Hi! I am wondering if anyone else in the Paypal community has had similiar issues and how they resolved them. A few nights ago, I was sitting on the couch watching a movie with my husband and I got an email from Paypal that I made a $427 with Office Depot. My husband, the only other member of my household, was sitting beside me. I immediatlely asked him if he had made a purchase (he has never used my Paypal account). He had definitely not ordered anything. I contacted Office Depot right away. Their customer service rep was friendly but they searched every ounce of information that I could provide them (I only had the transaction ID from paypal and then all of my personal information). They could not find any orders in their system that matched the information I was sharing. Paypal customer service was not available in the evening, so I contacted them first thing in the morning. They told me to contact Office Depot and refused to help resolve the issue at all because they claimed this with a preapproved payment. So, I copied my entire conversation with Paypal and sent it to Office Depot customer service team. Office Depot continued to be helpful, the new customer service rep searched and searched and could not find any order that related to the charges, she then had a manager call me later that afternoon and they continue to search for the order based on credit card information and other details that I could provide. They were unable to find the order. They told me that I needed to go back to Paypal and ask for more information and they provided me with their information so that I could set up a 3-way call with Paypal to resolve the issue. After a 3.5 hour wait with Paypal's customer service phone line, the Paypal representative told me that there is nothing that they can do. Because I have a payment agreement with Office Depot (I apparently had linked my paypal account when I had made a few printing orders for $10 here and there) that I DID authorize the charges and I will have to work it out with the seller. I have asked Paypal to agree to this and a representative said he would have someone contact me. Of course, I have not heard back from Paypal although I have continued to message them. In the meantime, I was contacted my credit card company attached to my Paypal account and they are going to investigate the charges.
My question is this: has anyone else had unauthorized charges in a "preapproved payment" account? If so, how did you fight them? Paypal will not let me dispute this type of transaction because it is supposedly a preapproved payment. Their suggestion to me is that I need to wait for 120 days, since the money is still pending. If in 120 days Office Depot does not authorize this transaction, my money will be returned. So basically, I'm supposed to let them hold on to my money for 120 days. If by April 13th, Office Depot doesn't authorize this charge (which they claim to have zero knowledge of, btw), then I can finally get my money back. I have wasted so much time and energy fighting and disputing between Office Depot and Paypal. Has anyone found a way to get an issue like this resolved? Please advise.
