Buyer protection?

ELWC
Member
Member

I would like to purchase a mobile game app account and seller is accepting PayPal. Is this transaction eligible for PayPal buyer protection? Thanks

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5 REPLIES 5

sharpiemarker
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@ELWC 

 

As long as you send the payment as goods and services when paying direct from your PayPal account, or have the seller send a PayPal Invoice or a PayPal button or email url.

 

Please read the PayPal user agreement for more info about buyer protection:

https://www.paypal.com/hk/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full?locale.x=en_HK#pp-buyer-protection


Kudos & Solved are greatly appreciated. 🙂
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perplexed_user
Frequent Contributor
Frequent Contributor

If seller accepts other forms of payment then I'd strongly advise you to use other forms. PP offers no purchase protection against common scams, just scan around this forum to get an idea of the widespread scam schemes allowed by PP loopholes.

 

PP does offer dispute resolutions where seller never responds, but scammers nowadays are more sophisticated and game the well known PP loopholes, and PP is unable or unwilling to act.

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ELWC
Member
Member

@perplexed_user 

 

Can you give more details on the allowed common scam scheme?  Thanks.

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perplexed_user
Frequent Contributor
Frequent Contributor

By far the most common is the classic bait & switch. Buyer would order from a website showing a cadre of item for sale, but regardless of what was ordered seller sends a worthless item. Naturally buyer files dispute but seller demands return of item, at buyer expense, before refund. Returning a package (usually to China) costs more than the original purchase price in most cases and of course buyer won't do it. Thus seller wins. PayPal's policy allows that to happen, repeated thousands of times over several years (earliest case I'd read is dated 2016, that's just me).

 

A variation of this scam is where the seller sends the trinket to another address in the same zip code as buyer but not the correct address. Buyer at first files item not received dispute but then seller provides tracking number and shows something was delivered and PP accepts that as seller fulfillment. If buyer appeals the burden is on buyer to prove he didn't receive item. The prove consist of internal shipping documents shippers won't provide. Usually buyer gives up and again seller wins.

 

I can go on and on. And you can read thru the threads here for good bedtime reading. Literally everyone knows PP is complicit with the scammers, offers zero purchase protection, and sometimes hand out rulings that are truly ridiculous, recently I read of a case where buyer ordered a metal bbq smoker, got a face mask, and PP, ruled that the buyer got what he ordered because the two items are "materially similar". It's sad and hilarious at the same time. And of course the victim wouldn't think it funny at all. That was a real case.

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ELWC
Member
Member

Thanks @perplexed_user for raising this risk to me.

 

At first, my intention was to ask whether digital products are covered by buyer protection (because I kind of recall it is not covered under ebay).  But seems that Paypal does not specifically rule out digital products (unless it is a stolen one).  Following your advice I also check around and see if there is any more info on this topic.

 

Not too surprised there are quite a number of threads asking about this type of transaction and below is a real case Paypal dispute.  Apparently there are things that as a buyer cannot overcome against a potential scam and hence no protection will be given Paypal.

 

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Disputes-and-Limitations/Paypal-denied-my-dispute-and-give-my-mo...

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