Paypal Fraud, learn from my mistake.....

[AdamZx3]

I just wanted to inform and educate any paypal user's out there so the same doesn't happen to them.

I sold my Nikon 18-135 glass to a Ebayer with a 13 pos. feedback. She sent the money via paypal. The following morning I took the package to the USPS and sent it. When I was asked if I needed a tracking number for an addition $0.60 I declined....I already had the money (I thought) and the buyer didnt pay for one. I thought all was well.

A week later I transfered the money to my bank, received a positive feedback, and thought all was well. Except that paypal froze the pending transfer and reversed it back to paypal. An investigation took place and they found it to be a fraudulent account. By law they can not keep or give me fraudulent money, so they sent it back to her :thumbdown: . Now paypal can not give me the money back because It is not confirmed by a tracking number.

The only positive thing is that Ebay gave the $10 back for the ebay fee's.

Hope this helps some people.

 

[SandShots]

sucks bigtime. really does.

 

[manaheim]

Some tips on paypal...

1. Know that they will invariably err on the side of the buyer, NOT the seller.
2. Never attach paypal to an active bank account (avoids them being able to just yank your money away)
3. Never keep a balance in there higher than what you would be willing to set fire to, and immediately withdraw any funds beyond that.

Sorry for your pain. Paypal is very handy, but quite dangerous.

 

[reg]

1. Know that they will invariably err on the side of the buyer, NOT the seller.

Not if you actually FOLLOW Paypal's Seller Protection Policy.

You have to ship to a confirmed address in the US, UK or Canada, and have delivery confirmation (sig confirmation at $250USD and up).

 

[manaheim]

^^^ even so...

I used to be a vendor selling T-shirts on the internet. We probably sold about 500 or so before we decided it wasn't worth the time or effort. We did mostly credit card and paypal transactions.

Now credit cards will pretty much err on the side of the buyer as well, but sometimes with paypal you feel like you just got majorly bent over. It can be pretty bad.

Mind you, my information here is a few years old...

Still, I would NEVER connect paypal to my banking account. Why would I ever want a third part to have direct access to remove funds from my account without any action or approval from me whatsoever?

BTW, our credit card processor insisted we have this, too... so we had an account setup where we just instantly removed all funds from it pretty much the second they were in there. I can most certainly understand why the PROCESSORS want this, but I don't give a horses arse what THEY want.