Paypal Chargeback Delays

Why does it take them so long to conclude an investigation?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

On December 16th Paypal made a chargeback on my account after someone questioned a payment on their credit card account. It was the purchaser's mistake, the payment had been taken through a third party service and he did not recognise it.

I contacted him and he admitted immediately that he had caused the problem. He still has the goods but I don't have the money. Paypal has it along with a copy of the guy's email admtting the mistake.

Why on earth does it take such a long time for them to settle this when it is so clear and simple? I have now been waiting five weeks and it's still under review by the Paypal resolution centre.

There is nothing left to resolve! What's the problem!

[LifeinAsia]

Why? So they can sit on your money for the longest amount of time and collect interest off it. They have no incentive to return your money to you.

PayPal's business practices aside, they (along with your merchant account, had this been a chargeback through traditional CC processing) is not going to return your money until the issue is resolved on the cardholder's bank's side. The customer may have sent you an e-mail saying it's a mistake, but at the same time they could be continuing to tell their bank that they don't recognize the charge. They have no way of knowing that the e-mail from the customer is authentic, so the issue is not going to be resolved until the customer cancels the dispute on their end through their bank.

It's possible that PayPal may have sent the copy of the e-mail to the bank, and the bank is trying to confirm with the customer. But until the customer confirms that he wants to cancel the dispute, the bank isn't going to close the dispute. And until the bank closes the dispute, you can be sure PayPal won't return your money!

[soona99]

Don't be surprised if paypal suddenly closes the case in the other person's favor. This happened to me even though the customer has called her credit card company 3 times trying to tell them the charge was okay. Paypal basically just says it's stinks but there's nothing they can do at that point.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Still no sign of this being concluded.

[HRoth]

I had something drag on for eight weeks with Paypal this way. The "customer's bank" disputed the charge, and Paypal put a hold on the funds until it was straightened out. I got an email from Paypal saying don't ship the order until it has been resolved. So I wait. After a while, the customer emails me asking where the order is. I send her a copy of the Paypal email. No reply from her. After eight weeks, Paypal sends me an email saying that I had better provide proof of shipping of this order, because the customer is claiming non-receipt now. I sent Paypal back a copy of their own email, etc. I just got a bunch of canned responses. I tried calling them and got the Philippino zombie office, where nobody knows anything except what is on a sheet in front of them. Finally all the sudden the funds were unblocked. No explanation, nothing. I think sometimes a transaction gets so screwed around with them that they actually don't know how to fix it.

[LifeinAsia]

I think sometimes a transaction gets so BLEEP around with them that they actually don't know how to fix it.

More likely, they have no desire to fix it. The funds were probably unblocked for them some time ago, but they have no incentive to unblock it quickly for you and give you access to the money.