Paypal chargeback £14 + Fraudulent transaction

rontheotherhand · 13 November 2018 at 1:30PM

Hi everyone!

I sold a smartphone on 04/07/19, dispatched on 06/07/18 first class recorded, via eBay's global shipping programme and uploaded the tracking number later receiving confirmation of delivery from eBay on 17/07/18. I still have the receipts from when I sent it.

In that time I received ZERO communication from the buyer. Fast forward three months and said buyer has claimed via his credit card company that this was a " fraudulent" transaction.

As this was filed through his credit card company, I received no communication via normal eBay channels which is the normal way I expect to communicate between buyer and seller. If a buyer is unhappy at any stage, they will notify me through eBay messenger and a resolution can be agreed upon. As I received no communication from the buyer for three months or an email from eBay telling me the package had arrived, I had no reason to expect there to be a problem.

PayPal sent me an email on 16th October ( over 3 months after transaction date) explaining that the " buyer stated that they did not authorise this purchase". I seldom check any emails from PayPal as I receive almost daily emails from PayPal that are normally receipts from transactions of items I sell or buy, therefore they do not require my attention.

Within 10 days, PayPal had taken the original transaction fee the buyer paid me for the phone, postage and an additional £14.

I rang PayPal and eBay on 07/11/18 to ask for an explanation.

Almost no explanation was given as to why I have to pay for this "fraudulent" transaction, other than the bank has requested it and I have to pay. The only suggestion from eBay customer service was to " file a report with my local police station" which is laughable to say the least.

The expectation that I have to pay for this claim is an absolute disgrace. I have been trading on eBay for over 5 years, without a single blemish on my record. I have completed over 1000+ transactions and not had one buyer leave me bad feedback. My track record is of the highest order.

What angers me the most ( apart from having to pay for this transaction when I’ve done nothing wrong!) is that eBay insist on sellers using Paypal even though paypal don’t have access to ebay records so despite me having received an email on 17/07 saying the package was received, Paypal are none the wiser.

Any suggestions on how I can challenge this?

soolin · 13 November 2018 at 1:36PM

It's a shame you didn't defend the PayPal case, it's the easiest one to win as all you need is proof of postage (strangely not the receipt) to win. So if you had kept your proof of posting showing it was sent to eBay that's all you needed. For future reference always keep POPs for at least 180 days.

If you had asked here as soon as the case was open we could have helped, even if PayPal were difficult eBay themselves might have helped as it was a GSP sale.

You could still try appealing with the POP and also contacting eBay, but I'm not sure if they take appeals where there had previously been no defence to the case.

As above the proof of delivery is not sufficient to win an unauthorised claim, you need to prove it was sent to the address given in PayPal, and for that you need proof of posting .

Have a read of the sticky postage thread , the defence against most types of claim are explained there.

Out of interest did you add the tracking details to PayPal when it was sent? Also why are there big gaps between each event, from your time frame it looks like you waited 3 weeks or so after losing the money to even talk to PayPal?

ballisticbrian · 13 November 2018 at 1:39PM

The main problem is that you haven't responded to the PayPal case within the time limit. Have you been on the phone to PayPal to see if you can appeal despite the time frame? Phoning eBay on this will be no use and the reason for not hearing anything from the buyer on eBay is because it would have been a compromised account used by the scammer and there is no-one monitoring any subsequent messages etc.

rontheotherhand · 14 November 2018 at 4:36PM

Paypal and eBay customer service - absolutely useless. Waited around an hour to speak to someone from eBay and I mean no offence when I say this, but it was like talking to a robot that's impossible to understand. " Report it to your local police" was the offered solution by both eBay and Paypal.

What i really object to is the insistence that PayPal must be used and yet they have no records that I uploaded the tracking via eBay ( with eBay sending me email confirmation it had been received shortly thereafter).

The gaps are because I didn't see the claim on PayPal. Everything that goes to my PayPal email is just receipts so i seldom real emails form PayPal.

Can I claim via eBay or PayPal for losing the phone? Surely I have some kind of seller protection here as i've sent the phone but not got it back?

soolin · 14 November 2018 at 4:48PM

rontheotherhand wrote: »

Paypal and eBay customer service - absolutely useless. Waited around an hour to speak to someone from eBay and I mean no offence when I say this, but it was like talking to a robot that's impossible to understand. " Report it to your local police" was the offered solution by both eBay and Paypal.

What i really object to is the insistence that PayPal must be used and yet they have no records that I uploaded the tracking via eBay ( with eBay sending me email confirmation it had been received shortly thereafter).

The gaps are because I didn't see the claim on PayPal. Everything that goes to my PayPal email is just receipts so i seldom real emails form PayPal.

Can I claim via eBay or PayPal for losing the phone? Surely I have some kind of seller protection here as i've sent the phone but not got it back?

You are overlooking the fact that you allowed this to lapse whilst making no steps to do anything, trying to blame paypal because you neither read the emails about the case nor responded on the 'warning' in your account when you logged in.

The same could be said of any organisation, on other forums you see people trying to blame the banks for not warning them they were overdrawn, yet admit to not bothering to read the banks letters as they were always spam. So yes you had full seller protection, you just chose not to bother activating it.

I can only echo the advice I have already given .

F&L · 14 November 2018 at 10:57PM

The advice already given is correct in that by not replying to the case you have lost the chance to defend it. You would have won with proof of posting.

I recently had a GSP buyer open an item not received claim on ebay but before I could respond, ebay closed it in my favour as the tracking showed it had been delivered. If ebay can check tracking with disputes then surely paypal can too? You could try reiterating that you provided the tracking number and this was available for them to view but paypal rely on the seller providing proof of posting rather than delivery.

shaun_from_Africa · 14 November 2018 at 11:39PM

F&L wrote: »

If ebay can check tracking with disputes then surely paypal can too? You could try reiterating that you provided the tracking number and this was available for them to view but paypal rely on the seller providing proof of posting rather than delivery.

When Paypal was owned by ebay then this might well have been possible but as Paypal is now a separate company, they wouldn't have access to the tracking information uploaded to the ebay website.
With the current Data protection legislation, ebay wouldn't be allowed to disclose held information to Paypal without your explicit consent.

perfect10 · 17 November 2018 at 10:03AM

I had never heard of this before this week when I was also informed that my money would be withheld from Paypal after an apparent fraudulent transaction. As it was over 3 months ago I had not kept my proof of postage (but will do from now on!!)
I responded to Paypal asking how I could be held responsible for this, that I did not have proof of posting after such a long time etc etc and the case went in my favour, so always dispute this even if you do not have the proof of posting any more.

Anyway from now on - I will always keep proof of postage!

askmeaboutsofas · 17 November 2018 at 2:17PM

Do as they said - report it to Action Fraud / your local police station, and get a crime reference number. Then get on the phone to PayPal and inform them that you have a crime reference number, that they are assisting this individual in committing fraud, and that you will be pursuing legal action against the buyer. Keep everything calm while you're on the phone, you're just informing them of what you're about to do. If they don't become any more helpful after that, you will have to go through the courts to try and get your money back.

Unfortunately the reason you have this problem is because you didn't respond to the chargeback when it happened. This is not a PayPal problem, it's a card payment problem. Even if you were a business with a merchant account and you had taken the card payment directly rather than through PayPal, if you got a chargeback and didn't respond they would take the money back.

Pierre_De_Grenoble · 17 November 2018 at 5:50PM

It's easy to say with hindsight but if you had set up a filter on your email program to store your paypal messages a quick glance at the subject lines would have told you that there was a potential problem.

Paypal chargeback £14 + Fraudulent transaction

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