Appeal against PayPal decision in the Resolution Centre

[kafka]

 I live in Australia. A buyer in the USA ordered a vinyl record from me and paid for it. I posted the item promptly. Some time later I received a complaint from the buyer through the resolution centre alleging that I had made an unauthorised withdrawal from his account. Due to the necessity to respond quickly I could not do much investigation. I responded to the complaint, pointing out that my accuser lived in the USA and that I had never heard of him and couldn't possibly have accessed his account. The only evidence I could provide was a scan of his eBay order. Shortly afterwards I received a ruling from PayPal which went against me on the grounds that I hadn't provided proof of shipping.

Much aggrieved, I did some detective work which seemed to support my defence. I was able to email the buyer who, much to my surprise, recalled receiving the record. He also told me that he would clear it up with PayPal. So far nothing has eventuated. I could live with the loss of the purchase price of the LP ($30) but not with the fine PayPal levied ($13) because it implies that I defrauded the buyer.

I have tried to make an appeal against PayPal's decision (I would include the buyer's email) but when I click on View on my case page nothing happens. On one page the case is described as closed whilst on th page showing the case it is shown as under review.

How can I contact PayPal to put my case?

[kafka]

I've checked and cannot find where I was told that the case was closed. It is still an open case and under review. I still believe that I should be able to add further information. Although the case is under review PayPal has nonetheless taken the money from my account and charged me $15. I think it would be more fair if that happened after the review period, otherwise I am presumed to be guilty in advance. Here is the buyer's last message:

"I just got off the phone with paypal again, I explained I had no claim against

you and that I received the record.  He did not show any

complaint against you by me, but did say

it may have to do with a credit card company I have, I had fraudulent

charges on a credit card I used, and maybe they are the ones contacting you ???"

If I don't hear from him in the near future I will suggest that he look at his own PayPal account to see if he has a dispute listed in the Resolution Centre.

I will call them too.

[kafka]

After posting that last message I wrote to the buyer:

Mr Hoyt,

It has been suggested to me that you look at your own PayPal account and find the dispute listed in the Resolution Centre. You can then close your claim, telling PayPal that you had received the record and the transaction was legitimate. I was also told that only you can initiate a dispute, not your credit card company or anyone else.

According to my Pay Pal account the case is under review and a final decision will not be made for 30 days or so. When the case is closed and, as I anticipate, the ruling is against me, I will appeal and provide copies of our recent email conversations to support my case that you ordered the record and received it (as you have stated in your various emails).

I am confident that this whole matter is a result of a misunderstanding and that I will be refunded both the $15 charge back fee and the purchase/postage price of the record.

Regards, Michael

I'll see if that elicits a response (I think I was pretty diplomatic)

[angelleye]

Okay, well that does lead me to a theory.

With this information, it sounds like what happened is that the buyer had this credit card attached to his PayPal account, and used that card as the funding source for the purchase to you.

Later, he saw that he had some fraudulent transactions on that same card, and he called his credit card company directly to dispute these transactions.

When you do this, the CC company will go through a list of recent transactions and ask you if they were yours or not. There's a chance he mistakenly claimed that this PayPal transaction was included in the bad transactions that he was disputing.

With this, the CC company included that transaction in their disputed transaction list, and they immediately awarded the card holder a "temporary credit pending investigation."

When the CC companies gives the money back to the card holder, they take it from PayPal, and they have to take it from you....the seller of the disputed transaction.

So that would explain why the buyer is saying he never filed a dispute with PayPal even though you're seeing that dispute on your side. It would also explain why the credit was given during the review instead of after...because the CC company themselves did it....upon cardholder request.

If the dispute was with PayPal directly, the experience would have been different. When the dispute comes in the form of a chargeback from the card company, it's very difficult for PayPal to fight that. Especially without proper documentation of the entire transaction and shipment details.

