> Initiated a PayPal chargeback process - PayPal responded: "we’ve determined there was no unauthorized use"
Just wanted to highlight this. Things like this is why I avoid PayPal as much as possible. For many years now.
Just wanted to highlight this. Things like this is why I avoid PayPal as much as possible. For many years now.
The payment is authorized by the author (i.e. his PP account wasn't stolen), the whole thing being a scam is irrelevant and PayPal shouldn't be the judge here (if you got scammed and send some physical items to the scammer, can you ask the post office to take it back?)
I sold digital goods on eBay a few times (like, less than 10 times) and I've already got 3 (!) people claiming their purchase is "unauthorized" after I sent them the goods (redeem codes, so I can't really let them "return"). I'm more than glad that PayPal took my stance instead of giving them chargeback, since they're likely trying to scam me.
This shit is why I don't sell on eBay anymore.
I have a friend who sells stuff on eBay a lot (or at least, used to), and he says about 5% of his sales go to scammers who will request refunds claiming they never received an item.
Of course, now that I think more on it, I wonder how many of those 5% were scammers versus how many of them simply had their package stolen from their front door.
Why would we (I'm genuinely asking here) consider PayPal more similar to CC than the others? My point being, it could be (closer to) either, and both make sense to me. PP doesn't necessarily need to operate like CC.
After all, CC as a service charges much more with processing fees from merchants and sometimes annual fees from the customers. It's meant to provide a "better/premium" service.
PayPal does have a 6 month purchase protection policy in many cases. So... maybe, if you manage to argue that this was a purchase that you're entitled to protection for. But that's a different channel and probably a different physical department at the company.
On the other hand, all my credits card companies, Citi/Chase/etc. approved my similar requests after a review process.
Why does anyone still use PayPal?
And sadly there are people (on this thread) who still blame the OP. Of course the payment wasn't authorized, and the OP is very articulate about what happened. At the end of the day, money middle-men are very effective at pointing fingers at one-another, the effect being that the user will throw up their hands and give up. (This happened to me once and cost me about $15k, and I was unable to recover any of it). But what makes it even worse is how conditioned we all are to accepting blame for what is, ultimately, an authentication mistake made by the financial institution(s).
Paypal.com -> Subscriptions -> Unsubscribe
Paypal makes it two or three clicks to unsub from any reoccurring payment. No dark patterns or "call us" required. I use it whenever I can for subscription services.
By the way, I did this ages ago, deleted my account, closed what I could, and I still regularly get a mail from PayPal that they changed their terms.
For example the New York Times forces you to call and speak to a retention specialist if you want to cancel and you paid by credit card. With PayPal it's 3 clicks.
In both cases, Discover approved charge-backs for the PayPal charges to my card.
You can't afford to not accept PayPal because all the buyers have it, and all the buyers have it because you can pay with it everywhere.
An alternative network would have a hard time getting users to sign up.
I was under the assumption that the VISA debit card offers me the same protections as the crecit card but I think I was wrong...
> Are PayPal purchases covered? You are unlikely to be protected under debit card Chargeback schemes for items purchased using PayPal. In these cases the act of loading money onto your PayPal account counts as the debit card transaction so, unless the money fails to be credited, it won't be covered. PayPal runs its own purchase protection scheme which extends some cover to your purchases, but it is in house rather than regulated by law.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/pdf-0075-lost-or-stole...
In the US, you don't have to pay the disputed portion of a credit card bill while the chargeback investigation is ongoing. Most financial institutions will issue a temporary credit to make this clear.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0219-disputing-credit-...
If anyone here is familiar with Dutch law, the author might appreciate your input.
Details are likely spelled out in the multipage 5-pt text pamphlet that you received with a new debit card at some point.
