Don't protect the seller?

[gheyphail]

I run a community that survives based on donations. Recently a donor was allowed to reverse a transaction. The reversal was honored cause I couldn't provide a 'tracking number' to prove i shipped an item. Since when does donation require I ship an item? Paypal staff was not only completely ignorant, but included false statements like: * You accepted payment from multiple PayPal accounts for a single purchase * Shipment was made internationally to a country that is not covered by the Seller Protection Policy * Shipment was not made within 7 days of receiving the payment * You do not have a Verified Business or Premier account * You did not supply the requested information within 10 days, as required under our User Agreement How can 2 donations that occured 6 months apart be considered multiple payments for one purchase? How can you claim I shipped internationally when you deny I had shipped anything, and when no item was ever destined to BE shipped? How can you claim I took over 7 days to ship, knowing that no item was to be shipped and the payment was a donation? How can you claim I do not have a business or verified account when i do? https://www.paypal.com/us/verified/pal=donations%40negroserver%2ecom How can you say it took me over 10 days to provide required information when you can see just as well as i that I had replied 4 timed within 8 days of the dispute opening? I have sent about 50 emails to every available paypal email address to see if i can get a better response than the original. In addition ill just leave this here and maybe it wont end up deleted. Original Message Follows: ------------------------ Form Message customer subject: legacy customer message: message: 'Regarding: trans_id: '2GC3195348135642F' case_id: 'PP-001-212-089-093' As per https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/terms-outside#consumer_p rotection --PayPal's consumer protection programs only apply to tangible, physical goods which can be shipped, and excludes everything else, including but not limited to: intangibles, services, quasi-cash and all non-tangible, non-physical goods.-- --Thank you for contacting PayPal. Thank you for your prompt response with the requested information in regards to this transaction. However, we still need the online tracking number showing shipment to the address in the Transaction Details page for this transaction to qualify for Seller Protection Policy.-- Why are you protecting horatio spacelaser? He donated to us, and in turn was granted donor account status. This CLEARLY covers both services and intangibles. I had sent numerous documents showing durations of time spent with us and multiple donations proving satisfaction and reception of what was expected. In addition, you, unlike me, have access to his account and can see HOW MANY REVERSALS he filed at the same time, and for what cost, to whom. Yet you still allowed him to reverse. --Complaints must be filed no later than ## days from the date of payment. Only one Complaint may be filed per PayPal transaction. PayPal will seek to resolve the complaint within ## days of the date the complaint is filed, though such time frame may be extended, if appropriate, to accommodate the investigation. This policy applies only to the sale of tangible, physical goods and excludes all other sales and services, pursuant to section # above.-- Again you make sure to inform buyers that "This policy applies only to the sale of tangible, physical goods and excludes all other sales and services, pursuant to section # above." Yet you are breaking these Terms of Service you drew up, to return the funds for services rendered. I was recently scammed for ## dollars and you enabled the criminal acts. I received a ## dollar donation and then you allowed it to be reversed. I provided links to a verified account and ample proof linking the fraudulent user to a verified account. In my own investigation I have discovered that this horatio spacelaser has reversed at least one thousand dollars in purchases over paypal. I cannot believe you allow this. Is your system so poor that one can make $1000 in purchases, then reverse them? Long after the transaction has occured no less? It is INSANE: paypal is a virtual business, yet because a real item was not sent, via a shipping service, you say I didn't meet some requirement. According to the ToS, the whole transaction doesn't meet the requirement for reversal as it was a donation, and granted intangible goods and services. How do I ship account changes? You condone the theft of digital media? That is what you are enabling. My clients pay for something that exists digitally and it affects their client account. This **bleep**er not only donated once, but twice, and used a verified account the first time. I gave you a **bleep** load of IP addresses you could compare to logins on both his verified and unverified account. I offered proof that he was a long time user. I provided proof of him taking similar action against independent paypal users not involved with negroserver donations. He scammed us for only ## bucks, supposedly some other paypal users for #-# thousand dollars in virtual merchandise. His user account on which he took these actions has been frozen by (http://www.valvesoftware.com/) Valve themselves, a huge game company. This occurred because valve was able to determine that the items were transferred and the offended parties were able to provide proof of the reversal of the paypal payments. http://steamcommunity.com/id/HoratioSpacelaser Australian police are supposedly involved for international fraud committed by this horatiospacelaser (Lachy Gilmour of Western Australia) against other clients of paypal, located in Australia. I'm glad I'm not involved with that stuff, the loss of ## bucks is almost a blessing compared to the guy who I heard lost ### dollars. None the less, our transactions don't contain a tracking number because we don't ship anything. We provide a service over the internet and people are allowed to donate. According to your own Terms of Service, a buyer gets no recourse on services, intangible goods, and never in my life have I heard of reversible donations. Yet you break these binding terms to refund a fraudulent user with a history of reversals. I have given ample information for a competent investigator to determine without doubt that a solid link exists between a verified paypal buyer and this fraudulent account. You allow this hazard to exist and take no action. Please explain to me why you violate our contract while allowing