Dead customer refund dilemma ...advice desperately needed

PayPal won't reverse charges for e-goods. That is clearly spelled out in their TOS.

I always doubt the sincerity of "someone died" emails; I learned on eBay that behind every deadbeat is someone with leukemia or the measles or whatever, all of it lies.

I would offer to pay back one month to get rid of her.

Difficult question.

First things first, is her dad really death? Sounds stupid, but I wanted to see proof.

Second, be honest, tell her that you don't have the money to refund her, but you want to find a solution.

Offer her a partly pay back or a payment plan.

If she is a good person, she will also think with you. And because you open yourself to her, she will talk good about you and think with you how to solve it.

I think legally you are not bound to refund if user has not cancelled his subscription. It is not the duty of site owner to check whether a user is still alive or dead. Also it is not possible to verify whether she is telling truth or not. What you can do is ask her to login into his dad's account and cancel the subscription.

When a person dies, all the financial transaction have to be overseen by an administratoe either appointed by the courts / solictor.

My questions are:
1 How is this account even alive
2 How is the paypal account alive
3 How is the payment account even alive (credit card / bank account)

It is quite possible that a family member has been operating the deceased account fraudently. Such as
receiving monies in (Pensions etc) and letting payments go out.

Your only legal responsibility is to cancel the membership account from the time of the notification and as a goodwill gesture give them one months fee.

I do not understand how the charge has been going through all this time, have you verified it? When people pass away the first things done are cancelling cards and getting the financials in order.

Who has been using the card for 1 1/2 years?

al

I am not one of those who believe that every online situation needs advice from a lawyer. However in this situation it would be really helpful to have an opinion from one who knows IM well. In the meantime...
The first thing I would do to protect myself in this situation is replace the hookup to your main bank account with one to a new bank account with less money in it. If worst comes to worst you don't want them overdrawing your main account. If practical it would be safer to open a new bank account that has no relation to Paypal and move your money and any autopays there. This way if things go against you, the problem won't cascade into your other financial affairs and you'll have time to solve it.
Also is there any chance of getting the old owners to deal with this?

The final decision is yours but I don't think that PayPal will give a refund
for a monthly subscription. The whole idea of a subscription is that if you
don't want to continue you cancel it. And the point is a valid one that how
could a dead man's account still be active?

-Ray Edwards

Joe

Before you contact paypal just contact the women/daughter and explain to her that you are going to contact paypal but before you do, could she provide the following info

1 Name of the legal representative who conducted her fathers estate on death.As this person will be contacted by paypal. This legal rep will then face charges of legal negligence by the daughter and the authorities.

The women may not be telling you whole truth and by asking the above question, she may back off, as a deadmans account is not an legal entity in law. It has to be manipulated by a living person (fraud), she may realise it could open a can of worms on her side and as I said she mayback off.

PS,
Make no offers of compensation as this may taken acceptence of responsibilitiy

Once she has replied you then have further info to provide to paypal.

As others have said, this situation isn't covered by PayPal so you should be OK there, however a Terms of Service update may be in order to prevent a similar situation from happening again.

Generally, a membership site should not be charging for the product - they are charging for ACCESS to the product. There is a legal difference; "Access" means that the monthly fee they are paying guarantees the service will be available for them to use, whether or not they use it. Thus any circumstances other than your ability to provide that access - which, if the site is up, you did - are an end-user issue and not eligible for any refunds or credits. In this case, the fact that the user can't access the site doesn't change the fact that the site was available for use, and that's what he was paying for. Therefore his inability to access the site, or the fact that he didn't access it for a couple years, doesn't warrant a refund.

Clarify this in your ToS to avoid future issues. This situation is extremely rare, but there will likely be cases when a person is in the hospital, traveling abroad, etc. and then wants to retroactively cancel their service. A ToS that stipulates what they're paying for is accessibility, not usage, will keep your earnings in your pocket.

Further, you may want to throw in a death clause as well; essentially stipulating the terms of this exact scenario for future. If a person dies, define a clear time period for which a refund will be allowed. (Usually worded in such a way that it starts on the time of your formal notice, not at the time of their death).

