Ebay Unauthorised Transaction, being stiffed by PayPal?

akira181

I sold a epic games key on ebay, the buyer payed and I sent the key via ebay message (as paypal don't provide the buyers email and recommends contacting the buyer via ebay).

A little under 24 hours later, I get a generic email from ebay saying "eBay listings removed - unauthorised user of buyer or bidder account" from a No.reply email. The email also says contact them before providing a refund even though there's no option to actually do so in the email. A disgraceful and frankly amateurish way for a company to communicate potential fraud cases.

The buyer has also filed a refund claim on PayPal saying they did not make the purchase and I have sent a screenshot of my message to the buyers ebay account as proof of delivery. I've looked over PP seller protection and it says services such as digital software are not covered.

A quick google seems to suggest that PP side with the buyer the majority of the time in cases like this (albeit from fairly old posts). If PP refund the buyer and push that cost onto me (waiting on their response to mine), are they not just facilitating scammers as I will be out of pocket and the item down?

I use secure and unique passwords for all my accounts, never use public computers, and have my antivirus software set to auto-update and daily scans. I've done everything as I was supposed to and because the buyer was hacked (or claims they were hacked as they cannot prove it), I'm the one that has to bear the consequences? Don't PP or eBay have some responsibility in this? Surely they should have insurances to protect buyer AND seller?

shaun_from_Africa

akira181 wrote: »

Don't PP or eBay have some responsibility in this? Surely they should have insurances to protect buyer AND seller?

They do have both buyer and seller protection policies but as with anything like this, there are always going to be terms and conditions.
There are certain exclusions for seller protection and one of these is items that have been digitally delivered (such as an e-mail attachment).

akira181 wrote: »

I have sent a screenshot of my message to the buyers ebay account as proof of delivery.

An e-mail doesn't qualify as proof of delivery. It need to be proof of a physical, not electronic delivery or when the buyer claims an unauthorised purchase, proof of postage is good enough.

Hermione_Granger

akira181 wrote: »

I've done everything as I was supposed to and because the buyer was hacked (or claims they were hacked as they cannot prove it), I'm the one that has to bear the consequences?

Everything apart from reading up on the Paypal protection policy for sellers and ensuring that you complied with the requirements for this.
You have to bear the consequences because you failed to protect yourself and why should Paypal be expected to cover the loss for this?

akira181

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

An e-mail doesn't qualify as proof of delivery. It need to be proof of a physical, not electronic delivery or when the buyer claims an unauthorised purchase, proof of postage is good enough.

If I sent a CD key through the post though, I would just get buyer complaints for long delivery times when an email is sufficient. Considering that all complaints and such are handled purely via email, there's no reason why a digital item cannot be delivered in the same way. I can hardly fake an electronic communication to the buyers account on their servers

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Everything apart from reading up on the Paypal protection policy for sellers and ensuring that you complied with the requirements for this.
You have to bear the consequences because you failed to protect yourself and why should Paypal be expected to cover the loss for this?

Because they should be ensuring that users of their accounts are genuine. They offer 2 step verification to prevent things like this. Why wasn't the buyer doing everything they should to prevent fraud?

They don't even ask the buyer to prove their account was hacked. If someone steals your bank card and make fraudulent transactions, the bank cover you. They don't pass sole responsibility onto the merchant. So any dishonest tom, !!!! or harry can buy a service from eBay, claim fraud, and paypal will refund them, no questions asked. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if this is what happened in this case.

Also, their T&Cs exclude quite a lot of stuff for Seller Protection. Any service (including software and digital items) are not covered by their seller protection, so the only real option was to not sell it on eBay, which makes the whole thing reduntant anyway.

[Deleted User]

I think alot of it boils down to the kind of markets you sell within. Each will have mostly genuine customers whilst a small percentage fruadulent but it changes with the types of items being sold and I do see this happening quite alot with digital transactions so you have to factor this into what your selling and whether it's worth continuing or offering a reduced price if sent via CD and slightly more expensive if digital and that way the increase can in some way cover the odd customer that tries it on. If this is a first for you then you might just have to take the hit and see how regularly this occurs and take it from there as to whether you carry on selling via ebay or change the method of sending.

akira181

It's not a physical CD but a key code to download the game on Epic Games Launcher (same type of thing as Steam Launcher).

