I have a small camera repair business and used PayPal as my payment platform. I repaired and upgraded a camera for a client in April 2022 at a cost of $1300. The client picked up his camera after paying via PayPal invoice and I have a long paper trail in which he requests and authorizes services and agrees to pay. Six weeks later I received a notice that he'd disputed the charge as "fraudulent". I immediately reached out to the client both via PayPal and over email, and he assured me this was a bank error and he would fix it. I provided all correspondence to the PayPal dispute center, including his acknowledgements that he did owe us the money and the dispute was an error. The client stopped responding to me in June and I reached out to PayPal, who assured me that based on the information I provided, the case should be resolved in my favor but that it could take 75 days because they were waiting on the client's bank. I asked for contact information for the bank so I could engage with them directly and provide evidence that the transaction was intentional; PayPal refused to give me even the name of the bank. I asked for a copy of the client's dispute filing; I was also denied that. I also asked to report the user as a scammer, which they did. In July, I received notice that the dispute had been settled in the seller's favor, leaving a $1300 hole in my PayPal account (over half of that amount went to parts I had to purchase for the repair, the rest labor). Since then, I have been unable to appeal the decision. When I call PayPal, the automated system hangs up on me. I have yet to reach someone in chat. I'm now having to pursue criminal and civil charges against the client on my own time and dime because PayPal has no protections in place for me. I am unable to even follow up with the bank directly like a normal merchant might, because PayPal considers that private information and will not disclose it. Last week, one month after PayPal decided against me, I received a collections notice on the negative balance in PayPal because of this dispute. And while I was typing this, I had a chat window open for a third time, waiting to reach a real person, and it was ended and redirected me to an FAQ about buyer abuse. If anyone has some insight into how to reach a real human so I can try to appeal this decision, I would love to have it. Otherwise, do yourself a favor and move your business to Square, where you can directly address chargebacks with the bank.
