Help, I was scammed

[julianlile]

Hi, I sold an item on craigslist in July. The buyer sent me the money and I moved on with my life.   I then logged into my paypal account yesterday to buy something off e-bay and saw there was a -$950 balance. When I called PayPal to inquire about my negative balance, they told me that the buyer had asked for a refund in September and notifications were sent to an email address that I no longer used. 

Paypal never attempted to use my current email address, call me, or send me anything in the mail so I was never aware of the clawback. Additionally, the buyer waited 2 months to tell Paypal there was an issue with the order... 

Paypal is now telling me there is nothing they can do and I'm out $950 for an item that I delivered on. This seems unethical and I will not be using Paypal anymore. 

Is there anything I can do?

[Quandary]

Basically you are out of luck.

If you did not send the buyer an invoice for the item, that's your first mistake.  You are the seller, you control the sale.  Craigslist is famous for scams of this sort - the buyer asks for your email address so they can send you the money, the buyer then uses the send money feature and selects the "friends and family" option - he does this because he knows that using this method, there's no record of a sales transaction - it simply looks like one person sending another person some money - you have "no" proof of a sale.  Next, you get the funds and ship the item (assuming you did ship the item), the buyer receives the item and waits a bit and then reports to PayPal Security that there's been an unauthorized transaction in his account and there's quite a bit of money missing.  As PayPal security cannot determine if the transaction was a purchase - they simply refund the money sent.  Now you're out both the item and the money.   That's why you should send an invoice to the buyer - this is your proof that you actually sold something.

Things like this happen however, it's not PayPal's fault - it's a lack of understanding the proper way to handle a transaction.  Craigslist scammers are quite good at what they do and they have taken the time to read and understand PayPal's policies - the same policies that were intended to protect both buyers and sellers.

[Zozoulia]

There are financial service companies that can assist you. I used the legal assistance program of MyChargeBack.com.  Don't give up. It's your money and there are ways to retrieve it.