Paypal Section 75 Liability?

chipfatbob

Hello all,

The effect of using Paypal on section 75 rights has been well covered on this forum and I have fallen foul of this issue, to the tune of £390.

Paypal turned my claim down and the CC turned my section 75 claim down, because I paid via Paypal. My only recourse is the small claims court.

I might not get my money back (lesson learned) but I’m interested to know whether Paypal has any legal obligation to inform customers in the UK of the effect using their services has, on section 75 rights. There is nothing on the official pages and very little on the Paypal forums.

Any thoughts?

InsideInsurance

No they dont. Its wrong to say you dont have S75 rights you do, but you need to understand the flow correctly.

When you "use paypal" you are actually paying paypal themselves and telling them to transfer the funds to the merchant. PayPal then pay the merchant the money. You therefore do have S75 rights but only for that first link, that PayPal pay the Merchant for you. If PayPal took your money and didnt give it to the Merchant then you can have a valid S75 claim against your credit card company.

What was the actual issue you had? A chargeback can often be more successful when PayPal has been used as long as its a reason allowable under the scheme and you can convince your bank to do one.

chipfatbob

I should elaborate: I engaged a company to write a CV and paid £390, as they billed themselves as a bespoke service, written by industry specialists. (I am aware that Paypal does not cover beskope goods)

The CV they delivered was overwhelmingly compiled from copy I had written, my old CV and copy they had taken from my Linkedin profile, without authorisation. When I complained, they refused to answer my questions and stopped responding. Paypal turned down my claim and the CC has just done the same, on the basis the transaction was handled by Paypal. I had not received the service I had contracted for and had the transaction been direct, rather than through Paypal, I would have a claim under section 75.

To answer your question on the other thread, I suspect that if Paypal were required to put a disclosure on their payment portal, warning consumers that their S75 rights to claim from a CC (if they were funding Paypal from one) would be nullified, I suspect many would think twice about using Paypal for higher-value transactions.

Going forward, I will not be using Paypal for any purchases I cant afford to write-off. As previously stated, I have learned my lesson; I hope others will learn from my example

wealdroam

chipfatbob wrote: »

Going forward, I will not be using Paypal for any purchases I cant afford to write-off. As previously stated, I have learned my lesson; I hope others will learn from my example

I think that is a bit of an over reaction.

Yes, that is probably wise for services, and intangibles, but Paypal's Buyer Protection has some good points.

agrinnall

£390 for a CV :shocked:

SuperHan

chipfatbob wrote: »

The CV they delivered was overwhelmingly compiled from copy I had written, my old CV and copy they had taken from my Linkedin profile, without authorisation.

To be fair, what did you expect?

They were writing YOUR CV and all they know about you is what you told them.

And I don't think anything you put on LinkedIn is private or confidential, so they are within their rights to use that public information about you.

InsideInsurance

This is not a "PayPal" issue but a "middleman" one.

Per my previous post, your S75 rights are fully intact but S75 only covers you for the services/products of the company you paid and had a contract with.

Your payment was not to the CV writing company it was to PayPal with the instruction that they send the same amount of money to the CV writing company. You have full S75 rights against the company you paid with the card but that is PayPal.

Its the same if you pay a travel agent by credit card to book a hotel for you. If the travel agent does something wrong, eg books the wrong hotel, you have S75 against them. If the travel agent books it but the hotel's oversold itself and rather than giving you the President Suite you've booked gives you a bed in the store cupboard under the stairs then you have no S75 claim as you didnt pay the hotel company with the card.

To be honest S75 is a throwback from a different time and really just needs to be scrapped as its theory for being falls down when such a high percentage of people have regulated lines of credit and anyone can setup an account to start accepting credit card payments within minutes.

I note you also ignore my suggestion of doing a chargeback for defective services

chipfatbob

My apologies, again, but I have no idea what a 'chargeback' is.

Would you be so kind as to explain it?

wealdroam

chipfatbob wrote: »

My apologies, again, but I have no idea what a 'chargeback' is.

Would you be so kind as to explain it?

Read this MSE Chargeback article.

InsideInsurance

chipfatbob wrote: »

My apologies, again, but I have no idea what a 'chargeback' is.

Would you be so kind as to explain it?

S75 - your bank pays you out of their own money, is a statutory requirement, they then have the right to attempt to recover the money from the merchant. It covers any liabilities the merchant has to you even if they exceed the transaction value. The "merchant" is strictly the company you pay (ie PayPal in this case)

Chargeback - is paid out of the merchant's banks money, its part of the scheme rules for cards not a statute and only covers certain circumstances and to a limit of the transaction value. The "merchant" is much more open to interpretation and doesnt tend to get broken by middlemen like PayPal

Needless to say given one of these doesnt come from your banks pocket and so they are more likely to support

Paully232000

chipfatbob wrote: »

I should elaborate: I engaged a company to write a CV and paid £390, as they billed themselves as a bespoke service, written by industry specialists. (I am aware that Paypal does not cover beskope goods)

The CV they delivered was overwhelmingly compiled from copy I had written, my old CV and copy they had taken from my Linkedin profile, without authorisation. When I complained, they refused to answer my questions and stopped responding. Paypal turned down my claim and the CC has just done the same, on the basis the transaction was handled by Paypal. I had not received the service I had contracted for and had the transaction been direct, rather than through Paypal, I would have a claim under section 75.

To answer your question on the other thread, I suspect that if Paypal were required to put a disclosure on their payment portal, warning consumers that their S75 rights to claim from a CC (if they were funding Paypal from one) would be nullified, I suspect many would think twice about using Paypal for higher-value transactions.

Going forward, I will not be using Paypal for any purchases I cant afford to write-off. As previously stated, I have learned my lesson; I hope others will learn from my example

Don't refuse to use Paypal in the future as, in general they are a good way of safely paying for goods online. You even admit yourself that they don't cover bespoke services, which is what you bought.

and as an aside, £390 for a CV is £390 too much