such risk to exist. Furthermore, explain what actually protects me; any of my clients could do what horatio did and I assume the precedent set here would stand, payment reversed. In this experience, it seems you do not protect the seller and you allow fraud to be committed. You enabled fraud where it was once impossible. This case has exposed a vicious flaw in your system. To make some money on paypal, all one must do is buy virtual goods, obtain them, reverse payments, sell those same virtual goods, and paypal will defend such acts of thievery from sellers who try to recover their deserved funds. I am mind blown that you allow this to happen. I honestly hope from the bottom of my heart that Mr. Gilmour extorts thousands more dollars from honest users, over his multiple accounts, another violation of the ToS that you perpetuate, and you are forced to address why you allow this behavior, while holding far more than enough information to observe these methods and prosecute for international fraud. The biggest issue is that all my transactions are the same as the horatio transaction. The clients donate, and then their account is upgraded to donor, which comes with perks. Obviously you don't care for the concept of donation, but as it is a **bleep**ing gift, I don't need to give them **bleep**. The perks they receive are an added bonus because I recognize that they have donated. You reversed horatio spacelasers donation a month after it occurred. The donor perks are for a month anyway. So essentially EVERY single user may come, donate, obtain, then reverse payment and **bleep**. It is clear that every dollar I hold is at risk, risk which increases the longer it sits in a paypal account. I fear compromise of my paypal bound bank account as you have direct access to that as well. If you want to start mass reversing my payments, every single one was made exactly as horatio's. A client donates, then I update their account. You apparently deem that unimportant, as you returned horatio's money. You obviously don't care who is correct, for I sent valuable quantities of information showing he was a +# month user of our services, and had donated more than once using both verified and unverified paypal accounts. You did not take this into consideration. If you allow this type of behavior to exist and be fruitful, the user base will deteriorate into ###,### horatio spacelasers and their reversed transactions against large businesses, which in the end hurts paypal profits. Is there anyway to protect myself from the quantities of criminals you allow to commit fraud over your service? You tell me why I shouldn't feel at risk with this lack of respect for your own ToS. As it stands, every dollar I've ever made could be reversed if the buyers wanted to do what horatio did. The situations are no different. The only difference is that horatio actually initiated a reversal and my other clients have not. If they all initiated reversals, I have no more proof than I had with horatio regarding their transaction and history. That means that anyone who contests any transaction I have ever made, I will not be able to provide the "tracking number" you asked for cause nothing was shipped. So yes, as far as I'm concerned, I'm afraid paypal is going to scam me out of thousands of dollars, every donation I've ever incurred with this **bleep**ing piece of **bleep** service. Whats funny is that your own ToS states that they cannot execute a reversal against non shippable items, yet the official paypal reasoning for the reversal was that I couldn't provide the tracking details for the intangibles horatio received. Such irony. Is it true that every transaction and dollar is subject to change without notice? Horatio uses multiple accounts, verified and unverified, reverses a lot of payments in a short period, clearly breaking the ToS. Another user has one verified account, runs his tiny, **bleep**ty business off of paypal, has no history of any conflict in his year of paypal use, clearly doing the right thing. How do you penalize the good user and reward the ToS breaker? --Thank you for contacting PayPal. Thank you for your prompt response with the requested information in regards to this transaction. However, we still need the online tracking number showing shipment to the address in the Transaction Details page for this transaction to qualify for Seller Protection Policy.-- --We've concluded our investigation into the transaction detailed below. Because we determined that you did not meet the eligibility requirements for the PayPal Seller Protection Policy, you are being charged for this reversed transaction. We've returned the funds to the PayPal account holder, and your account will be debited for the amount of this transaction.-- As stated, there was no tracking number as it was not an item to be shipped. It was services/intangible goods. Your ToS states there is no buyer protection for services/intangible goods. The user horatio spacelaser has no recourse and your incompetent investigators have not only done a blatantly **bleep** investigation, but your disputes department has blatantly ignored the binding ToS we are bound by that was designed by paypal. You should see fit to respond and I want the following questions answered: #) How do I appeal the reversal? #) Why were the violations of the Terms of Service ignored in the determination of this dispute? #) What actually protects me from losses? All of my transactions are the same as this one was, so I see no reason why every client couldn't do what horatio did. #) What is the actual reason for the reversal? All I have learned from our prior emails is that I "Didn't provide a tracking number" to paypal. #) Did anyone actually look at his account history and take it into consideration? #) Does anyone take into consideration the number and nature of disputes opened by horatiospacelaser? #) Did anyone attempt to utilize the massive quantity of information I provided to paypal investigators? #) Are you concerned that Mr. Gilmour could publish his exploit now that he has successfully implemented it, as a verified method of committing international fraud, using paypal as the enabling element of execution? #) Whoever gets the privilege of replying, what is your name, position within paypal, your boss's name, and his position? Might I ask for your boss's email address? I would normally thank you for your time after such a long read but I honestly detest that I have to be doing this lame **bleep** suit and tie **bleep** instead of playing games with my clients. Boo you, Negroserver.com'

