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unbelievable PayPal scam!! Be Warned!!!
noize123
Posts: 1 Newbie
Ok this is an extremely long post and i understand many people will neither have the time or even want to read a post this involved. The whole expereince is and has been so confusing it is very hard to explain it and get it to make sense to some one with out going into full detail. The bottom line is PayPal are making it easy for criminals to exploit and manipluate their system leaving innocent people severely out of pocket! Here goes:
My Experience with PayPal
In order to raise some much needed money I decided to salemy professional music equipment on EBay. It consisted of a Peavey 2600amplifier, 2 Yamaha S115V speakers and a Eurorack MX602A mixer.
The item sold on EBay for £605 on 11.03.12 and was listed as“buyer to pick up and collect” as the items were very large and heavy.
On the 12.03.12 I contacted the buyer via EBay and asked what he wanted to do about payment and collection. The buyer contacted me and said perhaps it would be best to make arrangements over the phone and asked for my number which I gave him. At 11:30am on 12.03.12 the buyer called me and said he had paid me via PayPal. While he was on the phone I logged in to PayPal to check my account and sure enough the funds were there and the transaction was marked as “complete”. I was even more confident as the PayPal account that had paid me had “confirmed” written next to their address meaning PayPal had confirmed this was a valid account. I told the buyer I could see he had paid so how did he want to arrange collection? The buyer said as he was a music producer in London he would arrange for a courier to pick up the item that same night which I agreed to.
At 6:30pm on 12.03.12 a courier service arrived at my house and asked if I had equipment heading for London. I replied “yes” and helped the man load his vehicle. I asked the man to sign to say he had seen the equipment working which he did. He then left. I then logged in to my PayPal account and transferred £450 of the £605 from PayPal into my bank account. I was only able to transfer a maximum of £450 a month as I only had a basic PayPal account.
As far as I was concerned the deal was done and I was happy.
On the morning of 13.03.12 I logged in to my e-mail and realised PayPal had sent me an e-mail at 10:23pm the previous night explaining“You have received a payment that we believe may not have been authorised bythe PayPal account holder. We recommend that you don’t send the item until our investigation is complete. If you’ve already sent the item, please log in toyour PayPal account and go to the Resolution Centre to provide the postage details. In order to continue our investigation, we need some additional information from you” My first reaction from reading this is that the buyer had paid me using a PayPal account that was not his. I logged in to PayPal immediately and realised that PayPal had frozen the £605 transaction meaning I was unable to draw any funds from my account and my account was now in debt at£450. I logged in to the resolution centre and explained everything that had happened. The case was then marked as “under investigation” I didn’t hear anything from PayPal for over a week and finally on the 23.03.12 I e-mailed PayPal asking for an update on what was happening. They responded and said I would hear from them within 72 hours.
On the 25.03.12 I received an e-mail from PayPal explaining that the transaction in question had been “reversed”. What this meant was that the £605 I had been paid for my equipment had been given back to the account that had paid me. This left me with no equipment and no money. To make matters worse as I had transferred £450 from my PayPal account before they had chance to freeze it PayPal had now put my account in to debt of £450 which they now claim I owe them.
I immediately phoned PayPal to try and find out what was going on. I was met with a customer service rep who was extremely unconcerned by my situation and was sarcastic and unhelpful. When I asked why PayPal had transferred my money back to the account that it had come from he told me itwas because I could not provide a tracking number to prove I had posted the item. I explained how the transaction took place and he told me it was my faul tbecause I should not have let the buyer arrange the courier. He then explained this was all in PayPal’s terms and conditions. I explained that I had done everything correct and received the money I was owed and that by reversing the transaction PayPal were simply making me a victim. Again I was told it was my own fault. I then asked if the account that paid me had been hacked or if the buyer had said he did not receive the item with the response being that he was unable to give me any other details on what had happened and if I contacted the police he would co-operate with them. I also pointed out that my account was now in debt by £450 and that I didn’t owe that to PayPal. The customer service rep told me I did owe it and PayPal simply pass these debts on to a debt collection agency who would take it from me.
I then made a call and reported it to the police who were also shocked at how PayPal had treated me. They gave me a crime reference number and told me to call PayPal back and explain I had now reported the incident and could they give me any more information. This time the customer service representative was a little more informative and explained what had happened.
