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I Hate Paypal

S

sixstorm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 16, 2006
212
0
Nashville, TN
Ok, seems like there have been some troubles with PP over the years with other people so here is my story in a nutshell. I sold a 7800GT to a guy back on March 29th for $253.00, recieved his money via Paypal and shipped it that very same day. The guy gets the video card a few days later and sends me an email saying that the card works great. I waited about a week and a half to withdraw the money because it was going towards my new iMac. Everything had transferred and withdrawn successfully mind you.

Just the other day, I get an email saying that my account is on hold due to an investigation about some unauthorized money. I basically left it alone just because it isn't my problem. However, I got home from work last night to read that I am responsible for that money!

I called Paypal this morning and told them that I wasn't going to pay for it and that I didn't have time to deal with someone else's problem. The lady says "Well imagine if it was your credit card that got stolen and was improperly used. Wouldn't that feel bad?" I said "If that was my credit card, then it would be my credit card company's problem to cover that money. Not the person that I paid money over 2 weeks ago." Then she goes on to say that Paypal is going to turn it over to Collection Agencies. I told her that if we need to do the court thing, then we need to do that.

And get this, PP's little "Seller Protection Policy" doesn't cover me because you have to have a delivery signature for items over $250. My video card was $253!!! And even when I shipped it via UPS, they never ask if you want a delivery signature.

Does anyone agree with me that this is not my problem? My dad, who is a strict buyer and business talker, is going to come over tonight and help me resolve this little problem by talking to some people's bosses.

Discuss.
 
PayPal (and their parent company Ebay) don't seem to care about the individual customer. They are large enough that even if they completely screw up one person's account, them cancelling is of little to no concequence to them. They just hurriedly turn all their issues over to a collection agency so they no longer have to deal with it.

My mom was double billed by Ebay one month then told that no payment was ever made. My mom sent in all the paperwork showing their mistake and they were just,"well, you're a deliquent payer so we're gonna turn it over to a collection agency". This was almost 2 years ago and they will not talk with my mom at all anymore. Getting a lawyer to fix it costs too much so my mother is just resigned to not using personal Ebay account anymore.

Unfortunately, the two people I know that work for Ebay don't work in departments that can help me out in any way and my friend won't get out of law school for another 2 years so there goes that idea as well.
 
How far away was the address that you shipped the item to? This happened to a friend of mine and he reported it to the buyers local authorities. My friend never got his money back, but the guy did end up going to jail :). Oh, yea... and if the guy is not that far away, go pay him a visit :p.
 
HungrySeacow said:
How far away was the address that you shipped the item to? This happened to a friend of mine and he reported it to the buyers local authorities. My friend never got his money back, but the guy did end up going to jail :). Oh, yea... and if the guy is not that far away, go pay him a visit :p.
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The guy lives a couple states away. See, the thing is that Paypal claims that his CC was stolen but it wasn't. Therefore, PP is coming after me for money. The guy I sold the video card to has NOT filed any chargebacks or claims against me. Paypal just decided the other day that they would try to make it as if the guy's CC was "stolen" and they need the $253 back. Yeah right.
 
sixstorm said:
The guy lives a couple states away. See, the thing is that Paypal claims that his CC was stolen but it wasn't. Therefore, PP is coming after me for money. The guy I sold the video card to has NOT filed any chargebacks or claims against me. Paypal just decided the other day that they would try to make it as if the guy's CC was "stolen" and they need the $253 back. Yeah right.
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To Paypal:

what the Hell is wrong with you people?!?
 

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I've know some people that this happened too. Basically it comes down to you calling PayPal over and over. Keep asking to speak to the manager. Then ask for the manager's manager. Eventually say something about this going to court or threaten them with a lawsuit. It seems like the only way to get this settled.
 
I was involved in the class action lawsuit against PayPal a couple years ago. It was nice to get some money out of those bastards. I haven't used them since. :cool:
 
I use PayPal VERY sparingly. I have a credit card that is used for PayPal and only PayPal. I only use PayPal when dealing with people I trust. It's nice for those situations, but there are too many ways to get screwed for me to use it on a widespread basis.
 
