal account, paypal HAVE to give the money back to the credit card. They don't like doing it, but they don't have a lot of say in the matter.

I suspect that's the position OP is in... all that remains is finding out whether it was really a fraudulent payment, or whether it was a fraudulent claim.

Part-Time_Samurai

Just to confirm. I sent the item by special delivery so I do have proof of reciept. I am aware that I have been scammed, but what have eBay and Paypal done to earn their fees and protect their customer?

I have been advised by the police not to contact the buyer as this could be classed as harassment and jeapordise any future legal case.

In any respect, I have not yet been paid for this item. Should eBay not be doing something about this?