Sec 75 PayPal

Paveway

Hello. I have a question about the use of PayPal and section 75 protection. Though i understand that the use of Third Parties is a little tricky and often no protection is offered, we are struggling to make a payment any other way. 
My Fiance and I are trying  to book a wedding package in the US for 2022 (delayed a year due to Covid), but the company has sent an invoice through PayPal. They do not seem to use another service. Can anyone provide an answer to this predicament as i really do not wish to gamble any money without protection. Also, if only part of the invoice was paid directly, would the remainder, paid by PayPal be protected as in the UK with Partial Payments. 

Many thanks

Sandtree

PayPal do two types of payment models... the vast majority of their business is a paypal to paypal account payment and a small amount is traditional merchant services. With the later you have full S75 protection as you'd imagine. With the more common former model the problem is you pay PayPal to pay the Merchant and so you have S75 protection but only if PayPal didn't pay the merchant. You don't have onward S75 with whatever the Merchant is providing to you because of the middleman.

You'd only need to pay some of the money directly via credit card to get protection but if they don't accept cards directly then thats not going to work. 

The other obvious option is to buy wedding insurance

gt94sss2

Expect your credit card company to say you're not covered by Section 75 protection if you use PayPal and plan on that basis. 
As has been suggested, consider specialist insurance

happy_hazelnuts

if they ONLY take paypal i would not touch them with a bargepole - whatever that is.....

Paveway

Sandtree said:

PayPal do two types of payment models... the vast majority of their business is a paypal to paypal account payment and a small amount is traditional merchant services. With the later you have full S75 protection as you'd imagine. With the more common former model the problem is you pay PayPal to pay the Merchant and so you have S75 protection but only if PayPal didn't pay the merchant. You don't have onward S75 with whatever the Merchant is providing to you because of the middleman.

You'd only need to pay some of the money directly via credit card to get protection but if they don't accept cards directly then thats not going to work. 

The other obvious option is to buy wedding insurance

Sandtree said:

PayPal do two types of payment models... the vast majority of their business is a paypal to paypal account payment and a small amount is traditional merchant services. With the later you have full S75 protection as you'd imagine. With the more common former model the problem is you pay PayPal to pay the Merchant and so you have S75 protection but only if PayPal didn't pay the merchant. You don't have onward S75 with whatever the Merchant is providing to you because of the middleman.

You'd only need to pay some of the money directly via credit card to get protection but if they don't accept cards directly then thats not going to work. 

The other obvious option is to buy wedding insurance

How do i know what model they are using  ?

Sandtree

Paveway said:
How do i know what model they are using  ?

I don't, nor do I speculate which of the two models it is. I point out that there is two, that protection only exists for one and the massively more common one doesn't give protection for the reasons above.

I don't even know if its possible to send a PayPal Invoice via it's Merchant Services option (it certainly is possible on the other model).

Given the topic is reopened, I'd also point out that Wedding insurance would cover many things that S75 wouldn't... if you were sick and unable to hold the ceremony then S75 wouldn't respond but wedding insurance would.

happy_hazelnuts

You have to ask yourself what kind of company does not have credit card services

it may be that they are too small to have it or they have been refused it for some reason or other.

Or they just don't want to give their customers the protection of section 75 or chargeback and although Paypal does have purchase protection it is probably not as strong as credit card protection

in any case it is a bit of a red flag so just double check who you are dealing with before you pay them any money via paypal.

SnowTiger

Paveway said:

Sandtree said:

PayPal do two types of payment models... the vast majority of their business is a paypal to paypal account payment and a small amount is traditional merchant services. With the later you have full S75 protection as you'd imagine. With the more common former model the problem is you pay PayPal to pay the Merchant and so you have S75 protection but only if PayPal didn't pay the merchant. You don't have onward S75 with whatever the Merchant is providing to you because of the middleman.

You'd only need to pay some of the money directly via credit card to get protection but if they don't accept cards directly then thats not going to work. 

The other obvious option is to buy wedding insurance

Sandtree said:

PayPal do two types of payment models... the vast majority of their business is a paypal to paypal account payment and a small amount is traditional merchant services. With the later you have full S75 protection as you'd imagine. With the more common former model the problem is you pay PayPal to pay the Merchant and so you have S75 protection but only if PayPal didn't pay the merchant. You don't have onward S75 with whatever the Merchant is providing to you because of the middleman.

You'd only need to pay some of the money directly via credit card to get protection but if they don't accept cards directly then thats not going to work. 

The other obvious option is to buy wedding insurance

How do i know what model they are using  ?

That's a problem that's been puzzling a lot of people for a long time.

I think...

If you're offered the option (whether you do so or not) to log in to your Paypal account when you make payment you won't be covered by S75.  That's because you're paying PayPal who then pay the wedding company.

I bought some allergy pills a few weeks ago.  This entry appeared on my credit card statement: 
PAYPAL *PHARMACY1ST

That payment (if it was over £100) wouldn't have been covered by S75 because I made it to PAYPAL.

However, I think the transaction would have been covered by S75 if its entry on my credit card statement read:
PHARMACY1ST

I guess you could make a $1/£1 transaction and see how it appears on your statement.

PAYPAL *WEDDING COMPANY = no to S75 cover;
WEDDING COMPANY = yes to S75 cover.

That is guesswork.  As others have mentioned, wedding insurance is probably the way to go.  Lots of things can go wrong when it comes to weddings.

Sandtree

happy_hazelnuts said:

You have to ask yourself what kind of company does not have credit card services 

You have to also consider that this is an international transaction. Whilst in the UK, and in particular right now, so much is paid by cards and even one man bands have iZettle etc that isn't the same everywhere.

America is surprisingly backwards at times, going to a Manhattan restaurant (so equiv of somewhere in the City of London's finance district) not that long ago when it came to pay I took out my credit card that is chip and pin but the card numbers printed on the back rather than embossed on the front but they turned up with the old carbon paper swipe machine so refused my card as without embossed numbers it wouldn't transfer the card number. 

Not only that they are very insular so maybe thinking that dealing with the dodgy people outside their borders they're better off with the protections of PayPal rather than very higher international fees from their acquirer. Plus they may have a machine for on site sales like iZettle which doesn't allow "cardholder not present" transactions. 

Paveway

Thanks for the comments guys. The reason i have been given regarding the credit card, is that they don`t wish to hold credit card details. 
Dave

MalMonroe

Paveway said:

Thanks for the comments guys. The reason i have been given regarding the credit card, is that they don`t wish to hold credit card details. 
Dave

Doesn't PayPal have its own payment protection? More info on the PayPal page but there's a link here : https://!!!!!!/3eI50DD