PayPal Seller Protection Advice

tomds87

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone can assist with this or offer some advice. On 8th August, my mother sold some of my old golf equipment on eBay that I had left at her house. Normally I would have sold it on mine, but I'm extremely busy at the moment and she was helping me out.

One of the items was a club that sold for £137 including postage. The buyer paid straight away, but interestingly sent a message a day later asking if payment had gone through okay as nothing was showing on their bank account. She responded confirming it was fine, but on reflection felt this was a bit strange as surely you'd see on PayPal that the payment had been made? I shipped the club with tracking and it was delivered successfully, positive feedback was received. 

 

On 29th August my mother got a message advising that the payment had been frozen as the buyer had reported a fraudulent transaction to their bank or credit card. We provided proof of delivery and several days later the payment was unfrozen. We also contacted the buyer and they responded that they had received the club and were happy with it. They denied opening a case, but strangely signed off the email in a different name to the name that I had shipped the club to. As the money was unfrozen we thought that was the end of it. 

 

On 29th September she received another email saying that the case had been closed in the buyers favour and they had returned the £137 to them. I am therefore left with no money and no golf club. We contacted PayPal and have been advised that as the decision to reverse the payment was made by the bank or credit card company and not PayPal there is nothing they can do and I should contact the buyer. I sent a message on eBay but haven't had a response yet. 

 

I decided to do some google research on the buyer as they have quite an unusual name. I found them straight away through companies house and saw that the address for them was correct and matched the name of the person we received payment from. They were listed as no longer working for the company on companies house, but it was clearly a family business and people with the same name were shown as directors. I contacted the business and spoke to one of the family, they advised that the person who sent me a message in a different name was also part of the family and that the account was that persons fathers. They said that he had probably used his dads account to purchase the club. I'm speculating, but it looks as if his father has disputed this with his bank as it could have possible been purchased without his permission. I passed my details on requesting this family member makes contact, but I haven't heard back. To clarify, this is not a child or teenager, but a man and his elderly father. 

 

I'd like to know what my options are here as PayPal have been less than helpful. We cannot open a claim as one has already been opened and closed. Staff through messaging are useless... I cannot understand why we haven't been compensated through seller protection. If it's this easy to scam sellers then surely PayPal isn't safe at all. I know it's not a huge amount of money, but I hate been taken advantage of and will pursue this until I get my money from somewhere. I will look to settle it via civil court if need be. Any advice would be much appreciated. 

soolin

A paypal claim should have been won if you had done everything correctly through the open case,, although strangely you should have provided proof of postage to the correct address, NOT proof of delivery - if at all possible you need to concentrate on paypal and appealing on the basis that you had full seller protection. (That assumes item was posted to the address on the paypal transaction and within 7 days of receiving the money)

Paypal seller protection is VERY clear, as long as you follow the guidelines you are protected- if you had posted at the point the dispute was open, and as I am an untrusting type of person and know paypal don't always understand their own rules, I would have strongly suggested phoning to make clear to them that you had full protection, emailing the proof of postage, adding it to the dispute and phoning again!

You also have the possibility of a small claims action, you have messages and proof of delivery and if a paypal appeal doesn't work then an LBA is the way to go.

Strangely the exact same situation happened to me before the days of paypal seller protection- I have mentioned it on here several times and it must have been 18 years ago now. In that instance it was a US buyer, and again it was a fraudulent use of a card claim. Again a rogue adult son had used his fathers card- the father admitted it in an email message, and father reclaimed the money and refused to refund me or return the item. I was broke at the time, and that £30 was a lot of money to me and I caused them hell. The father had used a work email to send me a message- so I emailed his senior partner and (carefully) suggested I had an issue with a payment outstanding and his employee was not responding to me. The mother then foolishly sent me an email from her work place telling me to leave them alone, so I contacted her employers as well. I had a friend in the same State who made contact with the local Sheriffs office, and they were aware of the son (apparently the family were well respected but the son was a problem) - and actually called me by phone to ask what the problem was. I submitted everything to them  and they asked me to give them 48 hours to sort it out. A day later I got a standalone paypal payment for the full amount, and an email from the father saying not to contact them again as they did not appreciate visits from the sheriff as it embarrassed them. I also had a follow up email from the father's work place asking me to send details of the email trail and also the name of the Sherriff as they wished to take the matter further as they were a law practice and could not support potentially fraudulent actions from their staff.

