Mel B Posted January 14, 2010 Share Posted January 14, 2010 Question: When is your money not your money? ... Answer: when it's in a Paypal account! In November we sold a set of items on ebay, the items were brand new and still sealed. They sold and were dispatched quickly as soon as payment was received (following a few emails with the buyer to confirm the condition etc of what he was buying). No problem .... or so we thought. 8-) Despite the buyer receiving them quickly and exactly as they left us - ie in perfect condition, 1 month later, out of the blue, he decided to put a 'claim' in to Paypal for the full purchase amount back claiming a fictitious 'fault' which he never ever mentioned to us, no email, nothing (probably because there wasn't one!). *-) The upshot was that Paypal REMOVED the value of these goods from our Paypal account, namely £70!!!! They then held it whilst they 'investigated' and, despite our providing emails confirming the condition with the buyer and that he'd received them okay, for some stupid reason they 'found' in his favour and were prepared to give him 'his' money back which they'd taken from our account WITHOUT our permission. >:-( As we knew we would be able to re-sell the items easily enough, it was more of a nuisance than anything else but we did flag up to Paypal that we thought he was trying to scam us, but, as usual, they didn't bother responding. The buyer was then given 2 weeks to return the items to us which expired at the end of last week and despite him asking us to confirm the address to return them to (which we did), he hasn't done so, so Paypal has now given us back OUR money and we've moved it immediately from our Paypal account into our bank account. >:-) The moral of the story is, once you've got payment into Paypal, move it IMMEDIATELY into your bank account (I think below £50 Paypal charge you a small fee to do this) that way you know they can't take your money off you. We only left it there as we were looking to buy something and therefore were intending to pay for it with some of the money in the Paypal account - good job we didn't need it for anything in particular or hadn't banked on it. Paypal is still a good way of paying for stuff or receiving money for something but now that they've shown how ridiculous it can be, any money we get in will only stay there for the minimum amount of time possible, so they are the losers in the end. :-| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly58 Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 I never accept payment from paypal its cash / cheque / postal order / or electronic transfer once funds are cleared into my account then i dispatch the goods to be signed for that way the money is safeley in my account this may take a bit longer than paypal but for me a lot less hassle . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAB Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 "The moral of the story is, once you've got payment into Paypal, move it IMMEDIATELY into your bank account (I think below £50 Paypal charge you a small fee to do this) that way you know they can't take your money off you. We only left it there as we were looking to buy something and therefore were intending to pay for it with some of the money in the Paypal account - good job we didn't need it for anything in particular or hadn't banked on it." If you are not in credit can't they then simply extract the money from your registered card/bank account as they would if you didn't have sufficient funds to cover a purchase? Clive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza454 Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 CAB - 2010-01-15 10:57 AM If you are not in credit can't they then simply extract the money from your registered card/bank account as they would if you didn't have sufficient funds to cover a purchase? Clive No, they can't extract money from your bank account. If you are in a negative balance with PayPal they will freeze both your PayPal and EBay accounts until you transfer funds to make up the deficit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 I think you have fallen into one of the protections provided by the distance selling regulations. There is an automatic presumption in favour of the buyer where the goods are not available for him to inspect prior to purchase.You, as seller, also remain responsible for the condition of the goods up to the point of receipt by the buyer, so damage en route is your liability. Proving condition on receipt under these circumstances is very tricky if the buyer is dishonest. However, the intention is to protect the interests of the buyer, presumed the innocent party, and not those of the seller.If you have not, I would report the behaviour of the buyer to Ebay, he may have a record for this sort of thing and get banned. I would also press the matter with Paypal, stating that you suspect his motives and asking what they can do to monitor his activities.However, Paypal do seem to have acted entirely properly, and very promptly and, had the boot been on the other foot, I think you would have been grateful for their intervention on your behalf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 When I had a problem as a buyer through PayPal (the goods, pottery, were smashed to pieces and the seller refused to do anything about it) I had to prove to PayPal that I had contacted the seller and contact them again to give her the chance to put things right. They also contacted her. Eventually they did remove the funds from her account but not until I provided the proof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MandyAndy Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 We deal with Paypal around 40 times a day and have to say if there is a problem the best way to sort it is to ring them. We have only had the payment held around 4 times in 2 years, this has always been instigated by the customer or paypal as they have thought that there has been some fraud taken place on their cards. We are Gold Power sellers and as such given our own account manager and since then it has been very interesting how much they know that goes on in the back ground. The look into everything and all messages that people send too and fro, all I will say is try to keep all communications going through ebay messages even if they write to you through emails move back into messages so they can be easily found by Ebay staff if necessary . Paypal can seem a little one sided at times but most of the time do come out on the right side in the end when all evidence is given. Mandy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 We have had cause for concern with Paypal on a couple of transactions to the extent that we no longer have a bank account logged with them and only use a credit card for purchases through them, It may be of interest (or not) to have a look at the following site, all in Paypals garden is far from rosey. http://www.paypalsucks.com/ Bas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAB Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 I recently had a problem with a "new UK" mobile phone whose battery was dodgy and only held charge for 1-2 days and not 1-2 weeks as per spec (the pre-installed text messages were also in Spanish - but never use them anyway). I did everything by the book through the Ebay "Disputes" procedure and within a week or two I had returned the phone and received a full refund plus my return postage costs. No intervention by Ebay/PayPal was necessary - but there was