Paypal and small claims court

Sam1224

Could someone please confirm whether it’s possible to include the seller who scammed me as a 2nd defendant within the same court case along with PayPal without having his UK address!

I only have his full name and his PayPal email address and the PayPal full details, I can’t get his UK address from eBay as he is not registered with them and PayPal are not willing to provide such an information.

The case will be raised via Money Claim Online (MCOL) which allows to include 2 defendants.

Please let me know.

Thanks

waamo

You need an address to serve papers on. With the information you have you could employ tracing agents to find him. This typically costs less than £50 but you have to bear in mind would it be worth it? You may be throwing good money after bad.

forgotmyname

There are websites to trace people, not always 100% reliable. Seems the better ones have vanished since the GDPR.

But Ancestry, Family Search, Genes Reuinited. They may work. But without a date of birth your going to need to do some finger work.

Sam1224

Hi guys,

The case was sent to PayPal registered London office but I still haven’t heard from them.

Shall I send them a soft copy by email as well to ensure that they have received it!

Please let me know.
Thanks

waamo

Service by email isn't a valid method of service so no don't.

If they don't reply that's their problem.

Stel_k

PayPal has blocked £27,000 from our business account that has 0 disputes!

Since we first started our company 3 years ago, we've only ever used PayPal to process 100% of our transactions. From a total of close to 10,000 transactions we've only had 5 or 6 people ever try to request refunds and each of these people were proved to be lying and the disputes were awarded in our favor. From this perspective we’d consider ourselves to be a 'good' PayPal customer.

On Saturday 6th October we tried to withdraw £7,000 (from a £27,000 PayPal balance) to the company bank account associated with our PayPal account. These funds were needed in order to pay one of our customers via a bank transfer immediately. It was the first time in our company's history that we've tried to withdraw funds to our bank account as until then we've always kept them in our PayPal account. PayPal's system notified us that the withdrawal needs to pass through some security checks so as a concerned customer I contacted PayPal and spoke with a very helpful representative named 'Chris' who after looking at the situation wrote me an email confirming that the funds will be in our bank account by no later than Monday morning. I forwarded this email to our customer in order to prove to him that it was PayPal who was responsible for holding back the payment but that they had also confirmed in writing that we had more than enough funds on our account to cover the transaction and that the funds would arrive in our account by Monday morning. Based on this confirmation our customer released a car that we had purchased.

An hour or two later, a different PayPal representative called me to discuss the increased volume of business we were doing. I explained that we have new customers and things are going very well and that we expect our revenue to continue to grow. This is what any young start-up hope for!

Hours later I’m informed that payments on our platform are no longer working. I then learn that PayPal have imposed an Account Limitation on our company account meaning that we can no longer receive payments, we can no longer make payments and we can no longer access the £27,000 credit that we have on our account. If our customers cannot make purchases, our entire business stops immediately!

The facts
In their email to us they quote the reason for the Account Limitation is "Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for activities that involve an entry fee and a prize, such as raffles, drawings or lotteries. Due to applicable laws and industry regulations, we do not offer approval for these types of transactions.”.

We were aware of this policy and prior to developing our platform 3 years ago we discussed what we do and how we would use PayPal to process transactions. We sell non-refundable ‘virtual currency’ called ‘Raffall Credit’ that can only be used to enter the competitions on our platform.

The PayPal transactions are NOT used to send or receive payments that involve an entry fee or a prize. Furthermore, our platform does not facilitate raffles or lotteries.

Complaints department
On Saturday evening I spoke with ‘Granya’ from the complaints department and after providing this information and explaining the situation, she understood the situation and suggested that although not her decision, based on the new information provided it would seem likely that the Account Limitation would be removed.

On Sunday morning I spoke with someone else from the Limitations Department who also said that after reading Granya’s notes and going over things with me, that I should not worry and that based on the information provided, its likely that the problem would be resolved. He said that some limitations have ‘No appeal’ status where ours did not.

On Sunday afternoon I received an email from ‘Paul’ from the Brand Risk Management department saying “At this time, the limitation on your PayPal account cannot be removed until the below issues are resolved.”. There was no mention or reference to the information I had provided with PayPal so we had no idea if our information has been received and/or reviewed.

