paypal about to sting me for £126.98

cheeseygip

On 19th July I sold a phone on eBay for £126.98 and received an instant payment through PayPal. I posted the phone that day by special delivery. That evening I received an email from a fellow eBay seller warning me not to send the item as PayPal had just taken £500 from her because she sold to this same bloke.

I don't have the email anymore as eBay have cleared my inbox but she told me that this was less than a month before my incident.

On 22nd PayPal emailed me because I "may have received an unauthorised payment". They then sent another email nearly 2 hours later thanking me for "letting us know that you do not have tracking information for
this transaction. Our inquiry remains open and we will let you know when it
is complete." this is ridiculous as I did have tracking information, plus I hadn’t even emailed them back anyway! So god knows where they got that from.

I responded to let them know that I DID have tracking information and gave it to them. On 31st I received an email saying that the investigation was complete and that they have returned the funds to the buyer.
My PayPal balance went down to -£126.98 because I had acted fast and transferred the money to my bank account as soon as the other seller emailed me.

It’s now been nearly 2 months and PayPal have taken no money from me. Although since mid august I have received 3 emails from them saying "To ensure uninterrupted access to your PayPal account, please bring your balance to zero or a positive amount".

15th Sept they emailed me again to say:

"PayPal has made a transfer between the balances in your account for the following reason:

Our policy of converting all negative balances to E after 4 days

The following transfers were made:

Negative balance :
-122.46 GBP
Covered From : 177.08 EUR (1 Euro = 0.691549 British Pounds)

Yours sincerely,
PayPal"

What on earth does that mean? And why are they using the amount of £122.46 instead of £126.98?! I do have 2 PayPal accounts but I have checked the 2nd and the money has not been taken out of there. Nor has it been taken from my bank account (is it legal for them to do that by the way?) the only change is that I cannot log in to my 1st PayPal account anymore so I presume they have cut me off.

16th Sept (day after) they sent a 4th "please bring your balance to zero or a positive amount" email.

I know that small claims is 3 months from the date of the incident and that's approaching... but I have nothing to claim yet. I’m worried they'll take it off me at the last minute so I won't be able to fight them.

Both my accounts were verified but the person I sold the phone to was unconfirmed.

Thanks for any advice.

cheeseygip

Sorry my mistake, I haven't been locked out of the 1st account, they made me change my password when i complained that they had presumed I had no tracking information.

My account now reads:
British Pound (Primary) £0.00 GBP
Euro (Primary) (Closed) -177.08 EUR
Current Total in GBP -£126.25 - another new figure!

pulliptears

cheeseygip wrote: »

Both my accounts were verified but the person I sold the phone to was unconfirmed.

Thanks for any advice.

First rule of Paypal, NEVER post to unconfirmed addresses. I doubt there is little you can do as you broke paypals terms by posting to an unconfirmed, regardless of your tracking number.

Post this in the Ebay forums, Soolin and Fay are whizzes with paypal

Stan_Morris

cheeseygip wrote: »

Sorry my mistake, I haven't been locked out of the 1st account, they made me change my password when i complained that they had presumed I had no tracking information.

My account now reads:
British Pound (Primary) £0.00 GBP
Euro (Primary) (Closed) -177.08 EUR
Current Total in GBP -£126.25 - another new figure!

www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

cheeseygip

thank you stan. i got in contact with the financial ombudsman and they got my money back. it ended up £250 as paypal decided to take more money from me after i had sold a different mobile earlier in the year.

i've gone from constantly being on ebay to not having used ebay or paypal since this incident.

leicsmarkyr

Same happened to me

Sold a tv for about £650 or so and got tracking etc with UPS. Then a few months later, Paypal say well sorry the person never received the item so we want our money back.

I disputed and gave all the details. Eventually the outstanding amount went to a debt agency and they chased me for money. refused to pay as said still in dispute.

Finally got Paypal to agree that I was correct and had the money refunded back; even though had arguments about how much they should give me back.

It looks like the buyer I dealt with scammed loads of people as another Ebayer contacted me and asked if I had lost out. I think he must have scammed £10K at least with what he was buying!!!!

THE_LONE_RANGER_4

this will happen all the more especially with ebay rules and paypall etc i used to be a power seller but sorry there are far to many scammers on there so now its collection of the items i sell and cash on collection etc, i deliver so then i will take paypall so i know where they live if i have any trouble , and i mean that as in legal not going around with my mates.

markelock

I'm surprised more people don't visit the addresses they are scammed from. I'm sure it would reduce the scamming. ebay and paypal are a con. all addresses should be confirmed, and if not, they should underwrite payments (and provide the protection they claim to)