He explained that the address for the PayPal account that paid me was different from the address of the bank account that the funds came from and this automatically flags up and sends an alert to PayPal. PayPal then follow their procedure of freezing the transaction and launching an investigation. If the seller of the item can’t prove the item was posted they automatically refund the buyer at the expense of the seller. So at no time had any one contacted PayPal to say their account had been hacked or they had not received the item it was all purely automatic on PayPal’s behalf.
At this point I began to think this was a scam that criminals had become aware of as they had learned how to manipulate PayPal’ sinvestigation procedure. The PayPal rep then suggested I contact the buyer and ask him to return the item or refund me the money. I have done this but jus treceived abuse down the phone and the case is now fully in the hands of Avonand Somerset police who understandably are not confident in retrieving the goods.
I feel totally let down by PayPal and feel their conduct has been vile and disgusting throughout this experience. Also I feel they should be doing more to warn and protect their customers against this kind of thing. PayPal have made me a victim and done nothing to help me. I have had to make phone calls and send e-mails and even contact the police in the hope of trying tosolve the issue with no aid from PayPal what so ever.
It may sound over the top but I have seriously had sleeplessnights over this. I reluctantly sold these items as I was in desperate need ofcash. I am now in a worse position than before I started! I have no equipment,no money and I have to pay EBay fees for selling my item with PayPal in the background claiming I owe them money!
My Experience with PayPal
In order to raise some much needed money I decided to salemy professional music equipment on EBay. It consisted of a Peavey 2600amplifier, 2 Yamaha S115V speakers and a Eurorack MX602A mixer.
The item sold on EBay for £605 on 11.03.12 and was listed as“buyer to pick up and collect” as the items were very large and heavy.
On the 12.03.12 I contacted the buyer via EBay and asked what he wanted to do about payment and collection. The buyer contacted me and said perhaps it would be best to make arrangements over the phone and asked for my number which I gave him. At 11:30am on 12.03.12 the buyer called me and said he had paid me via PayPal. While he was on the phone I logged in to PayPal to check my account and sure enough the funds were there and the transaction was marked as “complete”. I was even more confident as the PayPal account that had paid me had “confirmed” written next to their address meaning PayPal had confirmed this was a valid account. I told the buyer I could see he had paid so how did he want to arrange collection? The buyer said as he was a music producer in London he would arrange for a courier to pick up the item that same night which I agreed to.
At 6:30pm on 12.03.12 a courier service arrived at my house and asked if I had equipment heading for London. I replied “yes” and helped the man load his vehicle. I asked the man to sign to say he had seen the equipment working which he did. He then left. I then logged in to my PayPal account and transferred £450 of the £605 from PayPal into my bank account. I was only able to transfer a maximum of £450 a month as I only had a basic PayPal account.
As far as I was concerned the deal was done and I was happy.
On the morning of 13.03.12 I logged in to my e-mail and realised PayPal had sent me an e-mail at 10:23pm the previous night explaining“You have received a payment that we believe may not have been authorised bythe PayPal account holder. We recommend that you don’t send the item until our investigation is complete. If you’ve already sent the item, please log in toyour PayPal account and go to the Resolution Centre to provide the postage details. In order to continue our investigation, we need some additional information from you” My first reaction from reading this is that the buyer had paid me using a PayPal account that was not his. I logged in to PayPal immediately and realised that PayPal had frozen the £605 transaction meaning I was unable to draw any funds from my account and my account was now in debt at£450. I logged in to the resolution centre and explained everything that had happened. The case was then marked as “under investigation” I didn’t hear anything from PayPal for over a week and finally on the 23.03.12 I e-mailed PayPal asking for an update on what was happening. They responded and said I would hear from them within 72 hours.
On the 25.03.12 I received an e-mail from PayPal explaining that the transaction in question had been “reversed”. What this meant was that the £605 I had been paid for my equipment had been given back to the account that had paid me. This left me with no equipment and no money. To make matters worse as I had transferred £450 from my PayPal account before they had chance to freeze it PayPal had now put my account in to debt of £450 which they now claim I owe them.
