Got a chargeback on PayPal, any hope I could get the money back?

[ichsie]

Got a chargeback (reason code: 83) and unfortunately, I'm selling digital products that's virtual in nature, so no invoice / signed proof of shipment.

Does this mean I could never get my money back? The buyer paid me on Mar. 31th and it's been 4 months. I don't know why he's firing chargeback.

Here's what I found about the reason code: [direct.53.com...]

[ytswy]

I suspect your out of luck if the cardholder is being dishonest - with no proof of delivery it's his word against yours and that probably means you lose.

That said, have you tried contacting the customer? The majority of chargebacks we get are due to customers forgetting about the transaction, and get resolved by them withdrawing it after we contact them.

[ichsie]

Thanks ytswy. That's also what I suspected. It's been 4 months and if he's a dishonest one he can do this much earlier. He might have forgotten it. I have already contacted him. Fingers crossed.

[enigma1]

Not sure of the exact products you are selling if you're a distributor or the developer, but with digital products sometimes you can issue a serial number different for each customer and force some sort of periodic communication between server/client. So if someone cancels the payment or files for a dispute you still control the serial number and you place it out of commission.

I am sure you've seen this, with software that works for a specific period of time and then requires an update. Again it depends on the type of download. If it's a picture or a song you can't do much about it this way, however you can rely on the terms of use, copyright etc. In other words if someone doesn't pay/buy a product, he cannot use it legally.

[ichsie]

Thanks enigma1 for the reply. Unfortunately, it's a product like a picture or a song. :(

True, of the copyright terms. Just sent him an additional email telling him to destroy the copy if he can't fulfill the payment.

[fargo1999]

Don't wait until Paypal does something about that (because all their system will do is to wait for a month and then automatically send you an email that "the case was closed, money refunded to the buyer, sorry").

What you should do is to post the product online for anyone to find it for free (as a sample of your product or something), it may increase popularity of your site too.