The only way i use paypal is for my website and for clients to pay me if small amount of money. Nothing exceptionally major
 
~Shard~ said:
I was involved in the class action lawsuit against PayPal a couple years ago. It was nice to get some money out of those bastards. I haven't used them since. :cool:
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Oh wow. How much did you get out of the deal? Wonder if I could get some extra college $$ outta this lol. Anyways, I'm trying to print off all of my Paypal history and emails from them so I'll have something to look at while calling them again soon. I'll let you guys know how it ends up.
 
sixstorm said:
Oh wow. How much did you get out of the deal? Wonder if I could get some extra college $$ outta this lol. Anyways, I'm trying to print off all of my Paypal history and emails from them so I'll have something to look at while calling them again soon. I'll let you guys know how it ends up.
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There were essentially 2 distinct groups identified in the lawsuit - those directly affected and those who simply had any transactions between the timeframe in question (which accounted for about 90% of the participants). I won't tell you how much I received as one of those directly affected, however those part of the general class received a whopping $8 each. Such is how class action lawsuits work. :cool:
 
sixstorm said:
The guy lives a couple states away. See, the thing is that Paypal claims that his CC was stolen but it wasn't. Therefore, PP is coming after me for money. The guy I sold the video card to has NOT filed any chargebacks or claims against me. Paypal just decided the other day that they would try to make it as if the guy's CC was "stolen" and they need the $253 back. Yeah right.
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See if I understand this:
PayPal are not claiming that the purchaser didn't receive the goods, they are saying that the charge card he used to fund the PayPal account was stolen.

And the someone else has disputed the charge on their Visa bill to Visa, and Visa has charged back PayPal. Now PayPal is charging you back because they say that the purchase was made with stolen funds.

So either your buyer is a scammer (in which case, he wouldn't have needed to file a chargeback-- it wasn't his money in the first place) or PP have got crossed up -- in which case the buyer needs to affirm to PP that it was in fact their charge card and there's no issue.

Unfortunately, if it is the first instance, you're pooched -- because you have no way to prove that the buyer and the cardholder are one and the same person -- you never saw the card or its number.

In hindsight -morals of the story:
ALWAYS get a signature on delivery of the goods - of any value! It costs $1 more - so add that to the shipping and refuse to ship without signature. How else are you going to prove you delivered?

NEVER ship to an address that isn't the confirmed PayPal address. If it is an account hijack, the first thing the scammer is going to say is "I need you to ship it to me at work so I can receive it. Don't worry that it isn't my PayPal address."
 
I've actually just had a bad incident with paypal. Now that I know it's not an isolated one, I'm closing my account.

I order a pair of Shure e3c from tradingcircuit.com and they sent me a e2c model (which they don't even list, leading me to believe all their e3c listings are really e2cs). They say I would need to ship it back out of my own pocket. I sent a claim to paypal and I automatically got a reply saying they can't do jack. Then I called them on the phone and they said they can't do anything as long I received something, anything. So I asked, "So if I order an expensive laptop and I just got a rock in a box, there's nothing you can do?"

And she said, "That is correct." It actually made me laugh more than get angry. Now I'm going to close my account and then call my credit card company. I love credit card companies. For the most part, they usually take your side.
 
CanadaRAM said:
NEVER ship to an address that isn't the confirmed PayPal address. If it is an account hijack, the first thing the scammer is going to say is "I need you to ship it to me at work so I can receive it. Don't worry that it isn't my PayPal address."
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Ok, this guy that I sold to has a confirmed Paypal address and I still keep in contact with him, especially in this situation. Even if this guy has used a stolen credit card, the credit card company should reimburse the rightful owner, not come after me asking for the money back. My video card is either in Missouri or somewhere in the US, I really doubt I'll be getting that back so Paypal isn't getting their money back. They need to work this out with the credit card company and the "rightful owner" of the CC.
 
sixstorm said:
Ok, this guy that I sold to has a confirmed Paypal address and I still keep in contact with him, especially in this situation. Even if this guy has used a stolen credit card, the credit card company should reimburse the rightful owner, not come after me asking for the money back. My video card is either in Missouri or somewhere in the US, I really doubt I'll be getting that back so Paypal isn't getting their money back. They need to work this out with the credit card company and the "rightful owner" of the CC.
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It's silly how unprofessional Paypal is. They act like a shady no-name website. And it's certainly Paypal's and the credit card's responsibility to ensure the credit card was valid. They should be going after the guy who used the stolen card. It shouldn't be your problem at all. It makes absolutely no sense. Do what I do: go outside and scream at the top of your lungs. Go to a remote area if you care whether your neighbors think you're a lunatic or not.
 
~Shard~ said:
I was involved in the class action lawsuit against PayPal a couple years ago. It was nice to get some money out of those bastards. I haven't used them since. :cool:
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how much did u get from them?
 
sixstorm said:
Ok, this guy that I sold to has a confirmed Paypal address and I still keep in contact with him, especially in this situation. Even if this guy has used a stolen credit card, the credit card company should reimburse the rightful owner, not come after me asking for the money back.
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Ummm... do you know what really happens when Visa "covers" the cardholder against loss and fraud? They take the money back from the merchant. Which is exactly what they are doing with you.