We called PayPal again and spoke with ‘Paul’ from the Limitations Department who informed me that ‘Paul from the Brand Risk Management’ team was not working on Sunday that caused further confusion as we had just received an email from him. However, after explaining the situation in great detail to Paul, he also agreed that based on the information I provided, he will request that the situation be reviewed again and I had no need to worry as it should not count as grounds for an Account Limitation due to what’s been mentioned earlier on in this letter. He said he has a friend working in the Brand Risk Management team that was working now so he immediately contacted him via your internal messaging/email service and asked him to look over all of the notes on the system. He also suggested that he would contact another department so that we could receive an approval so that this could never happen again further down the line in the future. Paul said he would contact me later on and although he was due to finish work at 18:30, he would be working later due to his workload. Paul was extremely helpful and understanding. However he didn’t call me back as promised and nothing has been resolved until now.

Summary
Our company has £3,000 left in our bank account as well as the £27,000 balance in our PayPal accounts. We rely on this money to operate our business.

Because PayPal guaranteed in writing that the money would be in our account on Monday, our supplier released a car without payment from us. We owe the supplier £7,269.20 but now cannot pay him.

Blocking money
PayPal say that they can keep our money for up to 180 days and in order to safeguard them against ‘chargebacks and disputes. This is because most PayPal transactions are for a sale/purchase of physical goods that involve shipping and can often be disputed at a later date by either party.

However, due to the fact that we sell a digital currency that is automatically received by the buyer immediately after a successful payment, there is no risk of them disputing delivery of the purchased item and for this reason we believe that we have a valid argument to request the immediate release of our funds. (We also believe that our account history verifies this.)

Complicit
Another valid argument on our side is that from nearly 10,000 transactions we’ve had less than 10 customers try to request refunds and on each occasion PayPal has awarded the dispute in our favor. This proves two things. 1) PayPal was aware of what we are selling, and 2) they must therefore be aware that there can be no disputes from customers saying that they didn’t receive their items meaning that PayPal have no legal right to hold on to our money.

Compensation
In the past 2 months we’ve been talking to potential investors looking to invest into our company. We’re still considered a ‘startup’ and due to the fact that we’re operating in a space that’s highly regulated and open to abuse and mistrust, it’s been incredibly difficult to reach the stage where we’re at today.

Not only do we need access to our money to continue trading, we also need to maintain the high level of trust that we’ve spent all of these years building within the area that we operate in. We developed our platform to combat the abuse and mistrust within the competition space. Our entire mission was to create a safe and secure platform for all users and one that cannot be cheated or manipulated. And now, due to PayPal, we are the ones that cannot pay our customer due to them holding our funds after they specifically wrote to us confirming that they would be in our account on the Monday.

We have borrowed some money to pay back part of the debt. However this doesn’t help the customer and our problem with PayPal isn’t his fault. If he makes a complaint public, then our company is finished. If he takes legal action to retrieve his money, our company goes bankrupt.

This one customer is responsible for £20,000 revenue per week. This is revenue we're no longer receiving.

Due to PayPal’s actions, all trading has stopped and we now don’t have enough funds to pay developers to implement alternative payment options that are needed for us to start trading again.

Over the past 2 months we’ve been in talks with investors considering investing a considerable amount of money in our company at a valuation of £5m. When a company's sales revenue grows rapidly (as ours has been doing in recent weeks), it puts us in a stronger negotiating position that can lead to better terms and a higher valuation (which means giving away less equity which could potetial be worth millions of pounds further down the line). When sales stop, it immediately rings alarm bells and highlights problems that causes the exact opposite! I'm at the final stages of negotiation now and my negotiating position has been severly damaged.



Do we have a strong legal case to seek grounds for compensation? I’m not a lawyer, but I'd like to think that we do. In the very least surely we have the right to demand our own money get paid immediately?


I would be delighted to hear from lawyers as well as from anyone else that can provide an opinion, advice or some feedback regarding my situation!
P.S. Sorry for the length of this post!

P.S.S.
Our platform generates a lot of money for good causes and charity. Much of the money in our PayPal account is due to be paid to Cancer Research UK. PayPal are effectively stealing money from them as well as us!