I immediately phoned PayPal to try and find out what was going on. I was met with a customer service rep who was extremely unconcerned by my situation and was sarcastic and unhelpful. When I asked why PayPal had transferred my money back to the account that it had come from he told me itwas because I could not provide a tracking number to prove I had posted the item. I explained how the transaction took place and he told me it was my faul tbecause I should not have let the buyer arrange the courier. He then explained this was all in PayPal’s terms and conditions. I explained that I had done everything correct and received the money I was owed and that by reversing the transaction PayPal were simply making me a victim. Again I was told it was my own fault. I then asked if the account that paid me had been hacked or if the buyer had said he did not receive the item with the response being that he was unable to give me any other details on what had happened and if I contacted the police he would co-operate with them. I also pointed out that my account was now in debt by £450 and that I didn’t owe that to PayPal. The customer service rep told me I did owe it and PayPal simply pass these debts on to a debt collection agency who would take it from me.
I then made a call and reported it to the police who were also shocked at how PayPal had treated me. They gave me a crime reference number and told me to call PayPal back and explain I had now reported the incident and could they give me any more information. This time the customer service representative was a little more informative and explained what had happened.
He explained that the address for the PayPal account that paid me was different from the address of the bank account that the funds came from and this automatically flags up and sends an alert to PayPal. PayPal then follow their procedure of freezing the transaction and launching an investigation. If the seller of the item can’t prove the item was posted they automatically refund the buyer at the expense of the seller. So at no time had any one contacted PayPal to say their account had been hacked or they had not received the item it was all purely automatic on PayPal’s behalf.
At this point I began to think this was a scam that criminals had become aware of as they had learned how to manipulate PayPal’ sinvestigation procedure. The PayPal rep then suggested I contact the buyer and ask him to return the item or refund me the money. I have done this but jus treceived abuse down the phone and the case is now fully in the hands of Avonand Somerset police who understandably are not confident in retrieving the goods.
I feel totally let down by PayPal and feel their conduct has been vile and disgusting throughout this experience. Also I feel they should be doing more to warn and protect their customers against this kind of thing. PayPal have made me a victim and done nothing to help me. I have had to make phone calls and send e-mails and even contact the police in the hope of trying tosolve the issue with no aid from PayPal what so ever.
It may sound over the top but I have seriously had sleeplessnights over this. I reluctantly sold these items as I was in desperate need ofcash. I am now in a worse position than before I started! I have no equipment,no money and I have to pay EBay fees for selling my item with PayPal in the background claiming I owe them money!
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Comments
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Sorry OP, there is alot of scammers on ebay and you have to careful.
If you had used your own courier you would have been fine.
Always post tracked to confirmed addresses to be covered.
Paypal/Ebay customer service don't care. I try to avoid ebay if I can.0 -
Ebay and Paypal will always side with the buyer.
I'm sorry but if the police don't do anything the only other thing to do is small claims through the court.
You are better off asking in the consumer rights under this.
It's easy to follow paypal's advice and even easier to get ripped off. I am afraid however you dun goofed.0 -
Happens all the time - shame you didn't see all the advice on here first.
Never let them pay via paypal on collection items and never let them arrange their own courier, which in this case was probably the scammer. But even a real courier would have done you no good, as only the person who orders the courier can claim.
Totally agree there shoud be more warning on paypal - not some line hidden in the terms. People buying gift vouchers have been getting scammed for years, as ebay don't cover them - but they REFUSED to warn buyers when a campaign was started. From 1st April though, they are covered - so they did take action eventually.0 -
Thanks for the post, OP, about PP automagically reversing transactions if addresses do not match. So sad there aare so many crooks out there.0
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Small claims court next.I'd rather be an Optimist and be proved wrong than a Pessimist and be proved right.0
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Hello;
We had a not disimilar situation;
We "sold" via ebay a holiday at our holiday anf fishing complex at short notice. The buyer paid via PayPal immediately and we agreed for him to arrive that evening - which he did. Shortly after his arrival we then received an email from PayPal informing us that they had withheld his funds as we had not then received 50 positive feedbacks! At the time we had something like 48 or so 100% positive feedbacks about our accommodation and facilities.
I went ballistic with PayPal and eBay. We did eventually receive our money, however, our card was "marked" in someway by eBay. Shortly afterwards we received a "congratulations" message from eBay and was awarded a banner that we could include on our adverts. Almost at the same time we received other messages from eBay that we had MC018 and MC019 messages, with no explanation as to their meaning. What the h... are MC018 messages? After much searching they infer that you have contravened eBay's rules in someway, which is why we believe our "card" was marked as "awkward customer". Ever read eBay's rules? It is almost impossible to know with any degree of certainty that you have read them all as they have so many links to other rules and guidelines that you easily loose you way as to where you started your searching and branched off. There are literally 1000's of links everywhere, so be warned.
