Paypal's Great!!! If you are in the U.S. BEWARE!!!!

[antiquebookhound]

Good Day Power Sellers.
I have been selling for a couple years now and have had my share of problems,mostly with Paypal.It is great to get that payment right away through them but there are also some problems that happen using this service as well that you should know about.Maybe things have changed that i am not aware of but check this out.

I sell mostly books,had a customer pay with Paypal,sent out his books (they were worth 500.00 U.S.)The buyer received them and left positive feedback.Three weeks later Paypal emails that this buyer did not receive the books and refunded him the money from my Paypal account.There is no way to recover this money as Canadians do not have any Paypal protection against this (only available in the U.S.)BEWARE THAT THIS CAN HAPPEN TO US CANADIANS!!!!!!!
#2---Lets say you are the buyer on ebay and send payment through Paypal and do not receive your item-----again the Paypal protection is only for the Americans and you cannot file for a refund.
#3---This happens quite often to me and can result in bad feedback-----Paypal does not always send you an email stating that the customer has made payment on an auction.You have to check your Paypal account often as to make sure you get the package out in a reasonable time.Sometimes the buyer does not click the Pay With Paypal link in your auction checkout and they will use the Send Payment located in their Paypal account.This type of payment will not show up in "Your Ebay" as being paid.
Just thought that you should know about these problems before they happen to you.Good Luck in the Christmas season approaching Fast.Make sure you get lots listed in advance and be ready to take advantage of those Free Listing days that appear once in a Blue Moon.
Don

[firedept10]

I have found on large dollar items if you send them registered, which makes them trackable on the Canada Post website, PayPal will not give them the refund. I had a buyer try that and because I had it registered and it showed delivered PayPal would not refund them. Not sure why the buyer had even tried as they emailed me that they received item and left great feedback. I am sure it will change in the near future with PayPal soon allowing us to have confirmed addresses.

[deltone]

Antique, so sorry that happened to you. I had something similar happen a few months ago.

This person won an item, paid with Paypal, and it needed to clear first. Once it cleared, I sent. Within days he negged me and said he wanted his money back (in the feedback). I thought, uh oh, I've got a scammer on my hands as there wasn't enough time for the item to get to him. Anyhow, long story short, he immediately filed for refund with Paypal which I was forced into doing (for the reasons you outlined). I was fuming. It wasn't nearly as much money as you lost, but it was enough to bug me because not only was I out the money, this idiot ruined my feedback. Up to that point it had been perfect. Then a coupe of days later, some other fool gave me a negative but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, I decided to not take it lying down. I wrote him an email and outlined to him that I knew he got the item, and that I had filed with the USPS fraud dept. and that I was in contact with his local Postmaster (you can get the information on the USPS site).

I further told him that I was getting in touch with his local police dept. AND his local district attorney's office. I was very specific in that I looked up their address in his town so he knew I wasn't bluffing (or at least it lent credence to what I was suggesting).

Lo and behold, he suddenly admitted he got the item. It still took me quite a while after that to finally pay me and only after a few more "threats" from me.

This guy is now naru'd due to a bit of shill bidding. How do I know why he was naru'd? Well, let's just say that even after I got paid by this con artist, I made it my mission to keep an eye on his ebay activity, and suffice it to say, he is no longer an active member (at least not with the two id's he was using).

Do a bit of leg work Antique. Find out the address's and phone #'s and maybe even the names of the local authorities in his home town (hopefully it's a fairly small town) and you might be surprised how he will suddenly find his books. See, it is possible that his mailman may remember delivering your parcel. It's worth a try. GOOD LUCK!!

[deltone]

At this point, I don't sell any high priced items so I don't worry too much, but if I do sell any high priced items, I won't be accepting Paypal.

[stats-one]

The reason is you are not verified business or have a premier account.
If you follow the requirements for shipping, then you are covered, even if you are not in Canada.

Essentially, you need to ship to a confirmed address, ship fast, have proof of ONLINE delivery, ship goods ( not service ), and accept only one payment.

For fraud, contact the Postal inspector.

