How to Dispute Unauthorized Claims

thewriterjm
Contributor
Contributor

I work online and play some games sometime. I have a lot of virtual items in my game now, and I decided to sell them one by one. Almost weekly, I sell one. I sold a few to one buyer, and the problem started.

 

After a few hours of receiving the items, the funds getting transferred to me via PayPal, and me withdrawing the amount, the buyer started an "Unauthorized Claim" case against me. By the way, the buyer transacted with me twice that day, so I had two cases.

 

I responded to the cases. Provided screenshots of our chat conversations over Skype. The Skype account that the user was using to message me was connected to the PayPal email that he used to pay me. After 10 long days of waiting, I lost the cases. The money were refunded to the buyer. I tried to contact the buyer once again, but he is not responding. I was left with a negative balance on my account, and my items, which I worked hard to get, owned by a buyer who easily got them for free and right under my nose.

 

Clearly, I was scammed under broad daylight. I had a case like this before, and PayPal favored me. But now, they did not. It was relatively the same, but the results are different. I am now asking, why? I am heavily depressed by this.

 

All I did was do some small business on the side with good faith, and this is what happened. The purchase was made. I provided what were due, the items and proof, but in the end, I was the one who got punished by it. If it was truly an unauthorized transaction, why would I be the one who must provide the refund? It is not my fault. It is not PayPal's fault. It is the fault of the buyer or the owner of the account.

 

It is his responsibility to protect his account. All I did was do business. And PayPal's job is to pass the money. Despite the case, PayPal earned from me. I gave PayPal some business. But since the buyer was irresponsible enough to get his account used by a malicious person, all he needed was just to press a button and ask for a refund?

 

I am frustrated. My salary goes through PayPal as well. Now, it is currently on hold. I don't want it to get eaten up by the negative balance. I have bills to pay. My items are now gone. Why should I be the victim here? How can I fix this?

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@thewriterjm

 

An unauthorised dispute normally means someones paypal account has been hacked and used without their consent.

 

So if paypal find in their favour then of course they have to get their money back.

 

However normally paypal would reimburse you if you met ALL the criteria of seller protection.

 

BUT virtual items have NO paypal seller protection, you can sell them but at your own risk so they don't reimburse you.   Smiley Sad


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thewriterjm
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@kernowlass

 

Yeah. I understand that part about the unauthorized claim part. However, I presented proof that I talked to someone related to the PayPal buyer's account. I know If that was compromised as well, it is right to give favor to the irresponsible buyer that allowed his account to be compromised? Will it give justice to the situation? The one that should be apprehended and punished should be the one who used the buyer's account. Nonetheless, other people having access to the buyers account is still the buyer's problem, not mine.

 

I understand fairly well, too, that I am not fully within the scope of PayPal's seller protection program. However, it does not mean that I am not priviledged to be given fair trial to this case.

 

Me selling virtual goods or not should not be a factor of consideration in this case. The buyer is telling PayPal that it was an unauthorized claim. Will it matter if I transferred something tangible instead? On the other hand, I would even accept this verdict if I sold something tangible. At the very least, I can travel to get my item back or create a criminal case out of this.

 

I guess, what **bleep** me off is that, I have done nothing wrong and I am the one experiencing the setback. I know that this might be a story that have been told in this forum from time to time, but I think something should be done about this. This is so abusable.

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@thewriterjm

 

Can't agree that someone who's account may have been hacked its his own fault !!

 

But you are right in that sellers of virtual items come up against this a lot.

 

Your only option is to not use paypal for virtual transactions and accept bank transfer or similar instead?


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thewriterjm
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@kernowlass

 

To each to his own; still, it does not change the fact that the seller, which is me, is far from being the culprit or the problem here. If the seller do have some ill intentions and was the one who procured the account and performed the unauthorized transaction, then that is the only time that the seller could be at fault. There might be other scenarios, but nothing of sort like that happened on my case.

 

That's the problem with online transactions. The easiest and the most prevalent service is PayPal. Most people that I have worked with only has PayPal and my target clients only has this as an option. Not to mention that other money transfer services have more loopholes that can be easily abused by malicious individials.

 

And believe me, I would rather want to transact in person or have bank transfers. But with me dealing with people that aren't in the US alone, it is not possible everytime.

 

And due to that, I value my PayPal account a lot. Having a bad case on my history and a negative balance on it is a major headache for me. It sucks that buyers can easily file a dispute. In my case, I do not even know if I have that option to turn around the result of the cases that were "resolved". I feel that I am too powerless in those cases and all I can do is whine all day. I updated PayPal, and I have asked if there's anything I can do to expedite the resolution or get it to work on my favor.

 

And just one day, it was over, and PayPal just decided to perform a refund. I sent a message to one of their representatives right away and I am still waiting for a reply. I would have called, but calling fees on international trunk lines can be brutal.

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thewriterjm
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Okay. This is just stupid. I hate to bump my thread since I just decided to "let everything go".

 

Despite the customer service of PayPal sucked big time. They did not answer any of my inquiries and just sent me copy pasted auto generated messages that they think would solve the issue I presented that I written for almost an hour. I just moved on. Even though I did not do anything wrong and I was left with a huge negative balance on my account, I just moved on. Even if these forums did not exactly provided me with any glint of hope that I will be able to do anything with the incident I posted here, I just moved on. I just decided to ignore the whole thing, get some money to remove the negative balance, and reuse my PayPal account.

 

But today, out of nowhere, PayPal just randomly put some limitations on my account. What the actual **bleep**. PayPal is now requesting me to go through a review. This is just unwarranted **bleep**. Could anybody here could tell me or give me an idea what this is happening?

 

I would want to message the customer support team, but they just **bleep** useless. Yes. I apologize for the usage of some stinky words here in the post, but I am now totally upset. I don't know what to do anymore. Am I not a customer here? Is there a chance that any PayPal employee will entertain my post here? I really want to talk to someone about this matter. Thank you.

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