What are the chances of PayPal un-reversing the payment they have reversed??

[elitecollectibles2011]

I sold an item a few weeks ago and 3 days after the sale, PayPal sent me their automated message that they believed the transaction may have been fraudulent. They have now reversed the payment to the buyer and I am out of pocket. Although the amount is small, less than $50, I would like to find out why PayPal reversed the payment. I met all criteria except for being able to provide proof of shipment - the item was small so I posted it in a postbox.  Are they entitled to reverse payments merely because the seller protection criteria were not met??

I am a little frustrated that they have offered no explanation as to why the payment was reversed in the first place and I am left guessing the reasons behind that. What are my chances of getting my money back?

The buyer in question appears to have bought 100s of items in the last few months but I had no reason to believe the transaction was dodgy - both the eBay registered address and the PayPal shipping address matched.

Has anyone else had the same experience, and what was the outcome?

[adornedau]

I had this happen to me a couple of months back. Turned out that the buyers bank had claimed it was unauthorised. The buyer was as much in the dark as I was. Paypal offered absolutely no help at all and it was up to my buyer to sign an affidavit and fax it to her bank to tell them the traction was genuine. Apparently it was a bank error that hit a heap of paypal payments. The bank re-payed the money to paypal and it came out of her paypal acct straight away but took about 10 days to re-appear in mine. Multiple attempts to contact Paypal through the dispute resolution center was met with either auto responses or silence. I was lucky that I had a decent buyer but I know other sellers were not so lucky. I have bested Paypal before and I got the consumer Protection agency onto them. Was a fair bit of work on my part (getting all the proof and timeline of contact down on papaer), but once the CP agreed to mediate, Paypal gave me the money within 24 hours. For me it was nearly $500 worth so I was going to fight to the bitter end, but quite frankly I'd fight them out of principal if it happened again. Perhaps you should ring Paypal and demand they fix it or you'll contact Consumer Protection?

Good luck, I hope it gets sorted!

[phorum_junkie* · Accepted solution]

Sorry but it is up to you if you wish to avail yourself of seller protection by posting by a qualifying delivery method. If you choose not to then your chances of getting Paypal to cover you are not good. If you are sending by parcel post then the cheapest method is click & send with the ebay branded satchels which give you seller protection, for things sent as large letters I use registered post for anything over about ten dollars, under that I just refund without question.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

This has nothing to do with paypal seller protection buit everything to do with paypal  sending mixed messages and not verifying

the payment source.

Contact the financial ombudsman service and make a complaint that you received an email that stated in part.

"Thanks for using PayPal. You can now send any items. To view the transaction details, log in to your PayPal account."

and the date that instruction was sent as compared to the email from paypal dated 3 days later that states. "Do not post post this

item"

The FOS already has a file bigger than Texas that pertains to exactly the same scenario.

Forget appealing to paypal just   ...dob them in.....

Paypal instructed you prematurely to post they need to be held accountable for

the consequences of their advice..

To align this situation with the seller protection policy is obfuscating at best.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

Paypal are usually pretty quick at picking up mistakes when they flow the other way though

...... how about this for a woooops?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/paypal-quadrillion_n_3613160.html

For two mind-boggling minutes over the weekend, Chris Reynolds was a multi-quadrillionaire.

Checking his PayPal statement via email Saturday, Reynolds, a public relations executive, was floored by the amount of money that had suddenly and inexplicably appeared in his account.

He had been credited $92,233,720,368,547,800.

The Pennsylvania man was -- by an astronomical margin -- the richest man in the world.

"I was skeptical," the 56-year-old told the Los Angeles Times of his staggering windfall. "And my skepticism was validated within two minutes."

When Reynolds logged into his PayPal account, his balance was back to where it was supposed to be: $0.

PayPal admitted that it had wrongly credited Reynolds with the $92 quadrillion. To make amends, the company reportedly offered to donate an undisclosed amount of money to a charity of Reynolds' choice.

According to the Times, a PayPal spokesman did not explain how the mysterious transaction occurred, but did say that the company was investigating.

"This was obviously an error and [we at PayPal] appreciate that Mr. Reynolds understands this was the case," the company said in a statement, according to CNN.

Though his onetime riches have vanished, Reynolds says he's pretty sure he knows what he would've done with the money had he been allowed to keep it.

"I'm a very responsible guy," he told the Philadelphia Daily News. "I would pay the national debt down first. Then I would buy the Phillies, if I could get a great price."


 

[elitecollectibles2011]

Thanks Colic, I will contact the Financial Ombudsman. I phoned PayPal tonight and they assured me that the buyer said the transaction was unauthorised. I asked were their 500+ other recent transactions also unauthorised but they wouldn't divulge any information. I will certainly consider sending small letter items by registered post going forward.

BTW the "buyer" in question is jhack1 - not sure if i am allowed to post buyer information here but a trawl of their feedback will show just how many items they have bought in the past month -- they must be a millionaire! Or someone has a very good racket going on....

[coast_golf]

@ozshopnsave wrote:

Thanks Colic, I will contact the Financial Ombudsman. I phoned PayPal tonight and they assured me that the buyer said the transaction was unauthorised. I asked were their 500+ other recent transactions also unauthorised but they wouldn't divulge any information. I will certainly consider sending small letter items by registered post going forward.

BTW the "buyer" in question is xxxxxx - not sure if i am allowed to post buyer information here but a trawl of their feedback will show just how many items they have bought in the past month -- they must be a millionaire! Or someone has a very good racket going on....

---

Unfortunately you are not allowed to name the buyer and your post will probably be deleted. Having said that your buyer certainly has been on a spending spree, more than 500 items purchased in the past month. That's obviously somewhat of a concern but they have bought heavily in recent months and they have all been items of a similar nature so it's not necessarily an unusual pattern.

The fact that most or all of the items are of a similar nature to what they have purchased previously, it seems unlikely that their PP/CC details have been compromised. It could be a clumsy attempt at fraud but it's also possible that they have exceeded their credit limit on their CC and their issuing bank is attempting to claw the funds back. It may be worth messaging a few of the sellers that they have recently bought off to see if it's an isolated chargeback or if it is more widespread.