Did anybody have such an experience? Can I get an advise?

[block36]

On April 5-th a new buyer from USA (0 feedback) has purchased a postcard from me with Paypal's notice of pending bank clearance.

The buyer according to the name is female and the recipient is male (different last name).

I waited as instructed for Paypal's note of payment clearance, got the note and mailed the card on April 10, 2017 by REGULAR LETTER as always for postcards.

At this time the buyer had 2 positive feedbacks received and 2 left for sellers, I felt confident and hoped I will get a good feedback for me as well, i.e. did not anticipate any problem(s). 

This morning I got Paypal notice

Your action is required:We are writing to let you know that a payment you received was reversed by the sender's bank.

Although we are required to return the transaction amount to the sender's bank, we don't debit your PayPal balance if the transaction is covered by PayPal Seller Protection.

The transaction may be covered if it is marked as eligible on the Transaction Details page and you provide us with an online tracking number or proof of shipment.  

We'll accept any documentation that shows the shipping date, the shipping address, and official acceptance (like a postmark or receipt) from the shipping company. Proof of delivery is an acceptable alternative to proof of shipment.

Here's how to provide your shipping information:

- Log in to your PayPal account.
- Click "Resolution Center" near the top of the page.
- Click "Respond" in the Action column.
- Follow the instructions to upload or fax your information.

If we don't receive a response by April 23, 2017, this case will be closed and the transaction amount (less any previous refunds) will be debited from your PayPal balance.

Thank you for your patience during this process. We appreciate your business.

When I logged into my PAYPAL and pressed button for SOLUTION I did not find any options to deal with situation other than to issue an immediate refund or to provide a proof of shipment which I do not have since it was a regular letter.

My letter could not be delivered as yet, so the reason for reversal of the payment is understood by me ONLY as buyer's remorse or may be a conflict between female and male (buyer and recipient).

Seems I do not have any protection from eBay/PAYPAL for this situation.

ANY RECOMMENDATIONS for this case and/or future similar cases?

Thank you!  

[dutchman48]

It sounds like a charge back and if you do not have tracking, you will be SOL. Delivery will have no bearing without tracking (or proof of shipment if I remember correctly.).

I would just wait to see what happens, and if it is a charge back, you may also get a charge back fee from Paypal.

I t could be a squabble between the 2 parties, parent and child, husband and wide (joint bank account). Seems unlikely is a fraud for a card.

[recped]

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@block36 wrote:

On April 5-th a new buyer from USA (0 feedback) has purchased a postcard from me with Paypal's notice of pending bank clearance.

The buyer according to the name is female and the recipient is male (different last name).

I waited as instructed for Paypal's note of payment clearance, got the note and mailed the card on April 10, 2017 by REGULAR LETTER as always for postcards.

At this time the buyer had 2 positive feedbacks received and 2 left for sellers, I felt confident and hoped I will get a good feedback for me as well, i.e. did not anticipate any problem(s). 

This morning I got Paypal notice

Your action is required:We are writing to let you know that a payment you received was reversed by the sender's bank.

Although we are required to return the transaction amount to the sender's bank, we don't debit your PayPal balance if the transaction is covered by PayPal Seller Protection.

The transaction may be covered if it is marked as eligible on the Transaction Details page and you provide us with an online tracking number or proof of shipment.  

We'll accept any documentation that shows the shipping date, the shipping address, and official acceptance (like a postmark or receipt) from the shipping company. Proof of delivery is an acceptable alternative to proof of shipment.

Here's how to provide your shipping information:

- Log in to your PayPal account.
- Click "Resolution Center" near the top of the page.
- Click "Respond" in the Action column.
- Follow the instructions to upload or fax your information.

If we don't receive a response by April 23, 2017, this case will be closed and the transaction amount (less any previous refunds) will be debited from your PayPal balance.

Thank you for your patience during this process. We appreciate your business.

When I logged into my PAYPAL and pressed button for SOLUTION I did not find any options to deal with situation other than to issue an immediate refund or to provide a proof of shipment which I do not have since it was a regular letter.