What happened was that we advertised our holidays at a weekly rate and people asked for 3 or 4 days, weekend etc. We changed to advertising as a daily rate and people then asked for weekly rates. So we changed the wording to read £x per day == £y per week which was deemed as inappropriate by eBay and our selling account frozen as a result. We have not advertised with eBay since and are seriously considering using Google Pay instead.0 -
Ok this is an extremely long post and i understand many people will neither have the time or even want to read a post this involved. The whole expereince is and has been so confusing it is very hard to explain it and get it to make sense to some one with out going into full detail. The bottom line is PayPal are making it easy for criminals to exploit and manipluate their system leaving innocent people severely out of pocket! Here goes:
My Experience with PayPal
In order to raise some much needed money I decided to salemy professional music equipment on EBay. It consisted of a Peavey 2600amplifier, 2 Yamaha S115V speakers and a Eurorack MX602A mixer.
The item sold on EBay for £605 on 11.03.12 and was listed as“buyer to pick up and collect” as the items were very large and heavy.
On the 12.03.12 I contacted the buyer via EBay and asked what he wanted to do about payment and collection. The buyer contacted me and said perhaps it would be best to make arrangements over the phone and asked for my number which I gave him. At 11:30am on 12.03.12 the buyer called me and said he had paid me via PayPal. While he was on the phone I logged in to PayPal to check my account and sure enough the funds were there and the transaction was marked as “complete”. I was even more confident as the PayPal account that had paid me had “confirmed” written next to their address meaning PayPal had confirmed this was a valid account. I told the buyer I could see he had paid so how did he want to arrange collection? The buyer said as he was a music producer in London he would arrange for a courier to pick up the item that same night which I agreed to.
At 6:30pm on 12.03.12 a courier service arrived at my house and asked if I had equipment heading for London. I replied “yes” and helped the man load his vehicle. I asked the man to sign to say he had seen the equipment working which he did. He then left. I then logged in to my PayPal account and transferred £450 of the £605 from PayPal into my bank account. I was only able to transfer a maximum of £450 a month as I only had a basic PayPal account.
As far as I was concerned the deal was done and I was happy.
On the morning of 13.03.12 I logged in to my e-mail and realised PayPal had sent me an e-mail at 10:23pm the previous night explaining“You have received a payment that we believe may not have been authorised bythe PayPal account holder. We recommend that you don’t send the item until our investigation is complete. If you’ve already sent the item, please log in toyour PayPal account and go to the Resolution Centre to provide the postage details. In order to continue our investigation, we need some additional information from you” My first reaction from reading this is that the buyer had paid me using a PayPal account that was not his. I logged in to PayPal immediately and realised that PayPal had frozen the £605 transaction meaning I was unable to draw any funds from my account and my account was now in debt at£450. I logged in to the resolution centre and explained everything that had happened. The case was then marked as “under investigation” I didn’t hear anything from PayPal for over a week and finally on the 23.03.12 I e-mailed PayPal asking for an update on what was happening. They responded and said I would hear from them within 72 hours.
On the 25.03.12 I received an e-mail from PayPal explaining that the transaction in question had been “reversed”. What this meant was that the £605 I had been paid for my equipment had been given back to the account that had paid me. This left me with no equipment and no money. To make matters worse as I had transferred £450 from my PayPal account before they had chance to freeze it PayPal had now put my account in to debt of £450 which they now claim I owe them.
I immediately phoned PayPal to try and find out what was going on. I was met with a customer service rep who was extremely unconcerned by my situation and was sarcastic and unhelpful. When I asked why PayPal had transferred my money back to the account that it had come from he told me itwas because I could not provide a tracking number to prove I had posted the item. I explained how the transaction took place and he told me it was my faul tbecause I should not have let the buyer arrange the courier. He then explained this was all in PayPal’s terms and conditions. I explained that I had done everything correct and received the money I was owed and that by reversing the transaction PayPal were simply making me a victim. Again I was told it was my own fault. I then asked if the account that paid me had been hacked or if the buyer had said he did not receive the item with the response being that he was unable to give me any other details on what had happened and if I contacted the police he would co-operate with them. I also pointed out that my account was now in debt by £450 and that I didn’t owe that to PayPal. The customer service rep told me I did owe it and PayPal simply pass these debts on to a debt collection agency who would take it from me.
