Paypal chargeback, paypal charging £14 on top

juicyb

Hi all.

Is there anything that can be done about the chargebacks on paypal.

I have been doing eBay for about 5 years now, occasionally over time the odd buyer does a chargeback... and because there is nothing you can really do, i used to just refund them and take the hit on it.

I didn't seem to get any for over a year but the about a month ago, i had a chargeback on the grounds of 'they did not authorise the payment', it was for about £3, (chances are that the buyer is frauding rather than being frauded!) but anyway, i thought its only £3, and we have no choice but to accept liability because no one sends a £3 item recorded which is the minimum requirement for getting protected... then i was surprised to see on the email that followed that paypal decide to charge £14 on top for an admin fee! its disgusting, not only am i a victim of fraud... losing the product and postage costs etc... but then i am charged £14 on top!

Well i had a look across the internet and it appears i am not alone, people suggested different bits but it seems there is nothing we can do. Anyway, i got another one 2 weeks ago, instead of accepting liability... i tried to fight this one because i can cope with the losing £2.50 for the transaction, but i think its wrong to get charged £14 on top... well, my fight fell on death ears... i have just had the £2.50 and £14 extra taken out of my paypal account again.

It seems so moralistically wrong, but really i am wondering if this is technically legal to take £14 off someone who is clearly the victim? is there anything that can be done because it is so wrong.... i hope Martin knows about this himself as i am sure if there is something to stop it happening... he would be the one to know about it. Any help from anyone would be appreciated

George_Michael

juicyb wrote: »

and we have no choice but to accept liability because no one sends a £3 item recorded which is the minimum requirement for getting protected... paypal account again.

That's incorrect.
The minimum that you need to fight a chargeback for unauthorised payment is proof of postage and this can be a free certificate of posting from the Post Office provided that it shows at a minimum the date of posting and the intended recpients postcode.

bxboards

I have always felt that it is indefensible that a seller who does not process the credit card payment and does not have any knowledge of how a buyer pays - Paypal do say we never share your payment info with the seller! - can be liable for this. It stinks and always has.

There is some protection if you have proof of postage, but for low value items, many people just pop them in the letterbox.

I have had two chargebacks, and I started small claims procedings against both - one buyer let her son play with an iPad and buy stuff and rather than return the 'unathorised purchase' just filed chargeback willy nilly. I know of at least 15 other victims of this one buyer. That felt like out and out fraud to me.

juicyb

Thanks for your reply, we send about 40 parcels/ large letters per day using a franking machine. So getting proof of postage for everything isn't feasible. One of the main benefits of using a franking machine is 'no more queueing in the post office', saving a good half our per day. to get proof of postage for them all would involve queueing up again and then them going through each parcel 1 by 1 to fill out the proof of postage. probably would add on 3 hours plus to our week, which from a business point of view is £20 + labour.

I cannot justify it for the amount of money it will save, because if a parcel goes missing, thats another 30 minutes work filling out the information and getting the back up together to claim with royal mail.

getting back to the chargeback reasons, from what i have read, even with a proof of postage, paypal 'fight' the chargeback but still it doesn't stop the chargeback and the same end result happens, just paypal look like they are trying to help. from other peoples experiences, the only way the seller wins this is by having tracking information.

If paypal are allowed to charge a seller £14 every time a buyer does a claimback, why would they care who wins? Does the £14 go in payrolls pockets? if it is admin fees then the first time when i just agreed liability... what did paypal have to do? probably nothing because it was all automatic. Maybe this time when i tried to challenge it, one member of staff probably spent 5 minutes looking before just deciding, 'nope, no leg to stand on' then clicked a button to agree the chargeback.

bxboards

juicyb wrote: »

T
getting back to the chargeback reasons, from what i have read, even with a proof of postage, paypal 'fight' the chargeback but still it doesn't stop the chargeback and the same end result happens, just paypal look like they are trying to help. from other peoples experiences, the only way the seller wins this is by having tracking information.

You need proof of postage to the buyer's address that appears on the Paypal transaction. You do not need to prove delivery in this case. If your franking machine produces end of day output or anything similar, that would be enough for you.

juicyb

I agree BX, i feel like these buyers need to be made an example of, in my eyes it is theft and fraud. but it is common knowledge that people get away with it, maybe if law got involved and it made the news that they actually got done for fraud, it may make people think twice.

I understand someone has to take the hit for the transaction, i can deal with that. but the £14 on top is unfair. we pay paypal on every transaction, it all adds up, so on the odd occasion that they actually have to get involved, the fees we pay on every transaction should cover this.

juicyb

I don't think its possible on franking machine (especially our franking machine) all we have the ability to do is print of stamps as such, we never have to put in addresses and i don't think they have the ability to store this king of data, so the most we could probably get out of it is a date, and quantity of uk large letter, qty of parcels etc

campdave

juicyb wrote: »

If paypal are allowed to charge a seller £14 every time a buyer does a claimback, why would they care who wins? Does the £14 go in payrolls pockets? if it is admin fees then the first time when i just agreed liability... what did paypal have to do? probably nothing because it was all automatic. Maybe this time when i tried to challenge it, one member of staff probably spent 5 minutes looking before just deciding, 'nope, no leg to stand on' then clicked a button to agree the chargeback.

Read the T&C you agreed to when opening your paypal account.

If you're not getting POP, you're not abiding by paypal's rules for seller protection in case of chargeback. You either do it or you don't.

You can download bulk POP forms from the Royal Mail website and get them stamped when you hand your post in. It's up to you to decide if the time you spend doing that is worth the money you will save in chargebacks.

Some people forget Paypal are a business. They are charged to move money from cards to our accounts, and when a customer opens a chargeback with their bank, Paypal are likely to be hit with a fee - I'm 100% sure they make a profit out of the fee, but they are a business, so be it.

If you don't like Paypal's policies, use a different system.

bxboards

campdave wrote: »

Read the T&C you agreed to when opening your paypal account.


If you don't like Paypal's policies, use a different system.

A lot of people said similar things when Amazon tried to force price parity. Just because something is written in T&C's it doesn't make it legal. 'If you don't like Amazon sell somewhere else...' comments were abound.

I think that posts that say 'if you don't like it, use something else' pretty pointless - even more so on a site that is all about MoneySaving.

ballisticbrian

I must admit, we use franking and in 4 years have had two chargebacks both for a couple of quid. Have I simply not noticed the £14 charge, or is it a new thing?
I can only think I could have missed it if it was buried in a statement somewhere. I certainly never got an email telling me I was being charged a £14 fee?
One positive thing I can suggest is, with franking, we fill out a POP and get it stamped for our airmail. Firstly, it means I cover the items with the expensive postage, and secondly these have to be handed over separately at the post office anyway. One of those two chargebacks I mentioned was on airmail you see.

George_Michael

bxboards wrote: »

You need proof of postage to the buyer's address that appears on the Paypal transaction. You do not need to prove delivery in this case. If your franking machine produces end of day output or anything similar, that would be enough for you.

According to Paypal, the proof of postage must be supplied from the shipping company.
All that an end of day report from a franking machine will prove is that something was franked and not that something was ever posted.