You didn't suppose Visa keeps a vast pool of money around to hand out to cardholders whose cards were stolen, did you?

The merchant agreement says they can take the money back from you up to 6 months later in the case that the cardholder disputes the charge -- then it is up to you to prove with the signed paperwork that the charge was legit. So does your PayPal agreement in roughly the same terms. You are in the same boat as any merchant.

The $#!^^\ thing about PayPal is -- you never got the opportunity to see the card number, the cardholder's name, or to call the bank to verify that the cardholder's address was what they said.

You have to trust PayPal on that -- and get the signature on the delivery. You didn't, so you put yourself outside of the terms of your protection agreement with PayPal.

I feel for your loss, and it is not fair to have to learn this way -- but its all there in the agreement.
 
In October I did a website for a client, and in November he filed a chargeback with his credit card company, all the while the website I designed was hosted on his domain. I called/emailed PayPal hundreds of times with all our email conversations and explained that I did a service for him and the CC's reason for chargeback was non-receipt. PayPal took all the money back from me because I made the mistake of leaving money in my PayPal account. I NEVER leave money in there anymore.. I hit withdraw as soon as it get there and pray that it makes it there without PP's bull excuse for stealing it. It took until February for them to get my money back, but I'm surprised they actually did it for me.
I recently closed a PayPal account and reopened it because I ended a relationship with a guy who was finding me websites and we were working together as a firm and I found him taking about twice as much as I was getting and doing none of the work, so I gave him the F U and quit. I had to close my account because technically he could go to PayPal and file claims against any sites in the past 2 months, and I learned the hard way that PayPal would take it even though I really did the work, so I closed the account so that couldn't happen.
 
leftbanke7 said:
PayPal (and their parent company Ebay) don't seem to care about the individual customer. They are large enough that even if they completely screw up one person's account, them cancelling is of little to no concequence to them. They just hurriedly turn all their issues over to a collection agency so they no longer have to deal with it.
Click to expand...

I reluctantly use Paypal since they want to act as a bank with out obeying the laws of a bank.

I only use a credit card for purchase from a CC company that will protect me when I have a dispute with Paypal. So far TargeT VISA has been true to their words.

sixstorm said:
The guy lives a couple states away. See, the thing is that Paypal claims that his CC was stolen but it wasn't. Therefore, PP is coming after me for money. The guy I sold the video card to has NOT filed any chargebacks or claims against me. Paypal just decided the other day that they would try to make it as if the guy's CC was "stolen" and they need the $253 back. Yeah right.
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What do you think would happen when both companies are under the same corporate banner. eBay is the new Walmart IMO.

itcheroni said:
It's silly how unprofessional Paypal is. They act like a shady no-name website. And it's certainly Paypal's and the credit card's responsibility to ensure the credit card was valid. They should be going after the guy who used the stolen card. It shouldn't be your problem at all. It makes absolutely no sense. Do what I do: go outside and scream at the top of your lungs. Go to a remote area if you care whether your neighbors think you're a lunatic or not.
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Amen. !0 to 1 eBay and Paypal have lobbyists that are there to protect their interests. Forget the innocent masses. In the end we only have ourselves to blame.

We are supposed to be about the people and for the people. I doubt "people" were ever seen as corporations by the Founding Fathers.
 
guess what- I was in the exact situation! tell them to suck it!

I tried to buy an ibook over a year ago and sent $1100 to the person.. they decided to stop contacting me. this was the day after i sent payment, before paypal even processed it- i demanded that they stop the payment, and they said it's against policy (which it wasn't!)... i ended up going to my bank and having them refuse the transacation. in conclusion, paypal paid this person $1100 but then couldn't regain the funds from my bank- thus my paypal acct balance was $-1100 and placed on ahold.. they harassed me for a few weeks/months and i repeatedly cited their own violation of policy and declared that the payment was unauthorized and paypal was fully aware of it before they made it. Their collection agency gave up before too long. I was worried for awhile about getting bad credit etc, but it never happened.
 
Ok, I called again this afternoon and the lady could not find a reason to charge me since I had proof of delivery via UPS tracking #. It turns out that the guy I sold to has his Paypal account in a bind at the moment. This guy had enough money to cover the video card at the time of purchase but was screwed out of another deal right after my transaction. She told me that the $253.50 would be refunded to my account within 48 hours.

I have one more package of PC stuff to sell and once I get that money, you best believe that I'm withdrawing that money ASAP and closing that account. I don't want Paypal anywhere near my bank account anymore. Heck, I might even get another account just to make sure they don't get my money. I've read where Paypal steals small amounts from people's accounts and get rich off of interest.

Just a fair warning to anybody reading this, do NOT go the Paypal route unless it is the only way.
 
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