My letter could not be delivered as yet, so the reason for reversal of the payment is understood by me ONLY as buyer's remorse or may be a conflict between female and male (buyer and recipient).

Seems I do not have any protection from eBay/PAYPAL for this situation.

ANY RECOMMENDATIONS for this case and/or future similar cases?

Thank you!  

---

When you ship orders without tracking you run the risk of fraudulent INR claims. If you ship orders without proof of shipping you run the risk of losing Fraudulent Use claims.

This is simply the fact of life when selling online. Some might recommend using tracking on ALL shipments but that leads to two things, shipping charges so high you don't sell anything or effectively paying the most ridiculous amount of money for "insurance" out of your own pocket.

I've shipped thousands of items without tracking and while I've had to hand out a few refunds over the years almost all of those were likely legitimately not received (which means all the tracking in the world would not help).

Even if I could have added tracking to those shipments for only 10 cents each I still would have lost out as $0.10 x 5,000 would be $500 which would be about $300 more than the total of all the refunds I've ever given out on eBay and as I said almost all of those refunds were legit and would have happened regardless of tracking.

In this particular case you might even be able to get the buyer to pay again. A friendly note explaining that the payment was rejected by their bank followed by a PayPal invoice might get you some money. Probably won't but it can't hurt and doesn't take much effort.

[pjcdn2005]

As mentioned by recped  a friendly note to the buyer might cause them to resubmit payment or at least explain what is going on.

Other than that, your only option is to refund imo.  If you wait past the date given by PayPal you wil lose the case since you don't have proof that the item was sent or received. You could be charged a fee of $20 by PayPal (or $25?) if they consider this to be the same as a cc chargeback and you may end up with an unresolved claim defect.

if you refund thriugh pp before that date, there will not be an extra fee.

[recped]

I don't think there is any $20 fee because it's not a credit card chargeback.

[ricarmic]

The last time this happened to me, I contacted the buyer, I can't remember if I messaged them or called them.

The buyer was very upset because they had a single fraudulent transaction on their card and when they called the card company to get the bad transaction dealt with the company zapped ALL their transactions, zapping mine and a number of other valid online purchases they'd made. They were very embarrassed by the mess it made.

It took them a while but they did get everything straightened out with their CC company, and I got the money again in the end..... 

[block36]

Since I had to wait for 5 days for payment's clearance, I am confused to understand for what reason bank is involved again since I followed their / Paypal blessing for the shipment.

My letter was submitted to postal outlet on Monday afternoon and it is not possible to have it delivered to Massachusetts yesterday or today. Since I got a note early morning today, I presume that the buyer addressed this case yesterday.

Decided to call her/him but the order screen does not display any phone number as usual, got a phone number from eBay and when called was told by machine that the number is no longer valid.

Wrote them a letter:

"Hello, V..(receiver). and/or M....(buyer)

Since you have cancelled your payment for this item for unknown reason I hope you will find it appropriate to return the letter as is with mark "return to sender".

My name

Somehow I think that this is girlfriend - boyfriend or similar situation: she paid for the item, something happened between them and he may not be paying her back, therefore she decided to return the money using this route.

The cost of the card is not high enough to be "in profit" if they resell especially because this is definitely "collector's item" and not in high demand. (It was listed in my store for at least 2 years).

This is a lesson for me although I understand that I could not do anything differently.

Thank you all for your opinions and advises!

[recped]

Buyers cannot "cancel" a payment.

From what you describe this sounds like a bank transfer that was an echeck because the buyer did not have a backup credit card on file. The only thing a buyer could possibly do in that case is to bring the bank account balance to zero at which point they would be looking at a $30+ NSF charge from their bank.

It is a mystery why PayPal would give you the go ahead before they had confirmed the payment from the senders bank. The notice you got from PayPal and quoted in your first post sounds to me like PayPal screwed up because normally they would simply put a hold on the funds in your account and send you to the Resolution Centre to provide the appropriate proof of shipping or delivery.