I have an online store (4 yrs), using paypal, never any problems. I'm a legitimate store with over a thousand happy clients. I sold 2 engaved zippos last april, thru paypal, by credit card. Shipped the zippos (telephone, order address and paypal address were the same). All good. 3 days ago (EXACTLY 3 mnths after the sale), the buyer contested the charge. Paypal blocked the funds and asked for a tracking link or proof of shipping. Obviously a link is no longer valid after 30 days, but I could forward the invoice, and the notification from the supplier stating it was shipped. Less than 3 minutes later I received an auto email from paypal stating they didnt receive the required documents. They refunded the client and charged me €16. Case closed. No arbitration, no explaination. I assume the guy received the zippos, but is contesting ordering them. In which case, shouldn't I get the goods back at least? I'm down €100 for the refund, €80 cost of goods + shipping, plus €16 fee. That's more than I've made this month. Apparently I have no rights or recourse? I don't know which bank the customer is with, and he won't respond to emails or calls. Can you really just walk in and demand your money back? I really assummed the client had just forgotten what it was (it was 3 months ago after all...). There's no way paypal had time to retrun the proof to the client, or arbitrate in any way. Obviously its much cheaper for paypal to just hand over my hard-hard-hard-earned profit than send an email. I have just had 2 more sales of around €100 and I'm petrified the same thing will happen. So how can I protect myself against this? Calling each client with some phony excuse to see if they made the order? They already get 3 emails from me and the one from paypal. I'm a small business and have to be very careful with balancing my bills. Paypal have just landed me in debt for the first time. Any help on how to sell safely with paypal much appreciated.
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