ThumbRemote

Stel_k wrote: »

I would be delighted to hear from lawyers as well as from anyone else that can provide an opinion, advice or some feedback regarding my situation!

Anyone can provide an opinion. However, in this case you really do need specialist legal advice, and should consult a professional.

soolin

Stel_k wrote: »

PayPal has blocked £27,000 from our business account that has 0 disputes!

Since we first started our company 3 years ago, we've only ever used PayPal to process 100% of our transactions. From a total of close to 10,000 transactions we've only had 5 or 6 people ever try to request refunds and each of these people were proved to be lying and the disputes were awarded in our favor. From this perspective we’d consider ourselves to be a 'good' PayPal customer.

On Saturday 6th October we tried to withdraw £7,000 (from a £27,000 PayPal balance) to the company bank account associated with our PayPal account. These funds were needed in order to pay one of our customers via a bank transfer immediately. It was the first time in our company's history that we've tried to withdraw funds to our bank account as until then we've always kept them in our PayPal account. PayPal's system notified us that the withdrawal needs to pass through some security checks so as a concerned customer I contacted PayPal and spoke with a very helpful representative named 'Chris' who after looking at the situation wrote me an email confirming that the funds will be in our bank account by no later than Monday morning. I forwarded this email to our customer in order to prove to him that it was PayPal who was responsible for holding back the payment but that they had also confirmed in writing that we had more than enough funds on our account to cover the transaction and that the funds would arrive in our account by Monday morning. Based on this confirmation our customer released a car that we had purchased.

An hour or two later, a different PayPal representative called me to discuss the increased volume of business we were doing. I explained that we have new customers and things are going very well and that we expect our revenue to continue to grow. This is what any young start-up hope for!

Hours later I’m informed that payments on our platform are no longer working. I then learn that PayPal have imposed an Account Limitation on our company account meaning that we can no longer receive payments, we can no longer make payments and we can no longer access the £27,000 credit that we have on our account. If our customers cannot make purchases, our entire business stops immediately!

The facts
In their email to us they quote the reason for the Account Limitation is "Under the Acceptable Use Policy, PayPal may not be used to send or receive payments for activities that involve an entry fee and a prize, such as raffles, drawings or lotteries. Due to applicable laws and industry regulations, we do not offer approval for these types of transactions.”.

We were aware of this policy and prior to developing our platform 3 years ago we discussed what we do and how we would use PayPal to process transactions. We sell non-refundable ‘virtual currency’ called ‘Raffall Credit’ that can only be used to enter the competitions on our platform.

The PayPal transactions are NOT used to send or receive payments that involve an entry fee or a prize. Furthermore, our platform does not facilitate raffles or lotteries.

Complaints department
On Saturday evening I spoke with ‘Granya’ from the complaints department and after providing this information and explaining the situation, she understood the situation and suggested that although not her decision, based on the new information provided it would seem likely that the Account Limitation would be removed.

On Sunday morning I spoke with someone else from the Limitations Department who also said that after reading Granya’s notes and going over things with me, that I should not worry and that based on the information provided, its likely that the problem would be resolved. He said that some limitations have ‘No appeal’ status where ours did not.

On Sunday afternoon I received an email from ‘Paul’ from the Brand Risk Management department saying “At this time, the limitation on your PayPal account cannot be removed until the below issues are resolved.”. There was no mention or reference to the information I had provided with PayPal so we had no idea if our information has been received and/or reviewed.

We called PayPal again and spoke with ‘Paul’ from the Limitations Department who informed me that ‘Paul from the Brand Risk Management’ team was not working on Sunday that caused further confusion as we had just received an email from him. However, after explaining the situation in great detail to Paul, he also agreed that based on the information I provided, he will request that the situation be reviewed again and I had no need to worry as it should not count as grounds for an Account Limitation due to what’s been mentioned earlier on in this letter. He said he has a friend working in the Brand Risk Management team that was working now so he immediately contacted him via your internal messaging/email service and asked him to look over all of the notes on the system. He also suggested that he would contact another department so that we could receive an approval so that this could never happen again further down the line in the future. Paul said he would contact me later on and although he was due to finish work at 18:30, he would be working later due to his workload. Paul was extremely helpful and understanding. However he didn’t call me back as promised and nothing has been resolved until now.

