Help! 5 Minute Refund Request & Paypal....

Hi Scott

It happens to the best of us and yes it pisses you off.

You could contest it with paypal, but what's the point, you just get stressed and upset and you'll probably refund him in the end anyway cos he's doing your head in.

Kim

Hi Scott,

What was the claim with Paypal for. If its a digital item and he claim that he didnt receive it..show paypal the proof that he did, and that its a digital item. Normally, they will side you.

But seriously,m this is a better optin. Refund him back.. and ban his IP throughout all your site(s).

This is a common problem on paypal as well
they paypal will always rule aginst you unless you can prove delivery which is real hard to do with a digital product.
So unless you are in a position to deal with this Fraud in the legal system then I guess the least stressfull way is to put it down to exoerience and factor into your numbers a percentage to cover these events

Getting a scammer every once in awhile is part of being in business on the net. Refund the guy. Tighten up your security, and don't lose any sleep over it. Put your efforts into making more sales and not worrying about the occasional loss. Every business on the internet has money set aside for calculated loss. Its just par for the course. In my experience, paypal will most likely make you give a refund. So, instead of spending hours on the phone trying to get something accomplished with them and risking your paypal accout, just refund and move on. AJ

I think paypal is blatantly ripping off its users. Recently I had a unauthorized transaction claim against my account. Paypal claims that the transaction was reversed, however, my balance before the transaction occurred was affected.

I don't know much about online accounting, but if I have $10 in my account and some puts in another $10 and takes it back, my balance shouldn't be $0. And that's what has happened to me.

I don't know quite how to fix this problem, which is very ongoing, and I would appreciate any tips that can help.

What is your stated refund policy for the product in question?

Kristi

Hi Scott,
Digital products are not overed under paypal's terms, any complaint or claim just prove the person downloaded the product and that is pretty much about all you need to do.

I got one of those recently for one of my downloadable products, buyer made complaint "not received".. So I replied and told seller here is the stats that prove you did in-fact get it. Then I tuened around and emailed them another link for download.

Buyer refused to remove the complaint so I esculated it to a paypal claim , yes sellers are allowed to do that. I then gave paypal all the proof and told paypal that is it a virtual product and they did get exactly what they paid for. I then gave paypal the actual url of where it shows I will not refund on a virtual product as the sales copy has no hype on it at all.. It says exactly what the product is.

So I let paypal handle it and deal with it... I will see my money put back in a few days..

James

I've said this a few times in threads like this, there are some very good reasons to use password protected download areas and this is one of them.

I have had PayPal claims and credit card chargbacks ruled in my favor because I proved that the purchase was for a digital product and that the customer did in fact recieve the product. My proof was the access logs that the scripts I used created ( which showed the customers name and IP address) and the emails from the customers.

In any contact you have with customers through PayPal put a statement at the beginning saying something similar to this: "This was a digital purchase and the customer accessed my password protected members area to download the product. The customer still has access to this area and has full access to the product purchased. Because this is a digital purchase it is not covered by the Buyer Protection policy of PayPal."

Adding that statement alone will win almost every claim. When you add in the access log information and any emails where customer says they did in fact access the protected download area and you will win pretty much every case. I won't say you will win every one, but in over 2 years I have only lost 2 Paypal claims and have won all but 1 chargeback claims using this process.

Hey Scott,

Paypal will back you up on this. To prove the buyer had (has) access to the download, included the download link in your reply messages so that both PP and your customer have absolute proof they have access.

But as others have said, the customer can issue a chargeback and you'll end up losing the money down the road.

Unless the person was a real jerk, it's probably best to just refund and get the issue off your mind and spend the time trying to get a couple of sales.

OP, sent you a PM on how to deal with this.

TomG.

I purchased a program a while back that allows me to transform a digital download into an .EXE file which I can set an expiration date to and other options like pop ups or have a page open in their browser when they close out. You could simply distribute the .EXE file with a 30 day expiration which will be absolutely no good to those who get refunds and automatically send your customers a 30 day thank you for being a customer with a new non-EXE file.

There are certain products I lock up that way with no options locked in so it does not annoy people and it looks just like a pdf when opened and there have been no complaints.

I've also been thanked when I send them a "Hi just checking to make sure you are happy with the "product name" you got last month and here is the updated version" email.

I haven't had anyone ask for a refund so I haven't had the pleasure of seeing their face when they try to open it after 30 days or worse yet if they sell it or give it to anyone else....LOL


Oh well just a thought...

Here's one of my complaints about paypal:

I have paypal and a real merchant payment account with authorize.net.
If I get a chargeback thru a CC company I just fax over a copy of my report I provided the client and the money is back in my account in 10 days. Every single time.

If I get a payapal claim I email a copy of the report. I explain to paypal that its a digital product then I mail a copy of the report with a tracking # and I win the paypal claim 100% of the time.
Unless the client says the magic words that allow them to buy and steal anything they want online with paypal. I'm not going to reveal that scam but its 100% foolproof way to steal with paypal.

But even when I win a claim with payapal then the client can go and do a charge back with their CC co and Paypal is suposed to "fight for me" but I guess they don't because I lose that every time.

Why is it I can provide less proof to my real merchant credit card processing service and win but provide more proof thru pay pal and lose?

"The customer is always right" in the eyes of Paypal and even the credit card companies. Unless you state that there are no refunds, the customer is entitled to a refund no matter what their reason is.

Accept it! It's just part of dealing with all the idiots out there in our society.

BTW, Paypal is great as long as you follow their guidelines. I've talked to them several times over the phone throughout my many years on the net and came out very satisfied. They will always side with the buyer.

Bob

Forget about Paypal's 'seller protection policy' or their 'no refunds on digital products' thing.

Give the guy a refund and walk away.

If you get too many of these, PayPal will classify you as high risk and quickly say 'buh bye'.

And for all the people that say "just call paypal and explain things to them"...sure, that works sometimes, but if your account gets forwarded to their 'bean counter' department, none of that matters.

Issue the refund and go on with your business.

create a new paypal account , than leave it as unverified and send all payment to bank account if you have negative create new one you wont have to refund .

ive lost a few claims on pp and won some too :-)

I laid out everything crystal clear in my WSO, gaves samples of the content quality, chapters of my ebook and even gave screenshots of the graphics buyers receive and this customer still asks for a refund with 2 hours his reason was that it wasn't what he was looking for.

That was why I included everything upfront so that they could make an informed buyers decision and they knew exactly what they would be getting. Point is no matter how perfect your product is you will always get refunds, albeit by dodgy people but it's just the nature of the game.

Best to just do it and chalk it up to experience, if the same Paypal email address comes up time and time again requesting a refund I'd find a way to block them from buying from you.

Just my 2 cents.

With the economy going down and down, it's only going to get more and more people becoming serial refunders.

One refund request is fine. Your product is just not for them. Just refund them.

But if they keep demanding refunds for every product they buy from you, it's time to block them from purchasing any further products from you.

Re's
Rob Whisonant