Paypal dispute opened for unauthorised CC use after 4 months. Any advice?

[86norman]

Recieved an email this morning with a buyer claiming unauthorised use of thier Credit Card.

The sale happened late January, seems a bit weird to me.

From what I understand the claim isn't about a problem from my end but from there's, unless they're just scamming to get money. But I have this sinking feeling that I'm going to lose this and be out of pocket $60+.

Can anyone suggest a course of action for this?

Thanks in advance

Andrew

[caj1704]

I have had this problem in the past - one ebayer made same claim against 3 sellers on the same day. Buyer had left good feedback for all of us at the time of purchase. Othe sellers were businesses and had "signature on delivery" for their items - I didn't so lost sale $$ plus $15 Paypal dishonour fee. Reported buyer to ebay and later the username was no longer valid. Seemed like a scam to me - buy items and then later get your money back. My scammer probably just re registered with ebay with different details.

[86norman]

I don't see how not having signature on delivery should affect this.  The buyer isn't claiming item not received, but unauthorised use of credit card. 

[clarry100]

These CC chargebacks seem to be getting more & more prevalent.

If you have tracking on the item that can be linked to the buyers PayPal postal address you can normally win these.

If you have used Click & Send or ebay labels (or similar) you will be OK there.

If you contest it you will be charged a $15 fee by PayPal for the privilege, but that will be reversed if you win the case.

If your item went as large letter with no tracking then you will be doomed to lose unfortunately.

Not even much point contesting it in this case as you will just cost yourself an additional $15 for doing so and still lose.

Get on the phone to PayPal and discuss, I have found their CSR's to be helpful. One case we had was a large letter for a $4.99 item so it looked like we would lose. But the CSR closed the case on the phone as "no fault" so we did not lose the money, but the buyer still got their money back plus kept the item, so we were no worse off.

Good luck with it.

[clarry100]

One more thing....

We contacted the buyer on one of these and they had no idea it had even happened. Quite often it is the bank who raises these to recover over limit amounts and such like without the knowledge of the card holder.

In this particular case we lost the chargeback but the buyer was good enough to repay us the money by direct bank deposit.

So worth your while to try "diplomatically" contacting the buyer as well.

[digital*ghost]

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@86norman wrote:

I don't see how not having signature on delivery should affect this.  The buyer isn't claiming item not received, but unauthorised use of credit card. 

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It's not really about signature on delivery, but proof of postage, which is required for PayPal Seller Protection - that means you retain the funds regardless of whether the buyer's chargeback is successful. 

In an unauthorised use case, it's almost impossible to prove the buyer was authorised to use whichever card they used to pay for the item, because you're not even provided the credit card details, the name of the card holder etc. The bank would know if the delivery name and address matches the cardholder details, but they have been known to not question it when the details are identical, and the most common outcome is for the bank to find in favour of the buyer, and the funds returned. Having proof of postage and qualifying for seller protection means PayPal foot the bill instead of the seller. 

If a buyer chargeback is successful and you lose the funds, you can report them to ACORN for online fraud - regardless of who the cardholder is, the recipient (whose details you do have)  has obviously - ultimately - committed theft, either by falsely claiming unauthorised use, or by using a credit card they weren't allowed to.