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Comment by fireattack | Hacker News Reader

Why?

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.

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> 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").

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.

Tracking numbers exist. What package delivery does not include a tracking number?

Having a tracking number doesn't matter if the scam buyer tells PayPal/eBay that you mailed them a brick and not the item you actually ordered.

The tracking number reports the package as delivered, someone came by and picked it up after it was left at the front door.

I think you mean signatory required?

Doesn't matter. About 5 years ago I sold a thing on Amazon, shipped it, and the buyer claimed the box was empty. I had photos of the item, the box, and the shipping confirmation came through Amazon's own systems. I even had messages from the buyer about the item. Amazon refunded the buyer his $250 and charged me $250. That was the last thing I ever sold on Amazon, and I also didn't buy anything on the site again until this year.

This shit is why when I had a medium-ticket item (Starcraft II Collector's Edition, sold for ~$300 at the time), I used the Fulfilled by Amazon feature. It cost me more, but I believed that having Amazon know before it shipped out that it was a sealed box, I'd be much less likely to get scammed.

A brick and mortar business normally sees more than 5% loss so if that is a real number it is great.

If the author had payed with a credit card, he could have gotten a refund, and it would be the responsibility of the credit card Issuer to track down the merchant and get a refund.

And if he has paid with a debit card or wire transfer, he would be even more out of luck than PayPal.

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.

Not necessarily.

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.

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