Unauthorized Paypal Transaction Claim Scam?

gmoney160
Contributor
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I received an E-mail from PayPal saying "You have received a payment that we believe may not have been authorized by the PayPal account holder.  Here are the details of the transaction we are investigating."

 

About three days ago, I sold an item worth $1,000 from France to a buyer in New York through the website Grailed (similar to eBay but for apparel, shoes, accessories) who offers Paypal Buyer + Seller protection. After the purchase, the buyer also asked a question about shipping the receipt along with the item, to which I replied yes. The next day, I shipped the item and sent the buyer tracking information. Lo and behold, the next day, they filed am Unauthorized Paypal Claim. This was surprising because she was communicative at the time of purchase on the Grailed messages, and her address was PayPal verified. Of course, once the claim was filed, she stopped replying to my messages, which is extremely frustrating. And since they filed a claim, the money is now on hold in my account.

 

I was directed to the Resolution Center by PayPal to provide as many notes and evidence of the shipment. Thus, I provided the tracking number, a scan of the shipment receipt from the post office, the post office receipt of shipment fee, and also a screenshot of my messages between me and the buyer, showing how she communicated to me about the item and seemed to know what she was doing (I will send another screenshot of how she completely stopped responding since filing the claim). I find that ignoring the buyer after filing an unauthorized transaction claim is a bizarre behavior. The package is expected to arrive in a few days, and I can't do anything to intercept it. The package will also require a signature of the buyer.

 

Is there any more information I could provide to help my case? Is this a scam? Is there any chance I could lose?

 

I've read many threads online of this behavior and wanted some advice. Thanks.

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kernowlass
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@gmoney160

 

An unauthorised dispute means that an account holders paypal account has been hacked and used without their consent (by your so called buyer).

 

If paypal finds that this is true then of course that account holder gets their money refunded.

 

However you would be reimbursed as well as long as you met all the requirements of seller protection.

 

So your best bet is to go back to the user agreement and double check that you met all that criteria for if paypal finds out that the claim is genuine.

 

 


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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@gmoney160

 

An unauthorised dispute means that an account holders paypal account has been hacked and used without their consent (by your so called buyer).

 

If paypal finds that this is true then of course that account holder gets their money refunded.

 

However you would be reimbursed as well as long as you met all the requirements of seller protection.

 

So your best bet is to go back to the user agreement and double check that you met all that criteria for if paypal finds out that the claim is genuine.

 

 


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WASD
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

This is very frustrating, you have been scammed. Same thing happened to me today.

Someone bought a game key from my website, made the payment through PayPal and after he received the code he opened a case against me saying it was a Unauthorised transaction. The buyer has the game code and PayPal took my money. Now my game is gone, my money is gone and I owe PayPal money now... and on top off that my system has send another code to him because I had problems with my account balance over at my supplier becasue off these scammers. I now have disabled PayPal and I am only accepting payments through IDEAL (Netherlands) now.

I have not made a website for PayPal to take away my money and me going bankrupt, so much time wasted now building my webshop. 

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gmoney160
Contributor
Contributor

Hi!

Sorry to hear that, that sucks and the person knew what he/she was doing.

For my case, I sent paypal customer service all evidence pertaining to my transaction and sent multiple (very long) comments about my situation. Surely enough, after a few weeks, the case closed in my favor and was fully refunded.

Did you set up conditions when sending the Paypal invoice? 

Hope everything works out for you!

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WASD
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

Good to hear you god a refund. The only thing I have for PayPal that they reveived the game code is the email, I have send that to PayPal but probably my money is just gone. I just learned that there is no Seller protection for selling virtual products.... I have disabled PayPal now because this just destroys everything I worked so hard for to get up and running.

Sadly it does not work out for me because this already costed me money.

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rasheekee
New Community Member
I have had the same thing happen to me. Buyer gets game key and uses it but I have to pay them back because PayPal says so, I think not. My account will remain in the negative before I pay a scammer back. I have also stopped using PayPal and Ebay is also moving away from them as a primary paying source due to too many issues with them.
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ukfan4sure
Contributor
Contributor

Ebay is moving away from PayPal?  Ebay OWNS PayPal.  You are delusional.

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@ukfan4sure 

 

Your the one that is delusional, Ebay and Paypal separated company years ago and Ebay no longer owns Paypal.

They are 2 totally SEPARATE COMPANIES.


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ukfan4sure
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Sorry.  I apologize

 

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Dinho2018
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Contributor

I got scammed too. Now I use paypal only to buy things on sites I trust. But selling to get this extra headache so often is not worth it. The worst of all this is that both paypal and ebay encourage people to sell online, as it was easy and beautiful, and then we have to deal with this awful situations.

I lost lots of codes, money and time, too, for the same reason and paypal inclusive took extra transaction fees against me to do the refund. Even if the account was really used without authorization by the owner, it´s a case apart. Why should the seller cover the charges? We invest money and time to do a service. Then I learnt that selling codes and getting paid with paypal is a bad choice. You´ll only have some protection as a seller for physical items and a tracking number, but still taking risks.

In coclussion I think Paypal is not ready to be what it tells it is.

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