a full record of all details and correspondence on file should the return/refund not gone according to plan and whilst the dispute wads "live" I understand that the seller would receive a pop-up message everytine he/she logged on to Ebay. I moan about Paypal costs, but in this instance I felt that they gave some protection. Now if the seller had not returned the purchase cost and postage I wonder if PayPal would have returned the money to me as per the original post? Having bought and sold numerous items via Ebay this was the first problem I had encountered. Clive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spospe Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 How long before this thread gets pulled? Basil has posted a link similar to the Brownfools one and this has always (up to now) resulted in Big Brother pulling the plug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MandyAndy Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 rosy or not I think they may want to take a look at their site, this is what I got from the link - Results Danger: AVG Search-Shield has detected active threats on this page and has blocked access for your protection. The page you are trying to access has been identified as a known exploit, phishing, or social engineering web site and therefore has been blocked for your safety. Without protection, such as that in the AVG Security Toolbar and AVG, your computer is at risk of being compromised, corrupted or having your identity stolen. Please follow one of the suggestions below to continue. IP Address: 72.167.144.16 For additional information click here. Suggestions: * Click the “Back” button on your browser to return to the previous page and choose another link (recommended). * If you would like to ignore the warning and continue to the page, click here (not recommended) Note: AVG will continue to block dangerous content associated with this page. Would still recommend Paypal to anyone but then the cynics would say I am biased I guess. :-D Mandy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J9withdogs Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 Brian Kirby - 2010-01-15 11:56 AMI think you have fallen into one of the protections provided by the distance selling regulations. It's my belief that DSRs only apply to registered business sellers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted January 15, 2010 Author Share Posted January 15, 2010 Brian, Mandy&Andy et al The problem with Paypal was that they did NOT take into account the evidence we had and which we sent them of the buyer having confirmation of exactly what he was buying and that’s what he got. We complied totally with what they wanted, the buyer did not, he didn’t contact us first, as is part of the eBay/Paypal rules, to try to resolve any problem, he just made a claim a MONTH later, not a week, a fortnight, but a MONTH. What he then did was try to claim MORE money that he had paid. Originally he wanted all 4 items (as one lot) but then he didn’t want one of them so we gave him the option of not continuing with the purchase at all, as we knew we could easily sell them again, however, as he still wanted the other 3 items, we agreed to remove the one item from the purchase and then immediately refunded him for it (25% of the total cost – it was free postage). But then, when he made his claim instead of only claiming back the remaining 75%, he tried to claim 100%. He didn’t bother to tell Paypal that, they totally ignored the fact that this had happened, even though the original payment to us and the subsequent 25% refund was done through them and we pointed this out to them! When we also pointed out to them that we have serious reservations about him and thought he was trying a scam on us, and that we were worried that he would return similar items in place of the ones we’d sent him (we would be able to tell immediately) so that he would end up with the new items for nothing and get more money back in the process, all we got an auto-generated response and that’s all. Bearing in mind that we complied totally with the rules of both eBay and Paypal and he didn’t, and we were able to provide email evidence as to his acceptance of the items, then I do not agree that Paypal acted entirely properly at all. We have had the boot on the other foot before and yes, after some too-ing and fro-ing (via eBay, not Paypal), have managed to resolve it, but in this case, it was very one sided and unfair, all we can be thankful of is that the scheming scammer, which is all we can assume he was, didn’t get the items back to us in time to receive the refund, otherwise I’m sure we’d still be fighting Paypal for the return of the 25% which they wrongly ‘froze’. It may have been the fact that he was going to have to stump up the cost of returning the items to us from his own pocket that made him change his mind ... If we hadn’t had money in our Paypal account, and we often don’t, I couldn’t have cared less if they’d frozen the account as we have others to fall back on. I’d love not to have to use Paypal, but unfortunately when selling with eBay you have to give the option of buyers paying through Paypal, if they then do this immediately upon purchase, there’s not a lot you can do. You can’t put anything in your advert to say you won’t accept Paypal, otherwise they’ll pull it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza454 Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 spospe - 2010-01-15 4:35 PM How long before this thread gets pulled? Why should they consider pulling this thread?There are both positive and some negative comments about dealing with PayPal, but nothing that should give the legal team at MMM Towers cause for concern. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spospe Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 Bazza454 I was referring to the http://www.paypalsucks.com/ website which was posted by Basil. If you can find any 'positive' comments on that website, I would be surprised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peter Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 Mel B, I agree with your suggestion to move the money as soon as it hits your account. But don't think that they can't take money from your account, they can. Because when you become a seller and use Paypal, you have to have a linked account with a variable direct debit mandate attached for the main purpose of them accessing you bank account should there be a problem with a buyer. Read the Paypal aggreement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted January 15, 2010 Share Posted January 15, 2010 Mandy&Andy - 2010-01-15 6:27 PM rosy or not I think they may want to take a look at their site, this is what I got from the link - Mandy Think you will find this is a problem with AVG and is one of the reasons that I no longer use it as it was always giving false information as it is unable to differentiate between certain active content and dangerous content. I am not a cynic, but you may well be biased! B-) Bas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted January 16, 2010 Author Share Posted January 16, 2010 Peter But if they remove money from our bank account, rather than from an account with them, it would make it more difficult and I would think they would have to have a damned good reason for removing money from our bank account ... assuming of course that they have the right details .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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