Basically Seller Protection has a large list of exclusions, including digital items or software, so you have no protection regardless of how it's delivered. And considering all the cases I've read, PP are quick to side with the buyer, no questions asked, leaving sellers to bear the full brunt of scammers.

Absolute joke, debating closing my PayPal account and refusing to pay the negative £30 balance.

[Deleted User]

yes but can this key still not be saved to disc for the customer to open on their end. You mention it takes time and understandably everyone wants things now these days but if you mentioned in listings that due to a small percentage of fraudulent customers items will now only be delivered via CD you might get a more reasonable customer. It might loose you sales but £30 is quite a hit to take on a regular basis. I don't really know what they cost to buy but you wouldn't want this happening too often. I've also read cases where sellers claim a key has already been used when sent digitally when it hasn't but it's been used their end.

shaun_from_Africa

akira181 wrote: »

because the buyer was hacked (or claims they were hacked as they cannot prove it), I'm the one that has to bear the consequences? Don't PP or eBay have some responsibility in this?

So the buyer is at fault, Paypal are at fault and eBay are at fault.
Is it too much to expect you to take a little bit of responsibility yourself?

akira181 wrote: »

I've done everything as I was supposed to

No you didn't.
If you had done everything as you were supposed to, you would have read up on the requirements for Paypal seller protection, something that you failed to do, leaving yourself wide open to being scammed and are now looking to blame everyone but yourself.

Hermione_Granger

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

So the buyer is at fault, Paypal are at fault and eBay are at fault.
Is it too much to expect you to take a little bit of responsibility yourself?

Personal responsibility for one's own actions or inactions is an alien concept to many people nowadays.

I think it probably started around the same time that the "no win, no fee" lawyers started their advertising campaigns on TV when they were trying to tell everyone that any accident was the fault of someone else and compo could always be claimed.

akira181

It's unbelievable to me that instead of having empathy, people have the attitude that the victim of a scammer is solely responsible for getting scammed and a multi-billion company is entirely free from investigating hacking/fraud.

I knew beforehand that PP had something against digital items being sold but I didn't check because I would have used PP regardless anyway. What other payment options are there? Cheque? Postal order? What decade are you living in?

Anyone that uses eBay knows that PayPal is the main payment method and realistically, if you don't accept PP; your item either doesn't sell, buyer cancels the sale, or you never receive payment. I know this because it's happened multiple times in the past. Considering banks no longer issue cheque books automatically, it's even more the case now. Instead of telling me to take responsibility for using the main payment method, it'll be easier to say don't bother selling anything digital.

If you look on eBay, there's hundreds of digital items for sale accepting PP. What you're saying is that scammers can buy them, then claim they were hacked, PP auto-issues the refund and we can all blame the seller as PP have no responsibility to check that the buyer isn't the actual scammer.

I'll be waiting for eBay to setup Ayden before selling anything again and I certainly won't be using PayPal anymore after this and reading all the issues people have had (not only digital items, "item not as described" apparently leads to auto-refunds, admin fees + return postage if you want it back).

What a world we live in where people choose to blame the defrauded and take the side of a giant corporation shirking their legal responsibilities to investigate fraud. Thankfully I've managed to get the key banned and I'll take the loss as it wasn't much. Unusually, y'all have been thoroughly unhelpful.

shaun_from_Africa

akira181 wrote: »

It's unbelievable to me that instead of having empathy, people have the attitude that the victim of a scammer is solely responsible for getting scammed

Who stated that you were solely responsible? Certainly not me.
What I did say is that you should take some responsibility

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Is it too much to expect you to take a little bit of responsibility yourself?

akira181 wrote: »

I knew beforehand that PP had something against digital items being sold but I didn't check because I would have used PP regardless anyway.

So you clearly admit that you knew there was something regarding digital goods yet you proceeded without looking into this and you still say you did nothing wrong!

akira181 wrote: »

Unusually, y'all have been thoroughly unhelpful.

Well, if you think that telling you how it is rather than how you would like it to be is unhelpful, then maybe this forum isn't for you.