Scammed by buyer - Money received and then chargeback was approved?

[ilum]

Hello Community,

I believe I have been scammed by a bogus buyer. I recently sold a good to an individual who was acting as a "broker". So instead of receiving money from the "broker", I received funds from another person. I made it clear to the "broker" that I did NOT accept anything other than Paypal Money because I did not want to deal with a "chargeback" and that this deal was equivalent to a cash transaction. He accepted and proceeded to send me the money over paypal. Once I saw that the money arrive in my paypal account from his "client", I then gave the the "broker" the goods, which they informed me would be delivered to his "client".

At this point, I had the money in my account, which I thought was as good as cash, and the "client" took my goods. so everything was legit. However, fast forward two days later, I get a dispute from the "client", who said this was an unauthorized transaction. A few things here

1. Most of the communication was done over the phone and text message, so it was really a private sale, and therefore there was no formal sales receipt or anything like that.

2. I purposely requested that the payment be made over paypal cash/money (I did not see any extra deductions which would indicate that its a goods or services payment - which I thought would give the buyer a chance to scam me - and say they didnt receive the goods). If the payment was a gift, how could the "client" still request a chargeback, and WIN?

3. I made a legitimate sale on my end and now I am without my goods AND money. 

I do not understand this as I thought that with PayPal cash that the buyer has no recourse and that Paypal cannot hold the money? Again, this is the exact reason why I use this option since I always feared this would happen if it were a "goods and services" transaction. Now, the "client" won this dispute and I am out over $1000 and I no longer have my goods.

Thinking about it now, I think that the "broker" might have scammed the "client". That is horrible, but at the same time, I have been scammed too, and I am the one that is stuck holding the bag. Can someone please let me know how I can navigate this mess and get back the money?

[kernowlass]

@ilum 

Its against Paypal rules to accept a family / friends payment for selling goods and you risk your Paypal account being limited if you do so.
A buyer would not be able to open a Paypal dispute for non-receipt of item or item not as described as they would have no Paypal buyer protection.
However they can still open a dispute for an unauthorised transaction OR do a chargeback (via their card issuer) and you may well lose as you would have no Paypal seller protection.

[ilum]

Thanks for the reply Kernowlass.

In regards to the "unauthorized" transaction - how is that proven? I am trying to see if the "client" was in on it with the "broker" or if the client really got hacked. I tried reaching out to the email address for the contact who chargedback the funds and they didnt reply yet. That makes me believe that they were in on the scam.

That said, they definitely used the unauthorized transaction to get me. And it's really unfortunate that the "seller" in my case gets stuck holding the bag at the end of the day. 

As I had multiple transactions with the "broker", knock on wood, I have had only one chargeback, which was successful because I still had funds in my PP account. That was because I was not able to send it to my bank (they froze the funds that were being chargedback, and clawed it back eventually). If another person decides to charge back on the other transaction later, what will happen? I do not have any money in my account, and I sure as heck am not going to acquiesce to another scam. so im wondering what will happen in this scenario.

For the first transaction that I got scammed on, PP said they cannot do anything since the dispute was settled and the funds were wired back to the "client" already. They said my only recourse now is to file a police report and start a small claim. I think the chances of that happening are almost 0% since I have no info on the broker OR the client (other than email). this whole situation stinks.