Chargeback Greater Than 10 Weeks After Payment

[mystixls]

My company has been doing business online for greater than 15 years and never have we had to deal with something such as this. We recently decided to strictly use PayPal as the only means for our online customers to make payments for their purchases. Our shopping cart system asks the customers to provide us with their billing address and their shipping address (if different). This permits them to buy something as a gift (if they wish) and to have it shipped to that person 's address.

On June 6, 2011, one of our customers made a gross purchase of $36.50 from us and provided a different address than his billing address for the merchandise to be shipped. We set up our shopping cart system to alllow us time to verify that items being purchased are indeed in stock before billing the online customer. When we received the order and verified that the items were in stock, we went to our PayPal account and sent the customer a "money request" for payment of the purchase. By the way, the only email address ever used was the one provided at the time of purchase.

The customer at that email address later went to PayPal to finalize his purchase with us. He was not already a PayPal member so opted to pay using his credit card. He used the same email address. He provided PayPal with his billing address (aka PayPal's Transaction Details address). PayPal accepted his credit card for the transaction with due care (I expect) to verify the card security code.

Greater than two months later PayPal notifies us that he "filed a chargeback and asked the credit card issuer to reverse a payment made to you on June 6, 2011" and "claims that this purchase was made without authorization to use the credit card."

We uploaded two proofs of delivery to the shipping address specified during the purchase. Our PayPal account was immediately charged back the net purchase amount while PayPal was allegedly investigating this on our behalf, then about 20 days later was carged a $20 "settlement fee."

What are the rules for how long one can wait to chargeback a purchase from their credit card? We thought it was 30 days. Isn't it a rule that if you have a dispute with a credit card purchase that you must provide it in writing and make an effort to communicate with the party with whom you are having the dispute to get it resolved before a chargeback can be implemented?

Needless to say, we are very unhappy with how PayPal is handling this. Their communication has been almost nonexistent, two formal emails only and no phone calls. We may resolve to make it mandatory that all online purchases from us in the future must be sent to the billing address, thus eliminating the possibilty to buy something from our website as a gift.

[gottuhaveit]

I just went through a chargeback from a buyer and as a seller you actually have 30 days to get the item to the buyer and if the buyer has not received the item within 30 days then they can file a chargeback. What really stinks is in order to get your funds back you have to have all kinds of information and proof of delivery of the item, and on top of that it takes paypal 30 days to decide if you are right so they can fight the credit card company and then to make it even worse it can take up to 75 days for them to get he funds back from the credit card company if you win. Last but not least you end up having to pay a 20 dollar fee to paypal for them supplying the credit card company with the information that you had to come up with and send to paypal. Actually in my opinion paypal is totally worthless for a seller or a buyer outside of ebay and they do it like this for a reason because both companies are partners and they both feed off the sells made on ebay. My suggestion would be to drop them all together as a payment source because you actually have no protection at all with them unless you are a seller or buyer on ebay and they charge you for every sell you make. Good luck with you company

[I3ongwat3r]

4.4 Risk of Reversals, Chargebacks and Claims

From the user agreement.

[mystixls]

I just added a note to the claim regarding the unauthorized use of a credit card for PayPal to use and respond to. It was something like:

Yesterday we sent a snapshot of a MyLife page indicating that the buyer has lived in both Buffalo,NY and Las Vegas,Nevada.

We wonder how the cardholder could use the same email address when placing an order with our company and the same email address when making his payment (at a separate time) for the order through PayPal. If the cardholder is claiming that that his credit card was stolen, the thief would also have to have access to his email account.

We have not received any communication from the cardholder regarding this claim. We have not been provided with any details of this dispute from PayPal or any other party. As the seller, we should be entitled to all the information.

We do not know if the cardholder has reported that his card was stolen or not. We do not know which credit card company is supporting his alleged claim.

Therefore, we are formally requesting that we be provided with all of the information regarding this claim as soon as it is possible.

I'll let you know if anything good or bad results from it.