I recently sold an item on the Gumtree market in the UK and was paid via PayPal. The total payment was made up of three amounts, two of which were supposedly from the buyer's partner. The item was dispatched, tracked and signed for on receipt. A couple of days later the "partner" made two claims, saying that I'd given wrong tracking info, failed to respond to requests for info, and that the item had not been received (all untrue). I responded sending to Paypal a photo of the packed item as shipped, a copy of the carrier's receipt with tracking number, and a copy of the tracking information including the signature on receipt. Despite all of this evidence, and with remarkable inconsistency, Paypal decided in favor of the buyer for the larger of the two payments, saying that the tracking information could not be verified, despite the exact same information being accepted as verified in the case of the second claim!
My question is; a) how common is this buyer scam, and b) how common is this Paypal incompetence?
