Dispute on payment made to fake business and account limitation

[Serenos13]

Case ID: PP-I-12964893

I am pretty sure I am one but of the many people who have that issue with paypal, but here I hope I might have an answer to my issue, and maybe some help.

This morning, about 3am, me and my girlfriend decided to purchase a gaming chair on a website. The website having be recommended by Google, I took the time to look it up. What surprise when I saw the discounts on the website https://www.pcgamingchairsshop.com/.

To our horror, we noticed, too late, that this website was made using MyShopify, an apparently well-known scam-riddled website platform. We already had made the payment with Paypal, after all. The transfer was made to the e-mail (<removed>) which is obviously a personal account, while the e-mail that provided me with an invoice was (<removed>). We were alarmed.

In a hurry, we tried to find a way to stop this payment. The payment was accepted in less than a minute.

More horror following when we understood that Paypal does not have any protocol set for payments made on internet (such as a 24h policy on payments from individual to businesses, or individuals to strangers), and that since the payment was accepted, it was now too late to cancel it. I would like to remind; less than a minute after the mistake was made.

Now, due to hurry, we made a ticket with Paypal, and placed it under unauthorized payment, after all, who would authorize a payment made to a fraudulent company? I removed my credit cards from paypal immediately to avoid any other payment being taken out, which means that I will possibly not be able to access my account again. Five hours later, I woke up to look at my email and to my relief, I saw that the ticket was addressed. Relief was short-lived when I saw that not only Paypal had not agreed to refund the amount, but also, they closed the ticket with the explanation that follows:

"Thank you for reporting this case. After reviewing your case, we found that this transaction was not unauthorized and hence couldn't be covered under PayPal Purchase Protection."

On top of my account being under limitation.

I tried everything; I tried to call the customer service, but since I do not have any banking information on Paypal anymore, their automated system would not let me talk to a representative. I contacted the message center, I tried everything.

I now ask, if any member of the Paypal Team is currently available, please help me. While the amount is not life-threatening, it is still hard-earned money that I would rather have for myself than to a scammer. While I must salute the latter's energy and dedication to his craft (I don't think I could set up a website), I do not think they deserve to be paid the amount of money that was wired to them through this service.

I never used Paypal before, so not knowing their policies might be on me, but I still need their help to right this wrong.

[ksh1606_]

Hey, i have the exact same problem right now, has anything changed so far? I’m going to call the customer service tomorrow and already wrote an e-mail to paypal and the scammer, since as paypal requested i also opted for unauthorized transaction.

[Serenos13]

Please keep in mind we might not have the exact same situation, but here what I got so far:

Yesterday, I have noticed that the website on which I purchased the chair disappeared. I brought that information to the paypal message center to aid my case. I provided with the invoice received from both paypal and the "seller", including numbers for the transaction and the product presumably sold.

I am currently discussing the matter both with my bank and with Paypal. I managed to get the attention of one of the agent through the message center. Here is the current reply after I :

"I filed a dispute for that transaction and sent you confirmation via email. We will get in touch with the seller to help you get your money back so no further action needed from you. I will also place the money on hold on the seller's account to catch their attention about the case. We will give them until Jan 16 to respond on this case. The earliest they respond, the earliest the case can be resolved as well but if the seller will not respond until Jan 16 we will decide the case in your favor and process a refund on Jan 17. Once the refund was initiated, it may take 5 business days or up to full billing cycle to post depends on your card company's process. Just keep an eye on your email for any updates."

I am kind of relieved. While I will say that the amount of time taken to process that kind of request is a concern, I am ready to acknowledge there is ome effort done on Paypal's part.

Regarding the expectations; please keep in mind, yourself, that you might not receive your money back before a while. I must admit that due to the many comments regarding Paypal's customer service got me very riled up, causing me to panic and get increasingly stressed, but here we are, three days later, and there is progress. I am also very comforted by the fact that their default setting is to side with the customer if the seller shows himself disloyal.

[kernowlass]

@Serenos13 

Shame you didn't come come and ask on here first.

1.

Chinese Web Sites or on Social Media ads easy to spot (once you know the below signs) so buyer beware.

A. No return address on the returns policy............thats because the site will look as if its in your country (where they despatch goods from) BUT they will ask for returns to go back to China (returns depot) at a shipping cost nearly always more than the item is worth.
B. No contact telephone number............if you click on contact the most you will get is webmail or an email address.
C. No company address information.
D. Great looking items at bargain prices that turn out to be tat.

2,

A dispute for an unauthorised transaction is telling paypal that your account was hacked and used without your consent to make that transaction.
Paypal would check IP addresses and devices and close the dispute if it was you that made the transaction.

You are only allowed 1 dispute per transaction so the only way you can get a second dispute opened is to contact Paypal (when and if you can) and see if they will open a second dispute for you.
They may decline citing policies but if you say you made a mistake then they might open a second dispute for you.

If not then if you funded your paypal payment via a credit card then consider contacting your card issuer and see if they will help you with a chargeback?

3.
Contact options for Paypal are accessed by clicking help/contact bottom left of Paypal pages...

1. Paypal phones are slowly re-opening and increasing in numbers (you can use the guest option if you can't log in).
2. Live chat is also randomly available.
3. You can send them a message, during business hours you may also be able to message whilst logged out.
Or
4. Have you considered contacting Customer Service via Facebook or Twitter?
You can send them a personal message from their Facebook or Twitter pages.
It's: https://www.facebook.com/PayPal and @AskPayPal for Twitter.

[Serenos13]

Well, to be honest, considering the large amount of bad feedback I read before posting here, I must admit that did not fill me with confidence that I would have an answer in a timely fashion.

I basically did what you just mentioned; I have sent messages to the Message Center since I could not get on the phone. They indeed reopened the dispute after it was done. The issue was solved and I was refunded. Not quickly, and quite frankly I was apprehensive that I would not get an answer or a positive reply to my issue, but as I said in my previous post; the Paypal agents that communicated with me took the time to read my case and solved it.

[kernowlass]

@Serenos13 

Well whether you get an answer on here timely or otherwise is dependent on when someone decides to log in and give up their time to answer a few posts.

So I gave you a long and detailed reply to all your questions and you said you did what I advised and got a refund yet you don't even bother to say thank you, let alone leave a kudos or solution.

All you say is that you didn't think you would get a timely reply from the 'community'.....you do realise this is a 'user to user' help forum and not paypal customer services don't you?

So......you're welcome.  

[Maul218]

I too was unfortunately hit with the same scam - I've raised a dispute we will get our money back we just have to wait the required time so that the "seller" has time to send us the item. 

I'm glad the shop has now been taken down none of the links on the receipt no longer work. Its quite a sophisticated con with a supplied tracking site it took me a couple of days to realised I had been conned especially with the postal delays caused by brexit.