In the US, debit cards command different processing fees for the card issuer depending on how the transaction is processed. Sometimes, when using a debit card in person, the checkout terminal will ask the customer to choose "credit" or "debit" for the transaction. Choosing "credit" instead of "debit" grants the card issuer a much larger processing fee. Some financial institutions only offer certain features (including liability guarantees or rewards) when the debit card is used to make a "credit" transaction. Almost all online debit card transactions are processed as "credit" (which does not require you to enter a PIN).
About the status of PayPal: it is licensed as a money transmitter but manages a network of bank subsidiaries and third-party bank accounts to profit from interest rate arbitrage and perform other activities that banks would do.
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/08/06/2136828/is-it-a-bank-...
In the US, you may also want to file a fraud report to the FTC and to your local police department.
https://www.ftc.gov/faq/consumer-protection/submit-consumer-...
Really, the only way to not get PayPal to approve a refund is to work with the customer and solve the problem so the customer cancels the refund request.
I absolutely loathe them for their high-pressure sales tactics (their site is full of dark patterns and booking there is outright stressful; it feels like you're trying to browse while a drill sergeant is constantly yelling into your ear "BOOK NOW YOU WORTHLESS SCUM, BOOK, BOOK, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR YOU IMBECILE, CLICK IT, BOOK, NOW, NOW YOU MAGGOT") - however, unfortunately they often do have the best price (by far) or are the only place certain accommodations are available, and aside from the drill sergeant, their UX is absolutely perfect.
I've been burned far too often with sites that let you go through the entire flow only to tack on ridiculous fees for payment or simply fail to process your credit card.
Here's news about a new protection scheme in the UK. But this is new (only came in last year), and it doesn't cover all banks. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48385426
> New protection for individuals tricked into transferring money to fraudsters has now taken effect - but not all banks are signed up to the scheme.
> Some 84,000 bank customers lost money - sometimes tens of thousands of pounds - last year after being caught out.
> Only a fraction of the amount lost was refunded by banks. Now a new code should mean more will be reimbursed.
> The refund will come from a central pot in cases when neither the bank nor the customer are to blame.
See especially this bit:
> Some of the more elaborate frauds see the con-artists using social media and other avenues such as data breaches to gather information about their victim, making it more likely that potential victims believe they are genuine.
> In all these cases, the individual authorises the payment. Banks have often refused to refund these frauds as a result.
Losing your card would have been similar to the OP's PayPal account being hacked.
Anyhow, I called my bank and explained to them that these were fraudulent transactions, and thank goodness you have them on hold but haven't processed them, because my rent is coming up and could you please release the money.
The bank refused. I'd been a member of the same institution for probably a dozen years, had a car loan out through them, was on track to get a mortgage through them in a few years, and they told me that even though I had caught it that very morning, about as soon as I could possibly have caught it, that there was nothing they could do.
Paypal, on the other hand, asked me to sign an affidavit, and a couple of weeks later, fully refunded my account.
I've held Paypal above banks ever since. In retrospect, eBay had acquired Paypal only two years prior, and this transaction happening on eBay probably garnered additional scrutiny at the time. However, nearly every time I read about someone's Paypal account getting locked out, it turns out they weren't paying attention to the Terms of Service - which are, without a doubt, designed to minimize fraudulent use of Paypal as a payment provider. It's why you can't do pre-sales on Paypal - it leaves them open to liability.
For better or for worse, the overwhelming narrative becomes "Paypal sucks", but as you start to look at the big boy payment providers, you'll discover that Paypal is often more permissive by comparison, with rates that are comparable to or better than the big boys when you're running with such small transactional values. And if you end up going to some upstart that will let you do things Paypal won't, that party's only going to last as long as those providers don't get stung by regulatory fees or plain old fraud.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13851120
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678582
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6333203
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7968737
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18783493
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455520
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6891306
Financial institutions do not have this kind of control over bank accounts. All bank accounts inherit a level of trustworthiness from consumer protection laws that only apply to bank accounts. PayPal does not.
When PayPal freezes/limits an account in a way that a bank account could not legally be subject to, the problem is not the account holder, but PayPal itself.