Responses to How does PayPal protect me as a seller?

[ikeman56]

Dear Papal,

I had a customer say that I sold him a item that he received that wasn't what I describe. I have no idea why he filed the claim, since I put on my description that I will refund the money if the customer isn't happy. I have 100% feedback and I do everything I can to keep that status. I emailed the customer. Told him to send the item back and I will OK the refund, but told him to go thought me first. No responds to 4 email. I escalated the claim just like paypal instructed me and they refunded his money WITHOUT evidence of shipping the item back. NOT FAIR to a long time customer. I've sent 3 emails to the buyer via the email Paypal sent me with no responds. I find out from 2 other seller that the buyer is a con and will do this repeatedly till Paypal and the Seller stop trust him. HOW IS THAT FAIR!

Ike

Hello (seller),

After careful consideration of the evidence provided in the case detailed
below, we have completed our investigation and decided in favor of the
buyer. Under terms of our User Agreement, we have debited the following
amount from your PayPal account as a refund to the buyer: $91.95 USD

-----------------------------------
Transaction Details
-----------------------------------


Buyer's name: (buyer)

Transaction ID: 74539407T07720022

Transaction date: Dec 7, 2010
Transaction amount: $91.95 USD
Your transaction ID: 4UE39029JD8826221
Case number: PP-001-171-965-011

Refund amount: $91.95 USD

[Dognessy]

With all respect, you just keep repeating the same nonsense again and again, just like your so-called "Customer Service" that doesn't provide any service at all, just parroting you corporate "policies".

The transaction "didn't go well for me" because YOU DO NOT protect sellers at all!

You still haven't told us here so far HOW DO YOU PROTECT SELLERS?

The answer is simple: YOU DON'T!

All your "cases" you open are nothing but wasting of time. The result is well-known: whatever seller says he is always right even if he cannot prove he is.

If PayPal  is so "nice" to "protects" its clients, why don't you just take money from the profit you make on us and then give them to buyer to cover what he paid if the psotal service lost the package?

Why do you take our money from us for the postal service failure?

I'm sorry for you that your bosses put you in this awkward situation when you must try to convince people that the black is actually white.

[mrd777]

Here is how I was not protected as a seller:

Buyer purchases wrong item(our eBay policy states no returns for wrong orders by customers). I said to buyer, please send item back for exchange of correct item. Buyer doesn't want to do that. Instead, He/She files the claim and I have to pay for full refund INCLUDING MY SHIPPING PRICE!

I wouldn't have a problem, but I am losing out on my shipping price, plus the time to handle a ridiculous claim, plus my handling time of paying employees. I can go on...

I cannot go to FedEx and ask for my shipping price to be refunded, can I?

PayPal obviously has favor for their buyers. Why is this? Because they realize if buyers stop using their service, then sellers will cease to use their service. I know it works both ways, meaning, sellers have to use the service, too. However, the favor falls with buyers because they have more influence over the market.

If I wanted, I could take FULL advantage of these amazing flaws. Does PayPal really want to encourage people to do crappy and shady deals? If they don't fix it, people can easily do the following scam:

Buy a $10,000 HD camera from eBay. Claim item is broken or is incorrect and file a claim. Create fake pictures of broken item using photoshop or what not(or heck, just provide pics of my old broken camera I am trying to replace). Then, when I am told to provide tracking number for returned item, I can just ship my smelly blanket which I've peed on  back in the same box and match the weight to the original shipment. Once the buyer receives the item and tries to claim it was incorrect, PayPal wont do anything. PayPal has no proof.

There is no way they can validate any claim from a seller or buyer. This whole protection thing is balogny. Why? Because they fail to look at the bigger picture. I mean, when you are a monopoly, who cares, right?

There are two resolutions I can think of. First, is to have the shipping companies involved. This would work by optionally paying the shipping companies a small fee - just like insurance on a package - to require buyer/receiver to open package on site, and the shipping company take pictures of the item.