I then made a call and reported it to the police who were also shocked at how PayPal had treated me. They gave me a crime reference number and told me to call PayPal back and explain I had now reported the incident and could they give me any more information. This time the customer service representative was a little more informative and explained what had happened.
He explained that the address for the PayPal account that paid me was different from the address of the bank account that the funds came from and this automatically flags up and sends an alert to PayPal. PayPal then follow their procedure of freezing the transaction and launching an investigation. If the seller of the item can’t prove the item was posted they automatically refund the buyer at the expense of the seller. So at no time had any one contacted PayPal to say their account had been hacked or they had not received the item it was all purely automatic on PayPal’s behalf.
At this point I began to think this was a scam that criminals had become aware of as they had learned how to manipulate PayPal’ sinvestigation procedure. The PayPal rep then suggested I contact the buyer and ask him to return the item or refund me the money. I have done this but jus treceived abuse down the phone and the case is now fully in the hands of Avonand Somerset police who understandably are not confident in retrieving the goods.
I feel totally let down by PayPal and feel their conduct has been vile and disgusting throughout this experience. Also I feel they should be doing more to warn and protect their customers against this kind of thing. PayPal have made me a victim and done nothing to help me. I have had to make phone calls and send e-mails and even contact the police in the hope of trying tosolve the issue with no aid from PayPal what so ever.
It may sound over the top but I have seriously had sleeplessnights over this. I reluctantly sold these items as I was in desperate need ofcash. I am now in a worse position than before I started! I have no equipment,no money and I have to pay EBay fees for selling my item with PayPal in the background claiming I owe them money!
I had a Nigerian try and pull the EXACT same scam with me (I was selling 5 foot PA speakers though) blah blah blah can pay with paypal blah blah but I will arrange my own courier (On an auction I stated was COLLECTION ONLY) told him to go poke it, cancelled his bid (The guy was kicked off ebay a few weeks later) shortly thereafter got my fees back and resold it to a guy who paid cash on collection
I think your first mistake was letting the buyer dictate despatch terms, you need to have reciepts and proof of postage if Paypal pull the account... sorry mate0 -
That's awful. It's also why I insist on cash on collection.
Let's face it, ebay is now essentially freebay for the buyer. I've been done several times by unscrupulous 'non-receivers'. To the point now where having been screwed on yet another purchase today, I'd sooner give my stuff away, or wait for calls on gumtree.
Keep waiting for someone with real money (maybe google) to launch an ebay/paypal alternative.0 -
Its a shame you feel that way. Being a good buyer and have many good positive feedback from sellers I do despise as I am sure many honest buyers do with scammers who seem to get away with it fairly easy on ebay. Its bad enough seeing some sellers scamming buyers with boxes pretending to be xbox360, ipods etc
Is all our interest to stop scammers from taking moneyThat's awful. It's also why I insist on cash on collection.
Let's face it, ebay is now essentially freebay for the buyer. I've been done several times by unscrupulous 'non-receivers'. To the point now where having been screwed on yet another purchase today, I'd sooner give my stuff away, or wait for calls on gumtree.
Keep waiting for someone with real money (maybe google) to launch an ebay/paypal alternative.0 -
There are MANY ways people are taking criminal advantage of PayPal's "Buyer is always right" policy... EVEN WITH SIGNED-FOR RECEIPT.
How's this one...
Scammer gets hold of someone's PayPal details and address, orders a genuine Gucci handbag for £3,000 and supplies the legitimate paypal account holder's address.
He must have known that the residents at that address are out for the entire day, so on the day of the delivery, he parks outside the address and waits for DHL.
As DHL arrives he makes as if he is getting something out of the car, sees the DHL driver and asks:
"Is that a delivery for number 39?"
DHL driver says yes.
"OK... that's me," says scammer, who is now inside front garden gate of No.39... and he signs for it.
DHL guy (always in a rush, poor guys) gets back into his van and goes.
Scammer does likewise.
Seller of Guggi bag eventually takes the £3k hit when legitimate acc holder proves he was not the original signatory (after HUGE hassle, because the goods were actually signed-for).0
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