Frankly, this situation seems suspicious; it's unusual that a person's credit card and bank accounts would stay active for two years after their death. That means someone took over their account at the time of death and kept it active, otherwise your payments would have been declined a long time ago. I would venture a guess that this person has run into some financial trouble and is trying to use the death of a family member to their advantage to see what they can get out of companies they transacted with.

another question here. It seems this is a paypal issue, if so, how is it that you are involved? Would this not be the original owners paypal account and not yours? I am pretty sure you can not transfer a paypal account.

You might want to see how many months were paid to your account, if any. and if only a few months you might want to just refund those. The rest should fall on the original owners.

If you have assigned your bank account and credit card information to the original owners account, then you should immediately remove them and add your own paypal account to the site in question

al

Goneill and Ronrule both have provided sound advice. When you take over someones estate, it is your responsibility to take care of all of the deceased's affairs. It is sometimes hard for the family to track everything because so many people put off organizing their paper trails because they don't think they will be dying anytime soon and will get to it later.
If the person in charge of the estate had cancelled the credit/debit cards as they should have, this would be a none-issue. Sounds like someone needs money and is looking for ways to get some. So they want you to send money back to a dead guys card that should have been voided?

Add terms in your TOS that state, charges will continue in the event of ones death until the account is properly cancelled by person in charge of estate and the subscriber should leave instructions stating as much. Refer to an attorney for proper wording.

Also, if Paypal takes money from you, let them know that you will open a dispute since your customers family was negligent in managing the deceased customers business. Paypal is in a lot of trouble right now with the federal government over suspect Paypal Credit sign-ups and probably does not want heat from anything else right now.

i dont believe for a second that claim

When you bought the site, did you buy their debt or just their assets and future profits? In real life, when businesses are bought and sold this is made pretty clear.

Mark

Hey Joe-

I tried to scan the other replies to see if this was already mentioned, but you should really reach out to the person you bought the site from since it is their responsibility. Just let them know the situation and exchange contact info between the two parties....then slowly walk away. This is not your problem.

If that's not an option due to the contract you signed (which is certainly possible), then simply inform the customer that you have cancelled the account and no further bills will be sent. As harsh as it sounds, it is not your fault that the estate did not cancel the membership months ago. And unless refunds are specifically listed in your terms, you are under no legal obligation to refund anything from 2013 or even last month.

Now, I'm not saying to be a jerk about it....but don't set yourself up for problems down the road either. Just inform the person that you recently purchased the site and you'll forward her request onto the former owner. Then stay out of it completely...nothing good can come from your replies since they could eventually be used in court against you.

As someone who deals with death and people's estates every day in my J-O-B, I can tell you at least 10% of families are a mess when it comes to settling a decedent's estate. I just saw one today that was just being settled today and the guy passed in 2002. Often families wait too long. But more often there aren't enough assets to probate an estate so they just handle what they know about. Then years later, when the spouse passes away (or is moving out) and the house is being cleaned out, they discover more assets/liabilities that nobody knew about.
Also, I agree that it appears you have no legal liability here. However, that won't necessarily stop the Probate attorney from deciding to send you a nasty letter. I've seen attorney's take on battles they have no business fighting, and I swear some of the attorneys don't even know they shouldn't be fighting it.
Have you searched for the guy's obituary? That will tell you when he passed and if this person is really a relative... At least then you'll know if it's legit.
Anyway, just my 2 cents. But the amount of time doesn't surprise me.

There's "what should I do" and "what I want to do"?

If its a chargeback, there's no way Paypal will solve the issue for you. So, even if you don't like it you have to refund her.

Remember, we don't live in a perfect world!

Hello


First you feel a lawyer and established the death of the person who sold the site, which is the father of this woman.

If it is true that he is dead, then, tell her that you do not have the money and submit a payment in installments, of course, always with the sudsilio of a good lawyer.

And you, you have to spend some money for a good lawyer, you.