Paypal Loophole Exploited

If it does, paypal is finished.

Haha, I have seen that one... here it is:

Yeah, that was the one where the person was selling cell phones for $200...except that when the person ordered, what they received was a PICTURE of the cell phones. Edited to add that I didn't see the YouTube posted on this thread when I wrote this.

There's got to be something that can be done about scams like this. Scamming people is illegal in most countries. Where is the merchant from?

When did this happen? You do know that EBay owns PayPal, right?

The exact same thing happened to me less than 6 months ago. Yes, Paypal will refund your money. Also, you can get a refund by filing a chargeback with your credit card company.

Well there is actually something you can do, and I think Ebay is awesome because it basically let's the public police the site and service.

This is what FEEDBACK is for.

There has to be some sort of responsibility on the buyers end as well. Now I'm not saying that this is your fault entirely, but there is no way this guy can stay in business very long on Ebay with these type of tricks and tactics. Just isn't going to happen because the feedback system is going to weed him out and make him irrelevant.

Nobody is going to buy from him once you start leaving "SCAM" feedback for him.

It blows that you got juiced on the purchase, but his days are numbered.

You did leave him negative feedback right?

The dispute was raised on item(s) received not as described. That is why I'm puzzled. Paypal's reply to me :

"Our investigation into your claim is complete. As stated in our User
Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It
does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods
received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a
refund."

That was my first thought. I even suspect it might be an ill-intended employee the merchant has that sent those bizzarre items. If that's the case, that means they have violated the privacy policy.

I did. Through their rather professional online ticketing system. But they claimed they are of good reputation and accused me of scamming them rather. As a matter of fact, they looks reputable, that's why I placed the purchase. Frankly, I couldn't believe they are the one that did it. Questions are, where is my real order? Who sent me those things? Either case, my details with the merchant is leaked/exploited.

I totally agreed with that. A lesson which I've learned. With credit card purchase, consumer still stands a good chance with chargeback.

Either way, I'm learning from this incident both as a buyer and merchant. Just wanted to share with the warriors here.

Here is how I resolved this issue when I bought a used real estate guru book and got a few xerox copies, not even the whole book mind you. I got the same crap from PayPal that is not covered in their TOS. But I never pay from a balance, and seldom pay from the bank immediate transfer. I almost always change it to the debit card I have on file, which is a Visa, and then it becomes a Visa dispute. Not as described IS A VALID VISA DISPUTE and visa will refund my money, which they did.

I don't know how you chose to pay, and I hope it was with your credit card through PayPal, but if it wasn't, let this be a lesson, pay that way from now on. You could make a business by seling stuff and shipping crap with PayPal payments.

This schmuck that sold me the "book" was real sneaky. He was clearing out his shelves and offered the "books" in a real estate discussion group I belonged to. So I didn't have his address and he didn't put it on the package when he shipped it so I had no way to return it. But when I explained that to the credit card company they agreed that he had committed fraud and I got my money back. Being stubborn comes in handy sometimes I could have let it go when PayPal turned me down, but I belly ached to them, and it was them that told me to go to my credit card company.

Hope this has helped.

Chris, some people get a true thrill and a sense of challenge and competition out of cheating the rest of us out of our money. It excites them that they can outsmart us and manipulate us. It's the sociopathic--and sometimes psychopathic--mindset. The "criminal" mind, if you will.

I have to agree with PayPal's position. If someone can prove they shipped a product, how can PayPal determine if it was a brick or a bar of gold. Basically that is the reason for the TOS the way it is written, and they will stick to it as best they can. PayPal wants the easy way out, can you blame them? Let the bank deal with it. Push it as high as you can, or you think it is worth. You could make a case of bank or wire fraud if you wanted to. That brings up big time memories of long prison time. Maybe it is just my stubborn nature but I approach this by building my case with all the ammunition I can to support my case, and always ask to talk to the supervisor. I am sure I have had companies just give in to me to shut me up. I only do this when I believe I have been screwed, but I have been in this position enough times and found that as long as you don't give in, and always ask to talk to a higher authority you still have a chance to get what you want. Even the boss has a supervisor. So don't stop at the first level supervisor. Believe me, I have had the bosses boss decide in my favor at times.

I went through this just a few days ago with a company that was doing to charge me for some eqipment on an account that was closed. The card on file was my debit card and that would have caused a NSF so I didn't want that. I sent it back the day the box arrived to send it in, but the system told me they were going to charge me. The customer service could not or would not do anything, so I asked to talk to the supervisor. The supervisor had to think for a couple of minutes but understood my position and she took steps to stop the automoatic charge. She was very nice and helpful and I don't know if she just had more power then the first person I talked to or what, but basicly it comes down to keep asking the question until you get someone whho will give you the answer you want.

Steve,

Good point, but you would need to know you were going to get the wrong item prior to opening the package to have set this up. Or you would have to do this every time you got a package which I don't think is practical. It is a sad world, but this is where we have come to. I am probably showing my age, but in the 50's and 60's we were a much more trusting society but now the crooks have figured out how to take advantage of us much better. I can remember parking my car on the street in front of my house, and never locking it. But that was then.

I may sound like a broker record, but my philosophy of going up the ladder with my complaint has served me well. I get cooperation almost 100% of the time by doing that. I might not get everything I want, but usually get it all or most of it. And I don't own a video camera.

The guitar player in a big band I'm playing in told me last week that he had bought a used guitar via eBay. I'm not sure whether he payed through PayPal though.

The seller, I think he was located in Italy, had good feedback on eBay.

The guitar was from one of the top brands, Gibson or Ibanez I think. Price around $1,500.

What he received from this guy was some no name guitar in bad condition.

He has since been in email contact with the seller, and has returned the crap guitar. The seller has promised him to return his money, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Just goes to show that things like this also can happen when you buy from a seller with positive feedback.