I'm not sure I would go that far nowadays, but at that time the money meant a lot to me.

soolin

https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/paypal-safety-and-security

Brywalker

soolin said:

A paypal claim should have been won if you had done everything correctly through the open case,, although strangely you should have provided proof of postage to the correct address, NOT proof of delivery - if at all possible you need to concentrate on paypal and appealing on the basis that you had full seller protection. (That assumes item was posted to the address on the paypal transaction and within 7 days of receiving the money)

Paypal seller protection is VERY clear, as long as you follow the guidelines you are protected- if you had posted at the point the dispute was open, and as I am an untrusting type of person and know paypal don't always understand their own rules, I would have strongly suggested phoning to make clear to them that you had full protection, emailing the proof of postage, adding it to the dispute and phoning again!

You also have the possibility of a small claims action, you have messages and proof of delivery and if a paypal appeal doesn't work then an LBA is the way to go.

Strangely the exact same situation happened to me before the days of paypal seller protection- I have mentioned it on here several times and it must have been 18 years ago now. In that instance it was a US buyer, and again it was a fraudulent use of a card claim. Again a rogue adult son had used his fathers card- the father admitted it in an email message, and father reclaimed the money and refused to refund me or return the item. I was broke at the time, and that £30 was a lot of money to me and I caused them hell. The father had used a work email to send me a message- so I emailed his senior partner and (carefully) suggested I had an issue with a payment outstanding and his employee was not responding to me. The mother then foolishly sent me an email from her work place telling me to leave them alone, so I contacted her employers as well. I had a friend in the same State who made contact with the local Sheriffs office, and they were aware of the son (apparently the family were well respected but the son was a problem) - and actually called me by phone to ask what the problem was. I submitted everything to them  and they asked me to give them 48 hours to sort it out. A day later I got a standalone paypal payment for the full amount, and an email from the father saying not to contact them again as they did not appreciate visits from the sheriff as it embarrassed them. I also had a follow up email from the father's work place asking me to send details of the email trail and also the name of the Sherriff as they wished to take the matter further as they were a law practice and could not support potentially fraudulent actions from their staff.

I'm not sure I would go that far nowadays, but at that time the money meant a lot to me.

Way to go Soolin ! Proud of you.

olgadapolga

Brywalker said:

soolin said:

A paypal claim should have been won if you had done everything correctly through the open case,, although strangely you should have provided proof of postage to the correct address, NOT proof of delivery - if at all possible you need to concentrate on paypal and appealing on the basis that you had full seller protection. (That assumes item was posted to the address on the paypal transaction and within 7 days of receiving the money)

Paypal seller protection is VERY clear, as long as you follow the guidelines you are protected- if you had posted at the point the dispute was open, and as I am an untrusting type of person and know paypal don't always understand their own rules, I would have strongly suggested phoning to make clear to them that you had full protection, emailing the proof of postage, adding it to the dispute and phoning again!

You also have the possibility of a small claims action, you have messages and proof of delivery and if a paypal appeal doesn't work then an LBA is the way to go.

Strangely the exact same situation happened to me before the days of paypal seller protection- I have mentioned it on here several times and it must have been 18 years ago now. In that instance it was a US buyer, and again it was a fraudulent use of a card claim. Again a rogue adult son had used his fathers card- the father admitted it in an email message, and father reclaimed the money and refused to refund me or return the item. I was broke at the time, and that £30 was a lot of money to me and I caused them hell. The father had used a work email to send me a message- so I emailed his senior partner and (carefully) suggested I had an issue with a payment outstanding and his employee was not responding to me. The mother then foolishly sent me an email from her work place telling me to leave them alone, so I contacted her employers as well. I had a friend in the same State who made contact with the local Sheriffs office, and they were aware of the son (apparently the family were well respected but the son was a problem) - and actually called me by phone to ask what the problem was. I submitted everything to them  and they asked me to give them 48 hours to sort it out. A day later I got a standalone paypal payment for the full amount, and an email from the father saying not to contact them again as they did not appreciate visits from the sheriff as it embarrassed them. I also had a follow up email from the father's work place asking me to send details of the email trail and also the name of the Sherriff as they wished to take the matter further as they were a law practice and could not support potentially fraudulent actions from their staff.

I'm not sure I would go that far nowadays, but at that time the money meant a lot to me.

Way to go Soolin ! Proud of you.

Ditto.

forgotmyname

I would have done the same no matter how much money.  Principle of the thing.

Worse that he knew it was his son and yet still wanted you to lose and not him.

Amazing what you can find on the internet if you try,  I sent a troublemaker some info that made
them think twice next time.  Limited number of their surname in their profile location and a
quick google found the neighbour had applied for planning permission so had his full name etc.