Rules for Seller Protection Policy are at:

Sellers will not be held liable for chargebacks due to fraud (including payments made with stolen credit cards and false claims of non-shipment) when they follow the rules of our Seller Protection Policy:

The seller has a Verified U.S. or Canadian Business or Premier Account
The seller ships to the buyer's Confirmed Address.
The seller ships within 7 days of receiving payment.
The seller can provide reasonable proof-of-shipment which can be tracked online. This document must show that you shipped to the buyer's Confirmed Address. For items valued at $250 or more, you must include a signature from the recipient as proof of receipt.
The seller ships tangible goods. Since comparable widely-accepted proof-of-shipment methods are not currently available for intangible goods and services, we are currently unable to offer Seller Protection for digital goods and other electronically-delivered items.
The seller accepted a single payment from one PayPal account for a purchase.
The seller shipped to a domestic (U.S.) buyer at a U.S. address.
When a complaint occurs, sellers need to provide complete information within 7 days of a request from PayPal. However, if PayPal is required by the credit card association to respond immediately to resolve a chargeback, sellers must provide the information within 3 days. PayPal will indicate the response time required in the email message sent to the seller.

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&eloc=622&unique_id=2127&source_page=_login-run&flow=

[e-scrooge]

I've only had the scam happen once so far for $150 (by someone who was suspended from eBay for doing it), and I've done roughly $60,000USD in business through PayPal this year. It happens very rarely. 3/4 of PayPal users don't even know they can file for a refund under the buyer protection policy. I find most scammers are from Asia or eastern Europe only. Usually China, Thailand, Hong Kong or Indonesia.

Most of them aren't terribly clever, list any Apple Mac item valued over about $500.00USD and you will get an email from a zero feedback eBay user within days asking to buy the item right away with a credit card and ship to Indonesia. I've gotten the same question about five times now.

[deltone]

The items I mostly sell are lower priced items with lower shipping rates and therefore it's not feasible to use delivery confirmation as it would be far too expensive.

[stats-one]

e-scrooge:

To clear things up a bit, paypal is only allowed in 38 countries.
Indonesia and Thailand are not one of them.

Unless a country is on the list, no payments should be accepted. I once had a payment from a bidder in South Africa ( not allowed ) and simply refunded and asked for another form of payment, which was done.

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/approved_countries-outside

[e-scrooge]

Yeh, if someone complains they didn't get a sub-$10 item that I shipped airmail I just send another, although I get them to wait to 31 days from the date they paid before I resend. Nobody seems to mind doing that as the postal service can be murder for shipping times.

I get them to wait to 31 days so that they can't pull a double-dose of PayPal fraud - getting item X, telling me it's not received, getting me to send a second item, then filing the complaint, thusly costing me two items and the money.

[e-scrooge]

Whoops, I got my countries mixed up, it was Taiwan, not Thailand. 🙂 Either way I quit taking PayPal from anywhere outside North America after that.

[brcyclesalvage]

I think the worst I had was when a seller claimed they never received a parcel. I sent them a refund, they neg'd me three times and then did a chargeback on paypal. They later emailed me that they did get the parcel. Paypal didn't seem to care I had given a refund already. As to people not being able to file fraud reports after 30 (or 31) days, that is false. It is up to PayPal if they let it go ahead. This is what happened in this case and paypal forced me to give the refund (they suspended my account until I transfered money into it to go the refunds). Shortly after that the person filed the chargeback. I think the guy had it all planned out. He asked for the cheapest shipping with no insurance as they were large parcels and he wanted to save every dime. Oh the lessons learned from the early ebay days.

[www-labels4less-com]

"---Lets say you are the buyer on ebay and send payment through Paypal and do not receive your item-----again the Paypal protection is only for the Americans and you cannot file for a refund"


No you can't but you can call your credit card company and have the charges reversed in about 30 seconds.

[jewelbay]

happen to me. Us customer did not like product. claimed to paypal she shipped it back to me. Never did. Paypal chargeback on me because bidder put in a claim on her credit card that "protected her from online fraud" ha what a joke.

Customer got free item, I was out product, plus shipping expense, plus total ebay sales.

What a scam. I lose big time, customer months later send me email, saying thanks for freebie.

lesson learned, paypal great if you like giving away your items free..I'm going to get one of them credit card that offers online protection myself...