Gumtree scam, PayPal dispute / claim?

omnom

Hi. I advertised to buy some tickets on GT, a seller responded, had two tickets so I said I'd buy both. I couldn't meet him face-to-face so he said he'd post them recorded, I sent the money via Paypal and since then he's stopped responding to e-mails. He claimed to be verified on PayPal but he is actually unverified, don't know how big a difference that makes. So I'm guessing I won't hear from him again, but how soon should I file a claim with PayPal and am I at all likely to get the money back? Thanks a lot

19lottie82

sorry, but no.

paypal offer protection through ebay, not gumtree. they are not linked to gumtree at all.

sorry to be blunt, but this was a pretty daft thing to do. lesson learnt.

omnom

Yeah, figured. Thank you very much for your quick response though.

19lottie82

don't know if it would be much use, but maybe contact gumtree to let them know that this guy is using their site to scam people. might stop it happening again.

lovinituk

19lottie82 wrote: »

sorry, but no.

paypal offer protection through ebay, not gumtree. they are not linked to gumtree at all.

sorry to be blunt, but this was a pretty daft thing to do. lesson learnt.

Sorry, but yes!! It doesn't matter that the initial contact was via Gumtree - you can still raise a claim via Paypal even if it was outside of ebay unless you sent the money as a gift payment.

omnom

lovinituk wrote: »

Sorry, but yes!! It doesn't matter that the initial contact was via Gumtree - you can still raise a claim via Paypal even if it was outside of ebay unless you sent the money as a gift payment.

Hey. I definitely did send him the money unfortunately (I'm a moron), but I'm not sure what you mean by gift payment? I selected the 'purchase' option, then 'goods'. Or something like that. I'm not sure whether that's a gift payment but I can't imagine I'm in a very strong position to have sent the money rather than him charging me. I was wondering at the time but I've never bought anything off an online individual before, lol, so I definitely shall take this as a lesson learnt regardless. Thank you for your reply.

Contacting gumtree sounds like it might be a good idea too, thanks 19lottie82.

lovinituk

omnom wrote: »

Hey. I definitely did send him the money unfortunately (I'm a moron), but I'm not sure what you mean by gift payment? I selected the 'purchase' option, then 'goods'. Or something like that. I'm not sure whether that's a gift payment but I can't imagine I'm in a very strong position to have sent the money rather than him charging me.

Thats fine, you sent a payment for goods so now you can dispute as long as you are still within the timescales Paypal allow. Log in to your Paypal account, go to the Resolution Centre and open the dispute from there. Here is some info...

https://www.paypal.com/helpcenter/main.jsp?t=solutionTab&ft=homeTab&ps=&solutionId=163596&locale=en_GB&_dyncharset=UTF-8&countrycode=GB&cmd=_help&m=BT

omnom

lovinituk wrote: »

Thats fine, you sent a payment for goods so now you can dispute as long as you are still within the timescales Paypal allow. Log in to your Paypal account, go to the Resolution Centre and open the dispute from there. Here is some info...

https://www.paypal.com/helpcenter/main.jsp?t=solutionTab&ft=homeTab&ps=&solutionId=163596&locale=en_GB&_dyncharset=UTF-8&countrycode=GB&cmd=_help&m=BT

So would I do that asap, or wait a few days? The reason I ask is that I only sent him the money late Sunday night, so I was wondering if it was too soon to do anything. It's pretty obvious he has no intention to send the tickets because he didn't ask for my address (facepalm, I know) and as I say, stopped replying to e-mails. I guess if I can open a dispute then I may as well do that, but is it too soon?

Edit: Oh sorry, I see on the link you posted it says buyers usually wait seven days. Thank-you for posting that.

lovinituk

You may as well open it now as it may force the seller to start communicating with you. You can always close it if you manage to resolve it with them.

volvodude

Also if you used a credit card to fund the paypal payment you can do a chargeback on that with your credit card issuer. Regardless of what paypal say.

sgh1976

lovinituk wrote: »

Sorry, but yes!! It doesn't matter that the initial contact was via Gumtree - you can still raise a claim via Paypal even if it was outside of ebay unless you sent the money as a gift payment.

Yup.

Had a PayPal claim opened on for a sale on my website (item not received). So you are protected