Asked them whether Uncle Bob had built his garage and conservatory yet, initially they denied
knowing Bob but after I pushed and said he lives next door and knows you... No more trouble from
them after that.

soolin

forgotmyname said:

I would have done the same no matter how much money.  Principle of the thing.

Worse that he knew it was his son and yet still wanted you to lose and not him.

Amazing what you can find on the internet if you try,  I sent a troublemaker some info that made
them think twice next time.  Limited number of their surname in their profile location and a
quick google found the neighbour had applied for planning permission so had his full name etc.

Asked them whether Uncle Bob had built his garage and conservatory yet, initially they denied
knowing Bob but after I pushed and said he lives next door and knows you... No more trouble from
them after that.

For these ‘accidental’ scammers I think embarrassment works, it is easy to think you are anonymous online, but when faced by the possibility of actually being outed they often change their mind. I’ve had it in lesser situations as well, silly things like someone telling me that the postman couldn’t have delivered their parcel as they were away and have security gates That require a key code- when a quick google showed they lived in a normal terraced hose with an open drive (In that instance I queried their address asking why they had delivered to a terraced house when they claimed to live in a remote detached property) , and never heard from them again. 

The real professional scammers don’t care though, you could call them a liar to their face and they would just laugh as to them we are all suckers .

In the OP’s case I would definitely be going after the account holder, older man or not, and possibly even telling the family that reluctantly legal action was going to be taken and perhaps they might need to be aware it could feature in their local newspapers. Do it in an apologetic way, ‘it will be out of my hands once the courts and police get involved’ and perhaps the embarrassment will make it all go away. 

shapala

soolin said:

A paypal claim should have been won if you had done everything correctly through the open case,, although strangely you should have provided proof of postage to the correct address, NOT proof of delivery - if at all possible you need to concentrate on paypal and appealing on the basis that you had full seller protection. (That assumes item was posted to the address on the paypal transaction and within 7 days of receiving the money)

Paypal seller protection is VERY clear, as long as you follow the guidelines you are protected- if you had posted at the point the dispute was open, and as I am an untrusting type of person and know paypal don't always understand their own rules, I would have strongly suggested phoning to make clear to them that you had full protection, emailing the proof of postage, adding it to the dispute and phoning again!

You also have the possibility of a small claims action, you have messages and proof of delivery and if a paypal appeal doesn't work then an LBA is the way to go.

Strangely the exact same situation happened to me before the days of paypal seller protection- I have mentioned it on here several times and it must have been 18 years ago now. In that instance it was a US buyer, and again it was a fraudulent use of a card claim. Again a rogue adult son had used his fathers card- the father admitted it in an email message, and father reclaimed the money and refused to refund me or return the item. I was broke at the time, and that £30 was a lot of money to me and I caused them hell. The father had used a work email to send me a message- so I emailed his senior partner and (carefully) suggested I had an issue with a payment outstanding and his employee was not responding to me. The mother then foolishly sent me an email from her work place telling me to leave them alone, so I contacted her employers as well. I had a friend in the same State who made contact with the local Sheriffs office, and they were aware of the son (apparently the family were well respected but the son was a problem) - and actually called me by phone to ask what the problem was. I submitted everything to them  and they asked me to give them 48 hours to sort it out. A day later I got a standalone paypal payment for the full amount, and an email from the father saying not to contact them again as they did not appreciate visits from the sheriff as it embarrassed them. I also had a follow up email from the father's work place asking me to send details of the email trail and also the name of the Sherriff as they wished to take the matter further as they were a law practice and could not support potentially fraudulent actions from their staff.

I'm not sure I would go that far nowadays, but at that time the money meant a lot to me.

Wow, that's some story, Soolin - well done ;-) 
I had something similar happen.....buyer purchased an expensive coffee machine (think I sold it for about £600). Sent it the following day then received an email later that evening from eBay that it was possibly a fraudulent purchase and funds frozen. I couldn't stop the delivery and was signed for by the buyer the following morning. I contacted PayPal and got through to their Dublin dept.
Since I had all the tracking info and delivery which was signed for by said buyer, which was the same name as even her eBay ID, even they were a little perplexed why buyer had a case.
Since I'd provided all the info, I had the money released to me after 3 weeks and she got herself a free coffee machine (PP refunded her - was told by the Dublin dept who dealt with it). 
Even these 5 years later, I still scratch my head as all details matched - her name, her eBay ID, address on PP and eBay etc and had quite a lot of feedback and always left good fb to sellers. Whether she was trying it on or not, it was an odd experience and obviously cost PP. and stress to myself - esp as the money at the time was important as we were moving home and every penny counted.