Forum Moderators: buckworks
There was no reason for this and I had never received any complaints about the goods in the past, so wondering if he had not received my email I resent it to him and asked him why he had raised the case through the Paypal resolution centre. I got no reply.
I reported the facts through Paypal's resolution centre and waited to see what happened. This morning I got a message from them saying they had reversed the payment and charged me interest on the transaction. There was still no explanation as to what the problem was.
I am now faced with a situation where someone has apparently made a complaint against me and does not respond to my email. Neither he nor Paypal will tell me what thsi issue is so if there is some sort of a problem I am unable to fix it. I have emailed the buyer again telling him that he still owes me for the spreadsheet but I doubt that he will respond.
How the H can Paypal do this? I mean if there is a problem (which very much doubt) then how am I supposed to fix it if no one will tell me what it is?
I cannot find any way of taking this up with Paypal, they have closed the case. Can anyone advise what I should do next?
Seriously. They were like this when I first researched them many years ago. Nothing seems to have changed.
It seems that the problem was not caused by anything I had done. It was something to do with the seller but they cannot tell me what this was. In their email to me they said...
We've returned the funds to the PayPal account holder. Your account will be debited for the amount of this transaction.
Meanwhile the buyer has the spreadsheet and he did not pay for it. Seller protection does not apply because the goods were "intangible". What I don't understand is why they returned the funds and they won't tell me.
Stop using Paypal?
Ironically I had a claim against a seller earlier this year. I got scammed out of £20 through a website. I reported this to Paypal and furnished the evidence. I was told ...
We are unable to investigate claims involving Virtual or Intangible items. Because of this, PayPal cannot take any action on either account at this time.
It seems they use this rule against both buyers and sellers but the thing that worried me then was that they did not seem at all concerned that they had a proven scammer as an account holder (and they are still trading).
You could modify the type of products you sell online though. For instance with technical reports you could sell them for extensive periods of time. Eg: a different report each week for a month and customers pays for an extensive service. See if you can adapt the service you have to that type of business model.
Many service providers require you pay a year or 6 months in advance for the service. If it's possible do something similar.
More likely, the buyer and seller are screaming at each other because PayPal does not make it clear that it was *PayPal* that put the hold in place. In most cases, the buyer doesn't understand that the seller does not have access to the funds while the hold is in place. We've had buyers demand an immediate refund of the money, because they think we are holding onto the money without completing the transaction.
Also, in a PayPal-initiated hold, there is no way to just refund the money and cancel the transaction. And the buyer isn't going to pay another way until he gets his money back from PayPal. And as a seller, it is highly unlikely that I am going to refund the money out of my pocket before the hold is cleared.
Seller protection does not apply because the goods were "intangible".
Only recently a buyer claimed he never received a download link. He didn't contact us first but went straight to paypal and filed dispute. Paypal asked for my response. All download links are tracked and logged and we knew within minutes of his clicking on the link. He downloaded the product and I had proof. Paypal asked for server logs, which I gladly supplied. Chargeback went in my favor. There was no communication on the buyers part. No "where's my download link?" No nothing. He made payment, downloaded the product and then immediately filed a dispute with paypal. Friggin' chump. His name also went on a "deadbeat buyer" list which I publish and update on a regular basis.
This isn't the first time this has happened either. I've lost a few but I've won far more. Just be able to prove they got their product and paypal will go to bat for you. At least they have for me...
Only recently a buyer claimed he never received a download link.
AFAIK this buyer did not claim that he had not received the goods, which were emailed to him twice. At least if this was the case then Paypal did not tell me. That's the problem here. I just don't know what caused this situation and Paypal don't seem to want to tell me.
You get around that by burning to CD and MAILING that to the customer.
Fortunately the PITA factor you mention hasn't become so much of an issue that I've had to go that way. I get these 2 or 3 times a year and while they're a hassle to deal with I haven't seen the necessity to change delivery option policy. You get what you get when you pay for it and if you don't like it, well, you agreed to our terms before payment was even allowed to be completed. If you didn't read those terms, well... I'm sorry but that's not my problem. You checked the box indicating agreement and I can prove that you did.
If I was a car dealer I don't have to prove you know how to drive the damn thing before I sell it to you. If you've got the money - I'll sell you the car. Not a problem. It's not my responsibility, nor my obligation, to verify you know what to do with this car after you've purchased it. My terms are clear. My refund policy is clear. You agreed to both.
Strong language in both your terms and your refund policy... forced agreement before payment can even be initiated... clear contact information on your website in case there is a problem.... That's what I do.
No matter which side I've been on a buyer or seller I've been screwed by PayPal.
Recently, I had a situation with a "subscription" I purchased via PayPal over a year ago. I did this on my husbands PayPal account. I forgot about it, I mean my goodness, I did not even use the "service" I was subscribed to except for the first couple of months of the year. No notice sent to me that they were about to renew it automatically or anything. Frankly, I did not realize it was a "subscription" and would be automatically renewed.
Anyway, we received a notice from PayPal that my husbands credit card on file was charged a hundred bucks. I disputed it after no reply from the losers who charged our credit card. PayPal sided with the SELLER even though it was intangible goods.
They screwed me left and right as a seller, and now even a a buyer they screwed me.
Do a Google search for paypal sucks. See what you come up with. Thousands of people with frozen funds, stolen money, stolen merchandise, etc. PayPal employees are the WORST people in the world. Horrible customer service, they hang up on you, they cuss, they do all kinds of things. I've worked in customer service in the past and I would never have gotten by with the treatment that I've received at their hands. But they do it all the time. So, obviously they are allowed to.
Anyway, sorry for the book, but everytime I see someone write something about PayPal my blood boils! lol
PayPal sided with the SELLER even though it was intangible goods.
As this thread would suggest, I am not normally in the business of defending Paypal but if you failed to cancel the subscription then isn't the problem between you and the service provider and nothing to do with Paypal? You would have signed up for automatic renewal originally whether or not you were aware of this so I don't see how they could side with you in these circumstances.
I will have a look at Google checkout.
So if they say they are 'doing investigation' that means that their computer system is set that: 'if factorA=x elseif factorB=y etc. then close the case after Z days and send automatically email about that.'
Other than that I don't have much problems with Paypal.
The biggest problem with Paypal is that they think merchants are dumb and created this automatic system that looks as if a human was behind it.
No. The biggest problem is if you are dumb and have no clue as to how to work their system.
So it seems that Paypal has decided that being silent produces the least expensive outcome to them in the long run.
So it seems that PayPal has decided that being silent produces the least expensive outcome to them in the long run.
We just had another transaction that PayPal "identified for investigation" according to their own internal rules. One week after the transaction, they opened the investigation and took the funds back. We immediately answered them, but were unable to upload additional supporting documentation proving the transaction was authorized by the custom (despite repeated requests to allow us to do so). Two weeks after that, they permanently reversed the transaction, despite the fact that the customer NEVER said anything about the transaction being unauthorized. The PayPal Rep I talked to even admitted that they never heard back from the customer regarding the issue. (So remember that- if you are a buyer and PayPal investigates a payment because, say you were traveling to a different company and logged on to your account to make the payment, just don't answer PayPal and you'll get your money back by default. What a scam!)
The last message I received from PayPal is that due to "privacy issues" they can not disclose any additional information about the issue without an ongoing police investigation. So that means I have to waste the time of the local police (as well as my own) to file a complaint against PayPal.
I've also filed complaints with the FTC, the CA Attorney General's office, BBB, and IC3.
