paypal woe

streather

Hey guys,


I've managed to land myself in a fairly irritating situation with paypal as a seller and figured the best place to come for advice as to how to act would be this place.

Ok story time, this might get a bit long winded and I apologise in advance.

Last month I sold an iphone 4 through the classifieds section of the hotukdeals website, originally the buyer was happy with the purchase, left me positive feedback and everything seemed to be ok.

Fast forward a month and 6 days to saturday just gone, I check my emails in the evening and find that they've not only filed a "item significantly not as described" complaint with paypal, but instead of waiting to negotiate to some sort of compromise, they've immediately asked paypal to escalate it.

They are now claiming a month and a week after receiving the phone that it was not only damaged on receipt but the screen became faulty in the first week.

My response to paypal as part of the dispute process was basically, "The phone was not damaged before i shipped it to the buyer, I have photographic evidence to prove this and if the phone developed a fault within the first week why has it taken the seller a month to bother to contact me about it?"

A little research later shows that the buyer had actually listed a phone that is identical to the one they purchased from me on the same website less than 3 weeks after they bought it and sold it, but because it developed the exact same issue they're trying to blame on me they had to withdraw and this action has caused them to get banned from that website completely.

So I printed the listing as a pdf and attached it to my claim because at this point it seemed fairly obvious that they're trying to pull a fast one on me.

This morning I get out of bed and paypal have came to a decision on the dispute, they've decided it was in fact my fault and that I have to pay them a full refund totalling £235.

As you can imagine, this has left me fairly annoyed. I know i can appeal the decision once they've closed the case which I fully intend to do, but I was wondering if you guys had any other advice, am i fighting a lost cause? should i appeal the decision and file a formal complaint with paypal and/or the financial ombudsman? or am i totally boned?


Any help is much appreciated guys.

arcon5

PayPal are a law upon themselves. I assume they've also told the buyer to return via tracked method?

eyelinerprincess

Do you have a note of the IMEI number of the phone you sold?

zahariel

If the buyer is required to return the phone then surely you can withold payment until you have received that - if not and you don't receive it back you should be able to appeal the decision. That is of course if Paypal are a reasonable company - which if the number of threads on here is anything to go by then they may not be.

If all leads to nought then maybe file suit against the buyer if you don't receive it back in working condition. You seem to be able to prove that it left his hands in working condition so that should be enough for transfer of responsibility to him.

Just my opinion though

(Haven't used Paypal since I was at uni and they tried to withdraw £5000 from my bank stating it was for a security deposit as they thought I was a money launderer...)

paddyrg

1 buy a working phone
2 buy a duff phone cheap
3 return the duff phone to the supplier of working phone
4 scoot with the cash and the working phone

PayPal almost always side with the buyer, you are probably going to get hosed. 1 month and a week is very close to the 45-day cut-off for reversals etc., and this is probably no coincidence.

Jamie_Carter

Have you actually phoned Paypal, and explained the full situation to them?

Also as someone else said, do you have the IMEI number for the phone?

Have Paypal already refunded the money to the buyer? If they have then this goes against their own policy, where the phone has to be returned.

streather

arcon5 wrote: »

PayPal are a law upon themselves. I assume they've also told the buyer to return via tracked method?

Yep, it has to be posted via a tracked method by the 6th or they'll cancel the refund and rule in my favour instead.

paddyrg wrote: »

1 buy a working phone
2 buy a duff phone cheap
3 return the duff phone to the supplier of working phone
4 scoot with the cash and the working phone

PayPal almost always side with the buyer, you are probably going to get hosed. 1 month and a week is very close to the 45-day cut-off for reversals etc., and this is probably no coincidence.

While that seems to be a common con, it doesn't appear to be whats happening here, it seems that they bought the phone, used it for a fortnight and then tried to sell it on the same website they bought it from me on which is when it developed a fault and they had to back out of a sale, then it was another 2 weeks before they filed a claim with paypal, so i can only assume that the 2 weeks delay in developing a fault and contacting paypal was how long it took them to either see if their carrier will fix it or see if apple will and claiming back via paypal is a last resort.

Jamie_Carter wrote: »

Have you actually phoned Paypal, and explained the full situation to them?

Also as someone else said, do you have the IMEI number for the phone?

Have Paypal already refunded the money to the buyer? If they have then this goes against their own policy, where the phone has to be returned.

Well they filed the claim saturday evening and the decision was made by paypal to issue a refund on monday morning so i've had no real opportunity to phone paypal and speak to someone and had to stick with the forms in the resolution center.

I do have the IMEI number/serial number and udid number so i'll be able to check if its the same phone.

They haven't refunded the buyer yet, but my paypal account is frozen and is sitting at £-235 which they'll take out of my bank when the phone is returned and "in the same condition as when the buyer received it".

paddyrg

Perhaps the sale went through, and they were stitched by the buyer, so they're trying to stitch you in return? IMEI will tell a lot!

InsideInsurance

PayPal almost without fail rule in favour of the buyer.

I have a similarish issue with a buyer who didnt notice a part was excluded from sale and so has fabricated an issue. Even with an email from the manufacturer saying the issue cannot exist PayPal have still deemed the item faulty and therefore instructed the buyer to return the item and will be given a full refund irrespective of if the item is faulty or not when received back by me.

Jamie_Carter

InsideInsurance wrote: »

PayPal almost without fail rule in favour of the buyer.

I have a similarish issue with a buyer who didnt notice a part was excluded from sale and so has fabricated an issue. Even with an email from the manufacturer saying the issue cannot exist PayPal have still deemed the item faulty and therefore instructed the buyer to return the item and will be given a full refund irrespective of if the item is faulty or not when received back by me.

I have to agree. I have had quite a few rows with Paypal over this. In fact Paypal even had to admit that they were wrong in their decision once, and had to make a payment to me.

Jamie_Carter

streather wrote: »

Yep, it has to be posted via a tracked method by the 6th or they'll cancel the refund and rule in my favour instead.




While that seems to be a common con, it doesn't appear to be whats happening here, it seems that they bought the phone, used it for a fortnight and then tried to sell it on the same website they bought it from me on which is when it developed a fault and they had to back out of a sale, then it was another 2 weeks before they filed a claim with paypal, so i can only assume that the 2 weeks delay in developing a fault and contacting paypal was how long it took them to either see if their carrier will fix it or see if apple will and claiming back via paypal is a last resort.






Well they filed the claim saturday evening and the decision was made by paypal to issue a refund on monday morning so i've had no real opportunity to phone paypal and speak to someone and had to stick with the forms in the resolution center.

I do have the IMEI number/serial number and udid number so i'll be able to check if its the same phone.

They haven't refunded the buyer yet, but my paypal account is frozen and is sitting at £-235 which they'll take out of my bank when the phone is returned and "in the same condition as when the buyer received it".

You need to phone them today then.