How can I protect myself against fraudulent claims of unauthorised payments

[cirrus]

I run a driving school directory website.

Customers pay a monthly Paypal subscription payment to maintain a listing in the directory.  Potential pupils can contact instructors directly or via contact form on the site.

Occasionally a customer will forget to cancel before the due date and claim the payment was 'unauthorised' to get the money back.  Annoying and dishonest, yes.  But no more so than Paypal sending me notifications of the claim, informing me that I have 7 days to respond when the claim has already been resolved against me!  I tried complaining to Paypal but all I got was the 'this claim has now been resolved' run around.  Helpful - not!  Frankly for the sake of the occasional £5 payment that someone had clearly forgotten to cancel I wasn't going to lose any sleep.

But now it is more serious.  One cheeky monkey has claimed 18 months worth of monthly (£5) payments were unauthorised and Paypal have duly reversed the payments on the same day as receiving the claim.  I am £90 out of pocket.  The 'cheeky monkey' has received 18 months of free advertising for his business plus four direct enquiries via the site each potentially worth £1000 to him.

Clearly Seller Protection does not apply in a case like this.  There are no goods to post - so no proof of postage.

It occurs to me that the site is 10 years old.  If all my customers behaved like this chap I would be bankrupt - all with Paypal's enthusiastic collusion.

So - How can I protect myself against fraudulent claims of unauthorised payments?

[kernowlass]

Sorry but you can't.

As you have already said there is no seller protection on paypal for "services" so you will always lose.

A chargback is done by the buyers credit card company rather than paypal, BUT if you were covered by seller protection you would not lose your money either if you provided paypal with a tracking number that proved delivery of the item to the buyer etc.

Why not accept direct bank transfer instead of paypal?? 

Forgot to say so edited this...........you do still have rights and you could take him to the small claims court. If you have proof he asked for the service and then did a chargeback you would probably win.

Why not email him stating that if he does not pay again as the chargeback was incorrect then you will be seeking redress via a small claims court action..........that may make him re-think his actions.