Paypal Scam Victim - Remove Credit Rating Marker

SS116520

Hi,

My daughter recently sold an item on Depop for £60, the buyer paid directly using Paypal, payment arrived and my daughter posted the item to the address provided through Depop.  A couple of weeks later, a third person raised a dispute for the same amount for an unrelated item not being shipped. PayPal refunded the 3rd person leaving my daughters account in arrears.  My daughter raised a dispute with Paypal  before fully understanding what had occurred and Paypal closed the dispute leaving her account in arrears.  We have reported the scam to Action Fraud and provided the crime reference number to Paypal.   Paypal have now hired a debt recovery company for the £60 which I paid immediately, however I'm worried that Paypal will have left a marker on my daughters credit file.  I have asked Paypal to remove any such marker given the circumstance and they have said they have no control over reporting this to the credit agencies.

My daughter used Paypal as she believed it was safe as Paypal publicise they provide buyer and seller protection. Indeed, she had not fully familiarised with the full Paypal T&C's and therefore made a mistake shipping an item to the address provided through a third party messaging system (Depop).  Nonetheless, she is a victim of fraud, so receiving a mark against her credit file seems unfair.

Please can you advise on how best to clear the credit file marker related to this situation.  I would also like to publicise the dangers of using Paypal as no doubt many people have and many more will be victims of similar scams.  Paypal benefit from their customer misconceptions that they are protected, which is missleading.

Thank you - Justin    
  

soolin

Can you clarify? daughter received payment - was that payment charge backed as I don’t understand  the reference to The third person. If that original payment was subject to a claim for fraudulent use of a card then seller would win the claim by providing proof of postage to the address given by PayPal. 

SS116520

To clarify what happened.

My daughter sold an item to person A. Person A payed directly using Paypal.
Person A also sold another item to person B, and asked person B to also pay directly by PayPal. However Person A provided my daughters PayPal account details to person B.

My daughter checked the money for the item she sold had arrived in her account and so shipped the item using recorded mail.

Person A connected person B to may daughter and therefore removed themselves from the PayPal transaction.  This presumable is well used scam that we were not aware of.

Person B never received the item they believed they had bought and so filed a PayPal dispute.  Understandably (now we understand the full sequence of events) PayPal  accepted their dispute and pulled the money from my daughters PayPal account leaving her account in arrears.

To make matters worse, my daughter sold the item on behalf of her friend (who she lives with) and had given her the money as soon as it arrived in her PayPal account.  

This is no doubt a frequently used scam, so I would like publicise the lack of protection PayPal provides unless you're an expert in PayPal's T&C's.  I would also like to advice on how to encourage Paypal to remove the credit history marker they are likely to have placed on my daughters account.

Regards - Justin   

RFW

Paypal won't leave anything on your credit report. They can only do so if you have a credit agreement with them (ie apply to pay for something over a few payments instead of one). As a seller you never have a credit agreement. The only way this would affect a credit rating is if Paypal or their representatives took someone to court and won.

There are free and easy ways to check your credit report, this site has one.

RFW

I'm not sure how you can put this down to Paypal though.

Item was paid via Paypal and shipped to a different address. I haven't sold on Depop so don't know how they connect with Paypal but it seems that there is a need to verify the addresses between the two. If there's a doubt you should only send to the Paypal address.

As far as I can tell on the situation with Paypal, Paypal have received a complaint from a buyer that they haven't received an item they paid for. Paypal then go to the person with the money and ask them to prove it was sent and delivered to the buyer's address. That can't be done.
If Paypal took the hit from this then they'd be being scammed all over.