Payment may not have been authorized by PayPal account holder

[greenmangoes]

A buyer purchased something and asked that I ship it to another address so I did.  A couple days later I received an email from Paypal saying "You have received a payment that we believe may not have been authorized by the PayPal account holder. etc...".

I didn't know that I HAD to ship only to the address sent via the Paypay email if it's shipped elsewhere and an issue like this arise I'm out of luck.

I then took a look at the buyer's feedback and there are 2 sellers that posted something like this:
"CAUTION! buyer's paypal payment not authorized he will open a claim against you!"

So my question is why did this person get the money back? Did Paypal really investigate?

Also, how do I edit the feedback that I left so other sellers can be aware.

Thanks!

[esclyons]

hopefully you sent it with tracking, and you can show paypal the request to ship to a different address, sounds like they -the buyer is doing charge backs.. i would call paypal and see what the can add to the conversation..if the seller has done this several times, and you have tracking, paypal may cover it, not out of your funds..

[greenmangoes]

I thought that that would have been the end result but instead they refunded the buyer.  I provided PayPal with the Tracking number and the email that I received with the address  to send the item to.

I didn't see the buyer's feedback until after Paypal closed the case.  I'm not sure if that would help but I'm feeling a little nervous now as they appear to just refund without doing any digging.

Thanks

[dutchman48]

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@greenmangoes wrote:

I thought that that would have been the end result but instead they refunded the buyer.  I provided PayPal with the Tracking number and the email that I received with the address  to send the item to.

I didn't see the buyer's feedback until after Paypal closed the case.  I'm not sure if that would help but I'm feeling a little nervous now as they appear to just refund without doing any digging.

Thanks

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That email will only help you with an Ebay case.

With Paypal, if you don't ship to the address on the payment, you will lose and have to refund.

This buyer is scamming sellers based on the difference between Ebay case and Paypal case.

Ebay however, will not tell you that.

Sorry you got scammed.

[hlmacdon]

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@greenmangoes wrote:

I'm not sure if that would help but I'm feeling a little nervous now as they appear to just refund without doing any digging.

Thanks

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That is the more likely result when you don't call in. I always make a habit of calling if something like this comes up. When you don't call in it gets decided by algorithm or gets farmed out. This was a tough one as you had shipped to a different address. In general if you ship to the payment address, have tracking and follow signature requirements where the dollar value requirement kicks in you'll be covered.

Give ebay a call, report the buyer citing feedback as well as your instance. That should the account shut down and if they were dumb enough to use the same IP address they'll flag any other related accounts.

[greenmangoes]

Yeah I got scammed.  I've had buyers ask to ship to a different address before and I did but no more.

What Paypal should do, which I assume is not available, is to have the option to add more than one address to your Paypal account and buyers can choose where to ship - that way sellers would basically ignore any emails outside of Paypal requesting to ship to a different address.

Anyway, thanks guys we live and learn.

[ricarmic]

I think people can use multiple addresses, I know I have about 9 different versions of my actual address in PAYPAL now, some with my PO box some with street number some with both etc....

I've had customers ask to send to a different address before they paid and I've asked them to change the address in the PAYPAL payment because that's where I have to ship and voila, the paypal address is the one they want it to go to.

PS it is not clear in your responses if you've called PAYPAL or eBay, if it were me I would call, you've nothing to lose other than the time and in my experience you have a good chance of them helping you out...make sure to call during normal business hours so you're getting "local" support people....

[hlmacdon]

Generally speaking, paypal will store whatever addresses get passed through the payment gateway to your account.

[lady.stark]

On eBay, you can have multiple "ship to" addresses that you can change when you check out.

This buyer is probably a professionnal scammer. I'm really sorry for you. 😞

[greenmangoes]

So I called Paypal (waited on phone for about 45 mins - crazy!) and they told me what Dutchman48 stated above that because I sent the item to an address not listed with the account they can't help and told me that in the future if a buyer asked to ship to a different address after they bought the item, cancel the transaction and refund the buyer and tell them to change the address and repurchase the item.

Really appreciate all the feedback you guys.

Thanks

[ricarmic]

If you can afford the time, I would call ebay as well.

Of course you've probably already reported the buyer, but when you are on the phone with them you can let the support person know this seems to be a repeat offender based on other feedback....and you were simply trying to keep a customer happy....

and you never know, maybe they'll help you....