Hi, I even had a worse experience if I may say so and am keen to get a response from a Moderator as the helpdesk seems to be 'inadequately staffed' (Corona as an excuse, yes sure - what about online working from home??) to help me.
I sold an Iphone to someone in the US (I am in the Netherlands) and she would make the payment via PayPal. I had read all the terms about Buyer Protection (obviously no safeguards for the Seller, so this is a total anomoly, assuming they value customers that hold money in their wallet, so don't understand the bias here), so understood there were risks. Which made me extra cautious. I received an email, purportedly from PayPal (but not as it later turned out) that the payment was received from the Buyer but that it was being held pending receipt of a tracking number. I submitted the tracking number and the package was indeed on its way. More and more I got suspicious especially as a further mail was sent from the same mail address that it would be taking 48 hours longer to settle the amount due to server issues. I therefore forwarded that mail to PayPal to validate it. During all this time I tried contacting PayPal (by phone and through message service) but no response. I had therefore given the order to DHL to stop shipment, which they did. Quite soon a mail from PayPal's spoof mailaddress arrived saying that there was no reason to doubt the mail. Based on this I allowed the shipment to continue. Now finally I am being told (finally by the messaging service) that the mail was fraudulent and that if I wanted I could always file a claim (no directions as to how to do this and what this process might look like, of course... the messaging is still pending and very unsatisfactory in terms of answers and timing).
So, the status is that I lived up to all my obligations, even checked multiple times with PayPal during the process to avoid fraud and now I am with a device that I sold and without payment. To report unauthorised transactions the website is set up only to accommodate the one making the payment. In this case, I have no payment so cannot report/claim through this means. The fraud desk only sends automated replies (no doubt using self-learning software that looks for spoofs/phishing, etc.). Clearly, PayPal did everything wrong in terms of adequate response time and even confirming a mail did not look suspicious. I am going to claim the EUR 940 lost here although the website provides no guidance as to how to achieve this.
PayPal is valued at billions of dollars and no doubt making nice profits; clearly not being too worried about customers that are unsatisfied because their product does not work adequately. Especially in a area such as fraud that is to key to the business and clearly rampant. You would expect they invest a lot more to avoid this. I will continue my fight, which is just starting.