Second(if first one is not implemented), PayPal should clearly state a buyer or seller can be scammed, and that it is all at your own risk. They will not state this because they obviously don't want to run out of business! At least honor the people using your service with disclosure of the truth!

But hey, what do I know? I'm just some little kid with sucky grammar which PayPal doesn't care about.

[aussie119]

It seems to me all Paypal advisors are using "copy scripts" written by company lawyers to dismiss the dissent of seller losses?

 Who is more important to Papal...buyers or sellers in the face of  uncontainable world fraud?

Can PP supply some decision data which tell the way it is in all transactions between buyers over sellers?

Why does Paypal NOT have a neutral stance and return the claim back to the two parties to settle?

Does PP have an legal opinion on who it should favor.... account holders or buyers the the corporate sense of PP operations.

Are not account holders more likely to be trusted on the basis they maintain and support PP in the first instance.

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi aussie119, and welcome to the forums!

There's definitely no script here. All my words are my own. Am I choosing them carefully? Sure! I want to make sure I'm conveying the message clearly. If that comes off as if it's from a textbook or written by a lawyer, I certainly apologize. I've been accused of being a robot before, too. I'm not, really.

Let me try to address some of the concerns you've expressed here.

Buyers frequently feel that we favor the sellers, and sellers frequently feel that we favor the buyers. We do not favor either the buyer or the seller. We have protections in place for both parties, and terms that have to be met in order to create a safer transaction. Safer transactions allow us to offer protection to both parties.

The seller does get saddled with the burden of proof in a dispute, it's true. It's definitely more feasible to prove something is delivered than it is to prove it wasn't, so deciding that the seller would be responsible for that information is a matter of logic. When an item is being sent back, the burden of proof switches to the buyer.

Ultimately, the seller has a lot of decision-making power. The seller gets to decide whether or not to accept the payment and ship the item. A seller who doesn't like the circumstances can opt not to continue with the transaction and instead issue a refund. With great power comes great responsibility!

Ok, the Stan Lee quote is probably over the top, but it's still true. 🙂

Olivia

[Borborygm]

Olivia... because I am online at all times... I am a member of the largest buying, deal, and tech forums on the internet according to Google Analytics...

When buying anything from a new online store, or a store that may have mis-priced something, the typical response from users[buyers] is "use paypal so you can't get **bleep**ed". I can literally post you a thousand threads with that exact message if you doubt what I say. So no, MOST buyers do NOT feel that way. It's just not true. In fact, you say you will ban accounts with multiple disputed infractions/transactions, but someone who does 10,000 transactions is more likely to have three, than a buyer who has made three total transactions. 

Whether or not the equality 'attempts' are actually "TRUE" is another matter, but the example you posted[about two equally 'perceived' bias feelings] and the quote with it... are flawed. This is somewhat due to the fact that paypal has no real say when it comes to chargebacks and also that paypal more often than not sides with the buyer even if by default [harder to prove they are lying]. While several natural tendencies may lead to that, as well as other points stated above, the end result is far in favor of the buyer when dealing with transactions. The flaw here is that sellers want to be here for longer than buyers, and even if you had equal complaints, there are far less sellers [according to released ebay data years ago when the aquisition took place]. 

If you perhaps had some hard numbers, that would be wonderful and a step in the right direction in showing both sides. 

[PayPal_Adrian]

Borborygm -

I know you were responding to Olivia, but since she's not on the forums at the moment, I hope you don't mind if I chirp in a little. 

I know the threads you're talking about and have personally seen quite a bit of that kind of chatter, either here on PayPal, eBay, Twitter, or other websites.  Buyers are very confident when purchasing with PayPal, and that's part of the strength of the services we offer.  If you were to search through the selling threads on eBay and in here, you would find buyers who say PayPal only protects sellers.  You would also find sellers saying the opposite.  And I think I've answered quite a few of them on both sides of that fence.   