Summary
Our company has £3,000 left in our bank account as well as the £27,000 balance in our PayPal accounts. We rely on this money to operate our business.

Because PayPal guaranteed in writing that the money would be in our account on Monday, our supplier released a car without payment from us. We owe the supplier £7,269.20 but now cannot pay him.

Blocking money
PayPal say that they can keep our money for up to 180 days and in order to safeguard them against ‘chargebacks and disputes. This is because most PayPal transactions are for a sale/purchase of physical goods that involve shipping and can often be disputed at a later date by either party.

However, due to the fact that we sell a digital currency that is automatically received by the buyer immediately after a successful payment, there is no risk of them disputing delivery of the purchased item and for this reason we believe that we have a valid argument to request the immediate release of our funds. (We also believe that our account history verifies this.)

Complicit
Another valid argument on our side is that from nearly 10,000 transactions we’ve had less than 10 customers try to request refunds and on each occasion PayPal has awarded the dispute in our favor. This proves two things. 1) PayPal was aware of what we are selling, and 2) they must therefore be aware that there can be no disputes from customers saying that they didn’t receive their items meaning that PayPal have no legal right to hold on to our money.

Compensation
In the past 2 months we’ve been talking to potential investors looking to invest into our company. We’re still considered a ‘startup’ and due to the fact that we’re operating in a space that’s highly regulated and open to abuse and mistrust, it’s been incredibly difficult to reach the stage where we’re at today.

Not only do we need access to our money to continue trading, we also need to maintain the high level of trust that we’ve spent all of these years building within the area that we operate in. We developed our platform to combat the abuse and mistrust within the competition space. Our entire mission was to create a safe and secure platform for all users and one that cannot be cheated or manipulated. And now, due to PayPal, we are the ones that cannot pay our customer due to them holding our funds after they specifically wrote to us confirming that they would be in our account on the Monday.

We have borrowed some money to pay back part of the debt. However this doesn’t help the customer and our problem with PayPal isn’t his fault. If he makes a complaint public, then our company is finished. If he takes legal action to retrieve his money, our company goes bankrupt.

This one customer is responsible for £20,000 revenue per week. This is revenue we're no longer receiving.

Due to PayPal’s actions, all trading has stopped and we now don’t have enough funds to pay developers to implement alternative payment options that are needed for us to start trading again.

Over the past 2 months we’ve been in talks with investors considering investing a considerable amount of money in our company at a valuation of £5m. When a company's sales revenue grows rapidly (as ours has been doing in recent weeks), it puts us in a stronger negotiating position that can lead to better terms and a higher valuation (which means giving away less equity which could potetial be worth millions of pounds further down the line). When sales stop, it immediately rings alarm bells and highlights problems that causes the exact opposite! I'm at the final stages of negotiation now and my negotiating position has been severly damaged.



Do we have a strong legal case to seek grounds for compensation? I’m not a lawyer, but I'd like to think that we do. In the very least surely we have the right to demand our own money get paid immediately?


I would be delighted to hear from lawyers as well as from anyone else that can provide an opinion, advice or some feedback regarding my situation!
P.S. Sorry for the length of this post!

P.S.S.
Our platform generates a lot of money for good causes and charity. Much of the money in our PayPal account is due to be paid to Cancer Research UK. PayPal are effectively stealing money from them as well as us!

You would be better off starting your own thread rather than hijacking an existing one. Ask the BG on this board to move it for you.

If you want legal advice then you will need to look elsewhere, this is just an Internet forum , no one on here can give you proper legal advice.

Lastly, under the heading THE FACTs you have your explanation as to why your funds are being held. Your site appears to be exactly what PayPal say is not allowed, so they need to protect potential buyers by holding funds for the 180 days that a chargeback is allowed.

Generally though keeping large balances in PayPal is never recommended.

[Deleted User]

Stel_k wrote: »

I would be delighted to hear from lawyers

I'm sure you would.

However, legal professionals are very likely to keep their opinions to themselves unless you actually employ them.

agrinnall

Stel_k wrote: »

PayPal has blocked £27,000 from our business account that has 0 disputes!

It is therefore not a Consumer Rights issue, legal advice that you pay for is the route you should be taking.