Can PayPal legally get this back ?

Ogs

If youve read my other thread, youl know about the problems im having with my mothers PayPal account .

Basically, a few months ago i sold something on eBay, for £230, to a guy who lived in Romania. He had over 300 feedback, and was very communicative, and he would pay via PayPal, so i was happy to sell it to him. I receive the payment, transfer the money to my bank account and send the item (recorded). A couple of days later, PayPal email me saying the owner of the account didnt make this payment, and i had the usual time to reply etc, which i did with tracking info.

Later, the payment gets refunded and leaves the PayPal account in the negative of £230, and i hear nothing from the buyer. Now, i realise (after) that i should have been more carefull etc, using the Seller Protection stuff (I thought everything was covered ). Anyway.....

Theyve now set some Debt Collectors after the payment, Robinson, Way & Company Limited. Couple of phones calls etc and a letter, and they sound pretty demanding for it. So what i want to know is, can they ever truely get this out of me ? Is the law on there side ? Where do i stand basically.

Thanks in advance .

charlottevwa

To be honest... i don't think there is anything you can do... _pale_

But i am probably wrong... try giving paypal a call tomorrow:

Details of contact are here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_contact-phone

immoral_angeluk

If you weren't covered by the seller protection then there isn't a lot you can do and as I've found paypal 9 times out of 10 side with the buyer... puts me off using paypal full stop to be quite honest! It's a joke.

robbirroy

Basically you should get proper legal advice.

My advice (based on years of looking at this situation) is that paypal can do nothing, Harassment for debt (which is what the 'debt' collectors will do to you) is illegal in this country. Paypal have never taken anyone to court over this situation, as they know they are on very dodgy ground.

Send a letter to Robinson, Way & Company Limited telling them to cease and desist the harassment, and also inform them that this 'debt' is disputed with paypal.

CC paypal on this as well.

If the harassment continues inform the police.

Secondly, (and don't be offended by this) don't accept paypal for foreign transactions, especially to countries that are know as scammers havens.

RFW

If they haven't taken you to court, the only thing they can do legally is demand the payment from you. Their threats will take the form of "If you do not pay within 7 days we may take legal action, which could result in.....". They will also likely threaten you with sending someone to your house, this may happen, again they can do nothing and you have the right to report to the police for harrassment and also report the company to trading standards.

AFAIK and as others have said Paypal are unlikely to take you to court, if they do, you may be able to successfully defend it. If they do and you lose the court will order you to repay the money.

As it stands now, you can, if you like, choose to ignore the letters/phone calls/visits and the chances are they would stop eventually. The only way to stop them asking you for money is for you to pay them or them to take you to court.

soolin

You say you used recorded delivery to Romania, which would not actually be possible as recorded is a UK-UK service only. Most of the tracking overseas services also don't cover Romania so it would appear that the item was actually sent to an unconfirmed address and untracked.

I can't see any way out of this one either.

soolin

Just had a thought...

Item is unlikely to be showing as tracked to delivery so if buyer is claiming item not received and you lose the paypal claim , which you will, then you can try a claim to Royal mail. What you can claim will of course depend on what service you actually used and how much the item was insured for. However assuming you used the correct postal service with the correct amount of insurance and it does not show as received by buyer then you have a valid claim.

Paypal is not the end of the process, it is always worth remembering that by using the correct postal method for the circumstances you get an extra line of defence for items that get lost with Royal mail.

It is also worth reminding newer uses that recorded, which as I mentioned earlier is a UK-UK service, would not even have been appropriate if this had been a UK sale as it is only standard post and therefore only covers up to £34 of loss.

Lastly, and I will try and be less blunt than normal as I say this, you seem to be at a bit of a loss about ebay/paypal. It isn't always straightforward and I know that many of us long term users do sometimes just assume that all users understand how it all works, and this is clearly not always the case. Might I suggest therefore that you actually take a little time and research how it all works and how to protect yourself for future sales. There are tutorials on ebay, or even people on here that can give specific advice. For example, there would be very few people prepared to risk a £230 item to Romania regardless of payment method as postal services and insurance are very limited. One other thing that you might want to consider is that on the off chance that the item was a phone then NO Royal mail services would have covered you, regardless of the service use. Royal mail do not cover any mobiles sent overseas if worth more than £34.

Ogs

After the Royal Mail got it to Romania, Posta Romana took over, and i could track it through there site (http://www.posta-romana.ro/index.jsp?changeLanguage=1&language=EN), and it says it was delivered.

I will pay the debt if i absolutely have to, but if PayPal have no legal ground to do so i wont basically (i seriously hate PayPal, and paying them any money back would hurt me ).

soolin

As a matter of interest what postal service did you use?

None of the Royal Mail services are tracked outside of the UK, but I note that if you used Parcelforce then there is some tracking but it is frighteningly expensive and appears from a quick search to only cover losses up to £150.

Ogs

Royal Mail Internationally Signed For. When i rang up Royal Mail about it, they tracked it themselves using the Posta Romana site and gave me the link to it.

soolin

Ogs, International Signed for is only guaranteed tracked within the UK so you were lucky (or not) that you can actually track it to delivered in Romania. You were also only covered up to £34 of loss so whilst it is immaterial really, you were using the wrong service, not that that helps really. Did you tell the Post Office when you sent it that the item was valuable? If so, and whilst it won't help, I would certainly have a whinge at them having suggested the wrong service.