If we pull back and look at the bigger picture, we can see some interesting things.  Without PayPal, purchasing online from someone you don't know would be a rather scary experience.  Most buyers wouldn't be willing to do so, and if you look at the growth of eCommerce, you'll notice something rather interesting - 91% of online buyers have used PayPal (quoted from this article with some hard numbers). 

It's that confidence that allows PayPal to offer sellers a massive domestic and international market.  Sure, you can set up a credit card processor and start taking credit cards on your website.  Will buyers feel confident in revealing all of their information to someone they don't know and that if something goes wrong, you'll resolve the issue?  Well, generally, no.  Buyers who don't feel confident don't buy.  If an online marketplace isn't secure or doesn't feel secure, it fails.  This is why the same article above says that 36% of online buyers use an alternative payment option for protection.  So I do think there is some truth in what you say about how buyers are concerned about protection and that's one reason why they use PayPal.

In addition, when you compare the cost of PayPal for a regular, plain account;

and then add in the Seller Protection Policy (I've yet to find another processor that even offers this);

and then our fraud teams that review accounts and payments for you (something you would otherwise have to do on your own);

and then our fraud detection technology that prevents fraudulent or problematic transactions;

and then add in our team that fights chargebacks for you (again, something you would have to do on your own, and we actually win more often than individual merchants disputing on their own);

and then add in our disputes process that prevents issues from escalating further;

and then compare all of that against what a traditional processor costs and can offer....

Well, it's really hard to beat for a seller.  That's about as honest as I can be here.  It isn't that we protect buyers more than sellers, or sellers more than buyers.  We protect them both equally, just in different ways.  Some of those protections do overlap.  And honestly - we'd like to see buyers and sellers here just as long as each other. 

Adrian

[wpd121]

Paypal offers absolutely no protection to the seller.  Paypal is a company that only cares it if makes money.  The bs line about having to prove delivery of a product is their way of weaseling out of their responsibility.  The only reason I opened a paypal account is because of the buyer requesting it.  Now I know why.

I have the same experience with the "buyer" claiming they never received the item.  I took the money out of the paypal account and I have closed the bank account this transaction was made on. 

See you in court Paypal because I will not refund any money to you and I will never use your service again.  But then, I can start a new job as a professional scammer and Paypal will be there every step of the way to protect me from the hard working people just trying to sell things by allowing me to claim I never received the item and giving me my money back.  Maybe this would be worth sending to a state  or United States attorney general office as I think we could show Paypal took an active part in a criminal enterprise and has profited from this.  The federal RICO laws were used against debt collectors successfully and I think they could be used successfully here against Paypal.  I would like to know what everyone thinks.    

[Kiefer]

paypal has never protected me, i had a guy pay for some online service to me 45$ and the next day he files a unauthorized claim on his computer and ip address and he still wins? hmmm also its not hard for someone to make a payment on a proxy witch bascily shows that you are in a different country then simply file a unauthorized claim and win. and lets talk about the reverse payments? people do this all the time even me i have at least lost 100bucks by the reverse payment scam this is where they have there banks reverse the payment for no reason and the buyer gets there money back.

all i'm saying here is that the seller has no protection its always in the buyers favor and its all a scam and i'm about fedup with paypal.

[MsSeller]

Unfortunately, the only answer here is to stop using Paypal.  Paypal does not protect the seller and neither does Ebay.  This is what I've decided to do.  I know it may be convenient to use Paypal for the BUYER only, but as a seller, it's just not worth it, especially the fees they charge when money is deposited into your Paypal account.  If your business is selling on ebay, then you're kinda stuck and will be stuck by Paypal and Ebay both, because in their eyes, the buyer is always right (even tho they're often not).   I've had too many fraudulent charges to my paypal account in the past year also.  So, these wrongful charges from unknown people combined with Paypal giving me a huge negative balance on my account because of a someone with buyers remorse, have been reasons enough for me to stop using Paypal.  This was my answer.  Maybe there will be another service out there to open up soon that will be fair and secure both.

[Itz_Me]

If only you all actually protected the seller...