Unauthorized transaction = theft

[trikiliki]

Hi

Last week a buyer purchased two items from me with "buy now". They paid right away, I printed the shipping label through PayPal and shipped the same day via Light Packet USA. I did not communicate with the buyer prior to sale, and sent my customary thank you note with shipping time frame estimates afterward. That was it.

Yesterday, a week later,  I received notification of a PayPal unauthorized transaction claim against me with the funds on hold.

I called them to find out what the score was. They said the owner of the credit card contacted them to say their card was used by someone unauthorized to do so. Whether it was stolen or family member they wouldn't say.

They said I need to prove shipment or delivery in order to be covered by Seller Protection. They are aware I sent the items with Light Packet and used PayPal shipping, and obviously no tracking is available. They then proceeded to tell me to contact the post office to get a letter from them saying the item was shipped...Uh, why would they give me ridiculous and useless advice like that?

So long story short, this person has stolen my goods and PayPal is fine with that. I am not sure why, as the seller,  in a situation where someone else was either careless and let someone have access to their credit card, ebay, or paypal information, or someone just outright stole someones stuff and went on a shopping spree, that I am the only one on the hook. I have done nothing wrong, but must bear the burden of proof.

I could see if I had a history of item not received disputes or something, but I do not. And this is not even a question of an item being received. It is a case of buyer theft, so what does having proof of shipment have anything to do with it. Particularly when I used their own program to purchase the shipping service and they have proof of such? For me to not have shipped would be very unlikely behavior given my TSR/Power Seller status and would just be a stupid move on my part.

It is not possible for all sellers to ship using expensive tracked shipping. For me, I would have no business at all if I did because the items I sell are not worth paying high shipping rates. Not only that, why do I receive indication that the transaction is eligible for seller protection even though the shipping service specified is Light Packet.

Why is PayPal not the one to absorb the cost in a situation like this. Whoever did this was able to bypass their security measures in order to commit the fraud. And if the person had enough of the card holders info, either the owner is careless and should be held accountable, or were also a victim and should be covered by their credit card company.

How the hell am I the one out my items and the money!!! PayPal basically gave me the finger on this one 😞

[pocomocomputing]

When using a shipping service that has no delivery confirmation, the seller assumes all of the risk. A seller needs to build in a loss factor when using such services. So called cookie jar insurance. The additional sales from the lower shipping cost warrants taking the risk of an occasional loss versus no sales with a higher shipping cost with DC.

You did nothing wrong. it is possible that the credit card owner was used without their consent.

Did you check the feedback for this buyer? Does it look like similar incidents happened in the past?

What I would do is contact some of the recent sellers to this buyer from the feedback page and see if they have been scammed like this. If the buyer has had success doing this, then they might have done it more times.  Send this info to PayPal and see what they can do.

[trikiliki]

After getting this notification, I checked their feedback history. The account was created on April 9th, and they have a string of small purchases from the 9th until the 16th. So it looks like someone set up the ebay account in order to use the credit card.

I also requested the customer info and called the number provided. Someone picked up the phone but didn't say anything. Just sat there listening. Then I said "hello"? A guy hesitantly replied with "hello...?.  I asked for the person named in the transaction and he immediately said "wrong number" I quickly interjected and started to say ok, someone purchased something from me on Ebay using this phone number... and before I could continue he aggressively said again "wrong number" and hung up on me.

So there is a number attached (the number is coming up as being in the same area as the address) and obviously my items were shipped to an address, as I am assuming a bunch of other stuff was also shipped. Would it make sense for me to contact the police or the postal service in that area and report it? Or do I just chalk it up as the cost of doing business and move on...

[jt-libra]

"Or do I just chalk it up as the cost of doing business and move on..."

For the sake of your sanity, you might want to do just that.

I spent hours over a two-week period with PayPal "specialists" when an authorized transaction claim was filed against me.  I didn't have proof of delivery.  What I did have was positive feedback from the buyer and, after a couple of e-mails from me, an angry e-mail from her stating that she and her husband had separated; he had the item and wouldn't give it back to her.  I finally called her and she told me to leave her alone.  All of this info was provided to PayPal Pal, but, of course, I lost the case ... and the item.  I did end up with a bad stomach, though!

Proof of delivery is EVERYTHING!

[bb_cool_stuff]

Maybe things have changed.

Had the same experience a while back.

Called Paypal.

What they did was monitor the purchases made by the buyer to see if a pattern was developing. The CSR was very helpful & mentioned they send a message to the buyer, what they ask is confidential, & they then wait a week for a reply.

I was to wait a week & call back & was transferred to the "Limitations Department. " They had me send in all proof of mailing with the date stamped receipts. At that time Paypal examined my selling record along with my relationship with Paypal. I take it was whether i paid my account in full each month & if i offered great customer service.

They made a decision in twenty four hours, an email was sent & the money was put in my account.

How they came to that decision, I'm not sure, I imagine their list of probabilities is extensive.

[jt-libra]

Wow, that's interesting!  Maybe things have changed.

[bb_cool_stuff]

Again a while back, maybe things have now changed in favour of the buyer.