So now it's starting to sound less like fraud, and more like a big mess of mistakes and confusion on the buyer's side, which is now affecting you directly.

I hate to say it, but this is a classic example of why it's so important to ship merchandise with tracking.

These automated systems want tracking information. If you had it, you could plug it into the field where they ask for it, the automated system would see that it shows delivered, and that would be a big help to you in this dispute process.

As it stands, the CC company filed this chargeback and took the cash, and without proof of delivery PayPal really can't do anything about it. 😞

Again, just a theory, but it sounds to me like that's what's going on here.

Hopefully your buyer can communicate all of this to the card company, and they can then go back to PayPal and correct the fact that the legitimate transaction was mistakenly included in the list of disputed transactions.

[kafka]

Your theory sounds more than a little plausible to me. I can understand PayPal's actions and it also explains the buyer's responses. I hope that he goes through with his plan to contact his credit union. The amount involved was small (I always refund payment without question when a buyer claims non-delivery). What I was concerned with was that my integrity appeared to be in question.

I usually only pay extra for tracking or insurance if the amount I have sold something for makes it worthwhile. As most of the stuff I sell goes for $15-$20 I am willing to take the risk that something won't be delivered as the extra cost would have to be added the shipping cost, making the item less attractive or else be absorbed by me, thus reducing my profit margin and making the sale not worthwhile.

Thank you for your thoughts and advice. I will let you know if it all works out.

[Twilight5145]

Had pretty much the same thing done to me. In my case, after 7 days the overseas buyer filed a dispute. Another 7 days passed and he said he has received his record. Five minutes later PayPal gave him his money back. Tried contacting PayPal, just keep getting the same automated reply. PayPal don't care.

[PayPal_Donna]

Hello Twilight5145,

Welcome to the PayPal community and thank you for your post.

As your question is very account specific, I would advise you to contact our customer care department who can help you further. You can do this by clicking on the Help and Contact link at the bottom of every PayPal page to check what your contact options are. You can also contact us via our Facebook Page or Twitter @askPayPal.

-Donna

[Twilight5145]

Tried that several times already, goes round in circles. Utter waste of time. When the buyer says he has received the item and PayPal then gives him his money back as well, it shows that PayPal don't give a damn about the seller. Disgusted by the service, and disgusted to get the above reply

[ScammedNRipped]

I hope folks can read passed my sarcastic and burnt-out tone. I'm precisely $136 in the hole to date courtesy of Paypal. Speaking from my personal experience here's how this nonsense will go down for folks victimized by overseas scammers:

Paypal will demand you ship back a product you didn't order, hooray! Pay full shipping and receive up to $30 back on what could cost hundreds more to return. You'll need to do this WITH tracking by Paypal's absurd deadlines! Even in the middle of CORVID-19, you've got what? 10 days to ship crap you didn't order "back" to the North Pole. What more do I need to say? Need to add dispute information? You're at the mercy of the site being able to handle your request; it crashes frequently and encounters nifty "errors" that prevent you from deploying common sense, buyer's ethics, or any kind of plea for human decency.  Why? Corvid-19 is the likely culprit right now. Paypal's impersonal, mechanized solutions are laughable at best and costing honest customers money and frown-lines.

If a seller promises you a genuine leather baseball in yellow color and sends you a lemon, you have to return the lemon. If the buyer cast the illusion they were from your country but are actually operating from Santa's Workshop, too bad. You have to return that lemon. It's the "right thing to do." So you can keep your $50 lemon and watch it rot and mock you, or you can play the Paypal game. That lemon was obviously a malicious scam, but heck! It's apparently legal by Paypal's standards.

