I was looking for a singer sewing machine online for my wife last week. I was directed to a website purported to be a "Singer Outlet Website" showing the exact model I was looking at for a much lower price than I had seen with other sellers on Amazon and E-bay. I suspected at the time that it might not be a legitimate site but I decided to proceed with the transaction thinking the transaction would be protected under the PayPal buyer protection plan if the item was not shipped or received by me or if I was dealing with a fraudster and the seller would be at least vetted by PayPal and it wouldn't paid until the item has been shipped. Immediately after completing the transaction on the afternoon July 26, 2020, I received an email from the seller with a shipping tracking information. I clicked the USPS tracking link which indicated that the item was shipped on July 23, 2020 ( 3-days before I paid for the item and it was delivered my city at the front porch of my address on July 25, 2020, one day before I paid for the item! I sent two emails to the seller to cancel the transaction. I received no response. I knew immediately that became a victim of a fraud. I then proceeded to the PayPal Resolution Center to report this fraudulent transaction as an "unauthorized transaction". PayPal responded within few hours that the transaction was "not unauthorized" and the case was "closed". I tried to call the customer service several times to report the fraudulent seller with both fake website and fake tracking information but I couldn't get through. I sent an email to report the fraudulent seller with copies of fake website and USPS tacking information last week. I contacted my credit card issuer and reported this fraudulent transaction which issued an immediate temporary credit and then a permanent credit with in a couple days. Someone with a long career in financial services industry and dealt with consumer protection laws first hand, PayPal better fix this apparent problem in the system where the thieves are exploring this apparent glitch in its payment system and reporting the items as "shipped and delivered" and using a fake tracking to trick the system. How an item could be shipped and delivered a day before it was paid for? PayPal is clearly exposing itself to potential consumer protection violations penalties and class action lawsuits by ignoring complaints by the buyers . I plan to report this transaction to Consumer Finance Protection Bureau so it may investigate PayPal negligent practices of allowing its platform to defraud unsuspecting customers who feel protected under its so called purchaser/buyer protection plan. Buyer be aware! Never use your bank account to pay any seller through PayPal unless you can verify and trust the seller. Instead pay using your linked credit card which will provide additional protection from fraudulent sellers as the PayPal buyer protection appears to be useless when it has some payment system flaws and which tend to favor sellers in its "investigations" . PayPal is enabling the fraudsters to engage in US Mail fraud by not investigating fake tacking links which are being reported to its Resolution Center! PayPal better hire more agents to handle its customer fraud reporting inquires or it's going pay a heavy price. PayPal paid $15 million in penalties/fines in 2015 involving some financial products disclosure issues! No lessons learned? Why so much arrogance! Defrauded consumer are supposed to rely on community help here! This should be a simple IT fix and weed out fraudsters from your system! I realize PayPal's major shareholder and the founder has a big "Pal" in the "highest place" in Washington and who has tried systematically to gut the CFPB. Help is underway! Hopefully, this charade will end soon! I have used PayPal since its inception and still use it for E-bay transactions. Thanks to this incident, I may never use it again and this life time banker has now become a consumer advocate!
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