Bill me later payer

[murphyslaww]

I have a purchaser buying a $995.00 item, and has requested that I send him two invoices because Paypal cannot split order payments between Bill me later and paypal account balance. 

Does this sound legitimate? He is requesting I send him the invoices via Paypals request money option.

I have my issues with Paypal, but I'm not here to get around any policies that this person may be trying to get around, if he is.

Thanks for any information.

[snowshoe]

The transaction must be 1 invoice or statement.  You have no protection if you do as you described.  I would consider this a scam and if you split the invoices, the scammer will open a dispute and most likely win.

[murphyslaww]

So, a dispute can be won with evidentiary e-mails from his E-bay account requesting me to do so ?

Wow, I may be seeing even more of peoples issues with paypal, if Ebay and Paypal work so poorly with one another when they are, in reality, two different divisions of the same company. Unless that is the intention...

This may not be a good place to sell my wares.

Thanks for the heads up.

[murphyslaww]

So the individual sent me two separate payments with these notes:

For ebay purchase of CCNA v2.0 CCNP certification study lab. Reference xxxxxxxxxxxxx Payment Part 1

For eBay purchase of: CCNA v2.0 CCNP certification study lab. Reference number: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Payment part 2. Please mark ebay purchase as paid. Thank you. Once again sorry for all the messages and the non-standard payment method.

The transactions say I have seller protection and to ship the item. 

I invoiced the individual with a single invoice, and he has sent payment to my paypal account by e-mail.

Can i trust any auto-generated Paypal statement ?

The address is confirmed, matches on both payments,  and the sender of the payment is verified.

If this really is going to be a likely scam, this is really more trouble than it's worth. I'll just start the Payment system afforded by my website provider and sell through that.

[murphyslaww]

And so, I will probably be refunding this person's payment after reading this on the E-bay forums (which have been unusable for the last week apparently. How does a company with practices like Ebay/paypal survive? I guess on pure monopoly power?)

Majorly Flawed: PayPal's Seller Protection Ripoff
Jun 29, 2013 06:40 PM
I recently made a sale of $1200. As per stated in PayPal's seller protection policy, I purchased a shipping label directly through PayPal (buyer's address was PayPal verified), with signature confirmation, required for transactions over $250. The tracking information states that a notice was left for the buyer. However, the buyer has changed his mind about wanting the item, and because I said that all sales are final and that there would be no refunds, the buyer has refused to pick up the item. Moreover, the buyer has filed an "item not received" claim with PayPal. PayPal sided with the buyer and refunded the buyer the entire $1200, stating that I am not covered under their protection policy unless the buyer signs for the item. I've tried very hard to fight with them about this, have tried to appeal the case several times, and I keep getting the same response by different PayPal agents, that there needs to be signature confirmation that the buyer has picked up the item in order for me to be covered under their seller protection. Well, WTF??? How am I supposed to control that? I can't do much more on my end than purchase signature confirmation with my postage. I can't make the buyer sign for the item. So, not only did I lose out on the $1200, I didn't even get my original item returned to me. Hopefully, if the buyer keeps refusing the item, USPS will ship the item back to the return address (me).

Re: Majorly Flawed: PayPal's Seller Protection Ripoff
Jun 29, 2013 09:14 PM
ym9854 wrote:
Moreover, the buyer has filed an "item not received" claim with PayPal.

Did your receive email saying Item Not Received dispute at PayPal?

And then an email dispute has been escalated to a claim?

If so, how much time between the two emails?

Re: Majorly Flawed: PayPal's Seller Protection Ripoff
Jun 30, 2013 04:11 AM

As you have discovered the "hard way" the so called “seller protection” doesn't do much to protect you. Even when you sell according to their guidelines the policy is so filled with exceptions, most of which are beyond the sellers control, that unfortunately most transactions don’t truly qualify for protection. As a result Paypal will side with the buyer most of the time and the defenseless Seller is left with nothing. Ebay knows this but looks the other way. If you want true seller protection you need to open a merchant account with a reputable company.

Re: Majorly Flawed: PayPal's Seller Protection Ripoff
Jun 30, 2013 06:37 AM
Why don't you contact the post office and have them return the package to you. Yes, it can be a pain but at least you won't be out the item.

Re: Majorly Flawed: PayPal's Seller Protection Ripoff
Jun 30, 2013 07:34 AM
Seller Protection is a myth like Big Foot.

[murphyslaww]

Consulting Paypal.

On hold for customer service right now...

got on hold at 9:15am, it's 9:22 now. We'll see how this goes...

This will either be a good or bad example for the boards of Paypal customer service...

I have a technical blog that takes a couple thousand views per month. I'll post my experience there as well.

Here you go Paypal, your opportunity to shine !!!

***Edit***

An extremely helpful customer service representative, answered at 9:30am, and advised after reviewing the transaction that it will be safe to ship. I will be shipping FedEx, with signature confirmation and likely insured.

I'd call that a paypal win for intial customer service. 

That said, I threatened to post it to my Blog, and I will follow through.

Thanks for the comments Snowshoe.