Ask HN: How to Handle PayPal Theft? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Handle PayPal Theft?

2 pointsyonisto4 comments

2 weeks ago, I got charged with 179$ for a yearly subscription from a website called Scalefast.com

Charging took place while I was far far away from my desktop (I only use paypal on my desktop), I checked and double checked and I never visited this website or its parent company. Sure enough I don't have an account.

Canceling the subscription didn't help, I still got charged. I filed a complaint with Paypal and was even able to talk to a human being, after my initial complaint was denied (because they wanted the service agreement(?) which I didn't have of course) , now I was denied again with the reason being:

"We have reviewed this transaction(s) and are denying your claim(s). This decision was made because your billing dispute doesn't match our qualification for a billing dispute"

Sure enough scalefast don't response...

Anyone had such an experience? what did you do?

Thanks

Typically what I do is I go back to my emails and check that I didn't accidentally subscribe to them, or I send an email to them to ask them to unsubscribe me from their service as I subscribed in error.

To be honest though Paypal can be a bit poopy at times and it does seem like quite a few people have had the same experience, but typically I find that if I try to dispute the payment outside of Paypal by trying to talk to the service itself first. That seems to solve the problem quicker than trying to dispute it through Paypal.

How committed to having a PayPal account are you? If it doesn't provide $180 worth of value to you, do a chargeback on wherever they pulled from, and be prepared for PayPal to close your account, and also for them to try to pull from any other accounts you previously authorized (you might try unlinking those, and/or letting them know beforehand that you no longer authorize PayPal to make transactions)

I'd try taking Paypal to small claims court. It doesn't really matter if you "have a case" or not...many big companies will settle to avoid having to send a lawyer. They can potentially choose to close your account though, so keep that in mind.

> I checked and double checked and I never visited this website or its parent company. Sure enough I don't have an account

Scalefast handles ecommerce for other companies, such as SquareEnix

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