[gheyphail]

The best part of this whole scenario, and it absolutely deserves its own reply, is that the user who you allowed to scam a mere twenty dollars from me, has also scammed over 2000 dollars from other paypal users. Paypal allows this to occur. Be sure you take steps to protect your self cause paypal will not cover you. When you question them o their actions and the safety of your account, you'll get a cookie cutter copy paste email that answers nothing. Also nice thread formatting, not sure why the post above turned into WALL OF TEXT when it had spacing and line breaks.

[gheyphail]

It saddens me but I strongly feel this post will be eventually deleted. Dat printscreen, i luv you.

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi gheyphail,

I understand your frustration over this. You're trying to run a game site and you appeal to your members for donations in order to stay afloat. I've contributed to several sites that do things this way, and wouldn't think of filing a dispute of any kind. In fact, I think that can be said of the vast majority of people who donate to sites they frequent.

Where we typically see a problem is when someone using your site pays you with someone else's financial information. We have security controls in place to greatly reduce the likelihood of this occurring, but it still can happen. In situations like this, the person making the fraudulent payment is victimizing two people - the person whose information they stole, and you - the recipient of the donation.

If there had been a physical, tangible item sold, and if the transaction had been marked as seller protection eligible, then we would track the item, show it delivered to the address in the transaction details, and we would be able to protect you from loss. When the item is intangible, or like in your case, when there is no item, then Seller Protection coverage does not apply. There is risk associated with the receipt of donations. Many charities set aside some of what they receive in anticipation of the possibility. This is a best practice whether you're a small gaming group paying for your servers with donations via PayPal, or a gigantic charity that has yearly telethons and accepts direct payments.

I'm sorry it turned out like this. It's crummy to think that there are people who are using your site who would defraud you. When all you're selling is goodwill and camaraderie, It's got to hit especially hard.

Olivia