If you paid $50 for that base ball having no idea of the value of a "genuine" ball (because that's how scams work), too bad, son. You'll still have to pay 200 bucks to ship it back to Santa-Land leaving you $20 in the hole. The entire responsibility is placed on the victim. Paypal wins. The scammer wins. The customer loses. That isn't ethical. If you photograph the image of the promised item and photograph the lemon, I'm pretty sure no return should be required. Maybe it'd be ethical for the company to submit an itemized expense list for the actual cost of that lemon, but really? Do we give scammers a dime? Do thieves get to deduct gas miles from people they rob? Apparently Paypal does. Paypal still collects its transaction fees from these events too. That seems pretty shady to me.

Paypal's reply to date has been: "We can't force a seller to refund unless you return, provide tracking, and the seller acknowledges receipt of the item." 

You can though. What scam-artist is going to "acknowledge" receipt of a package overseas? Precisely none.

This is a massive problem. It needs a solution that is not a form letter or pages that loop you back to lists of potential (irrelevant) solutions that also loop you to a "Contact Us!" link... that loops you right back to form-letter heck. Boy, do us customers feel protected and valued.

Sure, you can just tack a caveat: BUYER BEWARE! emblem, but if buyers knew better they wouldn't get scammed. I'm also not a fan of blaming victims. Most folks wouldn't think scam would crop up over a baseball. I sure never thought I was buying an illegal knock-off copy of a sculpt that arrived looking nothing like the item I purchased. Funny thing? Paypal also agreed it looked NOTHING like the item I ordered. They were going to give me a full refund! (YAY! YIPPIE, right? Wrong.) I'm still out my money because I'm not insane enough to come out on the other side of this deal $50 in the hole. Despite being given multiple emails to message for help, I was only looped and form-lettered to death. I'm sure there's a myriad of people reading this plea for a solution that have been through the same nightmare.

Do you hear it? Every time a link is clicked, a victim gets its form-letter! It's an e-miracle of justice!

Scammed,
ScammedNRipped

p.s. I'll lose my e-lunch if a customer service agent links me to the "contact us" page or offers up a form letter as a valid reply.

[ScammedNRipped]

Beg pardon. HOW embarrassing! You wouldn't be $20 in the hole. You'd be 220 in the hole. 250-30=220. I'd love to say: "I was just seeing if you were paying attention..." But that's as tired as I am right now. 😪

[angelleye]

"or you can play the PayPal game."

This isn't a PayPal thing. This is a card issuing bank thing. The credit card companies all treat this the same way. PayPal, Stripe, PayLeap, Group ISO, Authorize.net, local bank merchant accounts, etc. all have very similar procedures with this, because it all stems from the card issuing banks. If you want a refund for something you purchased, they will give it to you, but you have to return the item. Imagine if you didn't have to?

How much fraud would there be from people simply buying things, filing disputes, and keeping the cash and the item? They are dealing with hundreds of millions of accounts. Yes, you need to follow the automated procedures as much as possible. When something like covid is going on, I'm sure they'll work with you, but like everything else, you may need to take additional manual steps after the dust settles.

On your return, they don't have to "acknowledge" receipt. The tracking that shows it has been delivered there is the acknowledgement. Again, all processors handle this the same way.

I can understand your frustration, but none of this is PayPal specific. If you had simply used a credit card directly to make this purchase, and filed the dispute with your card company, they would issue a temporary credit to you immediately, but would then request that you follow this same series of steps. If you don't, they would pull the money back from you after their "investigation period" had ended, assuming you never provided the info they asked for, which would be the same thing PayPal is asking for here.

So yes, you're absolutely right about "buyer beware". This goes for anything you purchase from anybody no matter how you pay for it. You need to do some additional due diligence and make sure you are purchasing from reputable sellers to begin with. Then if something does go wrong, you'll have to follow the procedures.

What exactly would you rather see? Just refund people money any time they file a dispute without having to return merchandise to sellers? How would you feel if you sold a $200 item, then that person just filed a dispute, and immediately got their money back without having to give you the item back?

I see a lot of frustration here and complaints about the current system, but I don't see any feedback on potential solutions to the problem. What would you have them do? And by "them", I mean all processors.