£12 Dispute Fees

[ThirtySixteen]

Hi guys, I received 2 x £25 payments to my PayPal account over the course of around 10 days via friends and family. I have no idea who they were from and I stil don’t. I did a bit of research, including on here and it seems it’s a common scam. Where they ask for a refund and then chargeback as well leaving me out of pocket. So I reported these transactions to PayPal (I still have the chat in my messages) and they told me to ignore it and block the sender.m if it happens again. That was it. A few days later I received an email from the sender saying ‘sorry bro, sent you money by mistake, send it back’. As I knew it was probably a scam and I’d already reported it to PayPal I ignored it and figured I’d let PayPal refund it if they wanted to then the case would be closed. Today I received 2 email from PayPal saying that they’ve found in favour of the ‘buyer’ for reasons: ‘other’. And that they’ve refunded him (fair enough) and they’ve charged me 2 x £12 DISPUTE FEES totalling £24. How is this fair? I. I knew NOTHING about the transactions, I didn’t request them. 2. It was probably a scam and they know it. 3. I didn’t know they had opened a case. 4. I reported the transactions to PayPal. I haven’t had a chance to call PayPal yet as I received the emails after their CS closed. I just feel totally let down by them and quite **bleep** off really.

[kernowlass]

@ThirtySixteen 

You received funds from someone and they contacted you stating it was a mistake but you didn't refund them??

So they had to open a dispute to get their funds back and luckily they were refunded but because you refused to refund and they had to open a dispute you were charged a fee. 

Why did you think it was a scam, folks don't send you funds for scam they want you to send them funds if its a scam. If you are sent funds then often its a mistake by having similar email addresses or names. 

[ThirtySixteen]

I didn’t refund them because PayPal advised me NOT TO and it was them who said it could be a scam. They told me to block them. After speaking to PayPal I did some research on it, including this forum and it’s a common scam. People send you unsolicited money and they then ask for a refund as well as a chargeback. Also it’s says in the PayPal terms and conditions that if unauthorised PayPal transactions are reported to PayPal there will be no fees. They can’t just tell me it could be a scam and to block the sender and then charge me £24 for not refunding.

[kernowlass]

@ThirtySixteen 

If you used the 'refund' option then that would be proof against any chargeback that was attempted against you. It would be a pretty poor scam as all you had to do was give the transaction id of the refund and any chargeback would fail.

Folks only resort to chargebacks to get their money back if the recipient doesn't refund. They may do so having already lost a claim or unable to raise one, this may be because the funds were sent using friends/family and so they couldn't do a normal Paypal dispute. 

I had someone send money to me by mistake once and were very grateful that I just refunded them as it was a simple typo that sent the money to me. I would certainly not ignore them and keep their money !!