How they found in my favour is unknown, Paypal considers that information confidential.

I did ask though.

[pjcdn2005]

BB, they would have ruled in your favor because you had proof of shipment. In the case of an unauthorized transaction, Paypal will cover you if you have either proof of shipping or proof of delivery

[recped]

hey then proceeded to tell me to contact the post office to get a letter from them saying the item was shipped...Uh, why would they give me ridiculous and useless advice like that?

Why? Because it's good advice and the ONLY way you win in this situation.

If you are on good terms with the people at your post office they just might give you what you need. I'd bet my PO would do it for me if I asked nicely.

[bb_cool_stuff]

Was sent small packet air PJ , but i told them i was at a disadvantge as shipping with tracking from Canada would have cost me just over seventeen therefore cutting into my margins even further.

The Paypal rep, i guess, had looked at my selling record & then made a favourable decision a week later.

You're right Recped. Once you have established a good working relationship with the RPO they will usually do anything to help you out.

[trikiliki]

So go to my post office and get the lady behind the counter to write me a handwritten letter saying yes, I did ship said item on that date with light packet service that I pre-printed with PayPal...?

[pjcdn2005]

Was sent small packet air PJ , but i told them i was at a disadvantge as shipping with tracking from Canada would have cost me just over seventeen therefore cutting into my margins even further.

The Paypal rep, i guess, had looked at my selling record & then made a favourable decision a week later.

You're right Recped. Once you have established a good working relationship with the RPO they will usually do anything to help you out.

I realize that you didn't have tracking but you said that you sent in 'date stamped receipts" What did you mean by that?

[Anonymous]

Sorry it is happening to you. It happened to me once and found that the buyer was doing many fraud claims with his credit card and is caught (not sure if he is in jail or what?).  Anyway, why the heck does PayPal felt a need to pass the bucks to the sellers when it comes to unathorized transactions??!!

PayPal must take responsibility in those cases, they are the ones that released the funds to the sellers from the buyers' credit cards, therefore PayPal must absord the losses or whatever, not having to pass on to the bucks all the time!!

In fact the sellers are the ones that didn't ask for unathorized transactions in the first place!!  It is time that there is a change and that PayPal must take responsilbiity in it and not having to pass the bucks to the sellers anymore!!

We should make that demand to PayPal.   Enough is enough already!!

[bb_cool_stuff]

The date stamped Small Packet Form PJ, plus the Original Postal Receipt.

[femmefan1946]

So long story short, this person has stolen my goods and PayPal is fine with that.

Which person? The one who set up the account or the person who actually owns the card? There is no reason to believe that the two are the same person.

Which is basically what PP is faced with.

The other point is  -- 17 cents a minute-- which is the minimum wage here in Ontario. How much time at minimum wage are you willing to invest in this?

If you felt comfortable shipping Light Packet, the item was within your financial comfort zone for shipping "bareback". No tracking and no insurance. You took a chance and you lost. How often has that happened? One in one hundred sales? Ten in one hundred?

You don't have to go bare. You can, in future, use either a third party insurer like shipinsurance or self-insure by adding a few pennies to every S&H charge and putting those pennies in a virtual cookie jar for reports of losses or claims like this.

If you do decide it's worth following up, stick with PP and try to persuade the clerk that PP should refund from their pocket without penalizing you. Politeness and professionalism will help with this. But it might not work.

[treasure.hunter.d]

As a Canadian seller myself, I kinow full well how much it sucks that all of our shipping options that have shipping confirmation and tracking are so expensive. To add insult to injury Canada Post/Ebay carrot and stick us with this new "Tracked Packet" service that when it finally arrives is a joke. The pricing is exactly the same as what expedited shipping used to cost but of course those rates were raised when Tracked Packet came into existence. So if anything, we Canadian sellers are farther behind now with Tracked Packet than we were paying for expedited previously. Someone, and I don't know if it's Canada Post, Ebay/PayPal or the co-operation of all of them, but somebody needs to have a new one ripped for hosing us with this new Tracked Packet. We still don't have an affordable and competitive, with US Post, shipping option with confirmation and tracking.

Anyway, end rant I guess. It sucks but I will never ship anything without tracking unless it's something so cheap that self insuring and replacing/refunding is no big deal. Unfortunately we Canadian sellers have no other choice or situations like what happened to the OP will happen time and time again to us.

[jt-libra]

"..... I will never ship anything without tracking unless it's something so cheap that self insuring and replacing/refunding is no big deal."

I don't blame you because you have very unique and desirable items for sale and buyers probably don't mind paying a higher shipping cost which includes tracking.

However, for many of us who compete with thousands of sellers, particularly American, offering the same items, we would never be able to sell anything if we had to charge a shipping fee of $14 and upwards for small items.  So we put out the money for refunds which can be a "big deal" if it happens several times a month.  My biggest concern at the moment is the number of refunds I've had to send to Ontario buyers because of slow shipping from Winnipeg -- two weeks or more.  It used to be that shipping lettermail within Canada was virtually risk free.  These packages have evidently fallen off the face of the earth because they haven't been returned to me and they haven't reached the addressees (but this was posted in a previous thread).