Could this be the solution to PayPal charge-backs? Opinion please!

[gifts_of_elegance]

After five years on ebay and thousands of transactions, I have been knocked off my feet with several PayPal charge backs. I have heard of PayPal charges before, but it never happened to me until this past month and everything I have ever heard is happening to me now.

I thought about it long and hard. WHAT HAS CHANGED?
I never refused a PayPal payment, shipped all over the world without problems. Never bought tracking or delivery confirmation. Didn't care if a purchaser or his address was verified or not until few months ago.
All of a sudden I became careful and refused several PayPal payments that resulted in thousands of dollars worth of sales going down the drain.

So what happened?

In my need to make my shipping charges more attractive, I have made purchase of insurance optional instead of compulsory. As a result, noone is paying for insurance. They don't have to. They can always go to PayPal to have their payments reversed. They don't have to wait for their claim to be processed and the chances of them getting into trouble with the law if they lie is very slim.

Solution: I will still show insurance as optional but will include the following:

"Will not accept PayPal payments for shipments to unverified addresses or from unverified purchasers.
Shipping insurance must be included with ALL PayPal payments.
Seller reserves the right to refuse/refund PayPal payments at his sole discretion and demand payment be made with Money Order or Certified Cheque."

If PayPal reverses payment I can still put in a claim for insurance and off-set my loss.


Opinions please!!

[mark_karcz]

Sounds like a solution to the problem. Your legit customers may reconsider using Paypal to save a few bucks. The scam artists may think twice about bidding on your auctions and go for some easier prey. But as far as I hear when you claim for insurance on a lost package you wont receive your selling price of the product. But the price you bought it at. I think this is a rule with CP, never happened to me but I have read about it on these message boards. Still at least you wont lose any money but break even. (Aside from the listing fees and such) Sounds great in an auction but you'll have to see how it works in the real world.

[phoebescollectables]

I always make insurance mandatory. When I can I include it in my shipping.handling costs.

To solve to problem of CP only reimbursing based on cost I now insure all my items using www.dsiinsurance.com who will pay based on ending auction value. www.u-pic.com also provides the same service. They both have slightly different pricing structures depending on your volume.

The added bonus is that they will also insure lettermail and small packet for more than $100.

Michael

[grade_a_consignments]

I personally would not bid on an auction that lists paypal as a payment option with a disclaimer, "Seller reserves the right to refuse/refund PayPal payments at his sole discretion".

But then it wouldn't happen to me since I'm confirmed and verified and have never charged anything back.

[gifts_of_elegance]

Thanks for the advise. I will remove that sentence.

[nancyschina]

I had a small packet air mail parcel get lost. It was shipped to Australia. I filed with CP and sent them a copy of the auction. They refunded the shipping and the amount I had SOLD the item for on ebay.
Nancy

[vesivus]

I have just received my FIRST chargeback after 3 years of solid selling. This is interesting -- I've never had this happen before.

Dammit.

John

[gifts_of_elegance]

Now that it has happened to me, I am more careful. I refund all payments that have unconfirmed addresses and it seems to be about 2/3 of the payments received through PayPal. About 50% refuse to re-send payment by money order and the rest take about 3 weeks to send.

What is going on???????? Has PayPal made it easier for people to register or more dishonest people are getting into the game?

[ciderantiques]

I too just had my first charge back. I am quite annoyed. The buyer became non-registered on ebay just after she paid me. Silly me mailed the item anyways. Surprise, surprise this buyer was my first chargeback. What a scam. I was told insurance is not enough. You must have a tracking number to prove you sent it. Since expedited is around $14, and I sell many small items in the $10 to $20 range there is no way buyers will pay inflated prices just for tracking. It also seems strange to me that ebay can shut someone down completely yet paypal grants a complete refund to a questionable buyer. I have no doubt it was a fraudulent charge-back.

[bare_bright]

I also had a scammer to that to me, After I shipped the item. I got a e-mail from ebay saying there was a $14.50 charge back. At first i thought it was a spoof e-mail so I logged into paypal and sure enough it was true. I was not happy at, hard enough to make a profit and then have those things happen. I took a look at the order detail and there was a Phone Number lol I called and asked for the buyer in question and it turned out to be a 12 year old. I got the parent on the phone and explained to her the situation, she replied by I will send you a check after telling her I do not take checks she got made at me
and hung up. I thought to myself oh well live and learn.
1 week later a get a letter from the usa and inside was a money order for $20.00 I could not believe it. She never said sorry for slamming the phone on me nothing just a money order. guess I was luck that time. anyway the point here is a 12 year old actually opened a paypal account?

[futuretech_liquidations]

Has anyone ever received a PAYPAL payment from a VERFIFIED US BUYER with a CONFIRMED SHIPPING ADDRESS but SELLER PROTECTION POLICY was INELIGIBLE???

Take a look at a recent PAYPAL Tranaction page of ours. We have removed any real names and email address since it is against board policy to expose scammers here or use real name - lol
---------------------------------------------------------

Seller Protection Policy: INELIGIBLE

Attn. Sellers: Shipping to a Confirmed Address may help to reduce your risk of dealing with fraudulent buyers.

---------------------------------------------------------

Shipping Address:
Mr. & Mrs. Joe Scammers
6251 S.W.
Miami, FL 33183
United States
Confirmed


NOTICE THAT THE ADDRESS IS CONFIRMED -- REMEMBER THIS

---------------------------------------------------------

Payment From: Mr. John Scammer_2 (The sender of this payment is Non-U.S. - Verified)
Buyer's ID: joescammer
Buyer's Email: joescammer@hotmail.com
Payment Sent to: mycashregister@hotmail.com


NOTICE THAT THE PAYMENT FROM NAME IS DIFFERENT FROM THE CONFIRMED ADDRESS NAMES AND ALSO THAT THE PAYMENT FROM NAME IS NON-US-VERIFIED
---------------------------------------------------------
Payment Type: Instant
---------------------------------------------------------

As it turned out in this case, PAYPAL allowed this USA account holder to register a NON-US based creditcard under their US PAYPAL Account.

In this case the creditcard was issued in PERU under a totally different name then what the PAYPAL account was created under.

Needless to say, had we not look at this tranaction in greate detail we could have lost a laptop worth few hundred bucks.

And last but not least -- we had another scammer with similiar setup try this on us again today - this time the creditcard was issued out of MEXICO.

Seems like a nice loophole has been found and scammers are making use of it.

**** PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE PAYMENT FROM NAME *** make sure it is the same as the CONFIRMED ADDRESS NAME AND/OR THE EBAY ACCOUNT HOLDER NAME.

[katiusciav]

wow future_tech...good advice...i never would have thought of that on my own, but i'll be definitely looking closely at the payments from here on end, hopefully paypal will make some sort of changes to this...

[bare_bright]

Thats good to know, thanks for the info, will allways take a good look from now own. great advice!:-)

[futuretech_liquidations]

No problem - just wanted to give all a heads-up and prevent these scammers from taking advantage of this loopghole in the paypal payment system.

So far eBay has closed (NARU'd) one of the accounts and first thing on Monday I will be calling eBay to get the other account closed too.

Paypal on the otherhand has just informed me that that have restricted the first account so we can all sleep comfortably now -- ya right!

TIM @ FTL