Has anyone successfully won a Paypal dispute against a scammer?

[WhatSpareTime?]

Has anyone successfully won a Paypal dispute against a scammer?

We've all seen discussions about this in the buyer/seller feedback threads and complaint threads, but I'm wondering if anyone has actually had a favorable outcome to one of these disputes.

I ask because I was thinking about buying an expensive part from a noob UNTIL I read the Paypal terms & conditions at length. I'll be honest...I've a lot of experience reading contracts and e-commerce terms & conditions. I don't think 'our' type of purchases are covered according to the Paypal T&C.

_______________________
Check out complete 'Protection for Buyers' section (#13) here:
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?c...Other%20Errors.

Section 13.3 states 'Personal Payments' are ineligible

The last paragraph states:
Even if your payment is not eligible for PayPal Purchase Protection, you can file a Dispute and try to resolve the issue directly with the Seller; however, PayPal will generally not find in your favor if you escalate a Dispute to a Claim for an item which is not eligible for PayPal Purchase Protection.

Now...this might be some legal mumbo jumbo, but nevertheless...from my perspective this doesn't offer the seller comfort when buying from a Noob. Why? Because the wouldbe Noob Scammer has nothing to lose. He has no positive reputation established so there's nothing to tarnish and in the end, Paypal can't force him to send the parts or a refund.

Thoughts? Experiences?

Please share...

[heerschap]

I have won a couple paypal disputes via ebay after the 45 days, the tracking # of shipment was the key in my situation. unless of course you get something completely diffrent than what you were told.

also if the scammer in question has done this previously via paypal, then paypal is opt to back you up, if the previous person that got scammed disputed it that is. thats why you should always dispute it, regardless.

[nater]

Moved to The Car Lounge (which probably isn't the best place for this either).

[SVTDanny]

I filed a dispute for an item I never received (I think off Vortex, actually), and I eventually got my money back. It took a good month or two to go through the process though.... they basically give the seller every chance to respond to their emails and/or send you the item, and if they still pass it up, then refund you the money.

[seadoo2006]

Yes,

I sold my old iPhone 3G on eBay a couple years back and did all the tracking info and stuff I needed to. Buyer said it never arrived, filed a claim that I was scamming him. I sent all the required info to PayPal and they sided with me after I sent them the receipts, tracking numbers, and bill of sale for the phone.

It was frustrating because I didn't see my $300 for almost 3 months, but in the end, I got the money I was owed.

[cmw88]

In my experience Paypal more often the not sides with the buyer, but I've had it swing both ways. I paid someone for a product, it came and was completely different then specified, I filed a claim and Paypal sided with the retailer. I've sold parts, had the people file claims, get the parts then Paypal side with them and refund their money even though they received their order. It's really hit or miss man... Let's just say I HATE to use Paypal, between their fees and policies, it's not worth it.

[seadoo2006]

Personally, I'd say use an electronic escrow service, like Escrow.com. For a fee (I think it's comparable to PayPal's fees), they will hold the money until both parties are satisfied. This gives the buyer and seller something in the game. The buyer has their money being held by a 3rd party and the seller needs the sign off from the buyer in order to receive the funds.

[sforsancho]

Great story here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...lipping-crook/

[Heathcliff Huxtable]

i just won a claim on paypal. bought a set of wheels, got them, were in no way close to the condition they were described, made every attempt to resolve with the seller, filed a dispute, waited another 2 days, escalated to a claim, seller didnt respond to paypal, and i got refunded the whole $1100.

now, the seller wants me to pay to ship him the wheels because he had already "invested" $190 to ship them to me. nope.

[USMCFieldMP]

I might be filing a dispute here soon if my parts don't show up.

[03GTI4Me]

Great story here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...lipping-crook/

That was a good story, thanks for the link

[sullie]

I bought something off e-bay, seller had 100% positive feedback, never received the item, filed a claim with paypal and I would say about a month later I got a full refund. I think it was like $40 but it still royally pissed me off.

Great story here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...lipping-crook/

Excellent story, thanks for the link!

[jesiman]

The trick is to pay with a credit/debit bank card. If things go awry and paypal can't help then your bank will be able to.

[Obin Robinson]

Yes. I got my money back from a business that did not send the merchandise. I just followed the instructions on the paypal site and they verified that the business did not send their merchandise. It was pretty easy to do.

obin

[Fe2O3]

Seems like if you're using Paypal to buy from vendors or ebay listings, you're probably ok. If you're just sending some dude some money privately, Paypal won't touch it.

[Hostile]

Great story here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...lipping-crook/

Good article.

[dunhamjr]

i have 'technically' won the disputes i have been involved with.

not scammers really though.

one was a guy who opted out of insurance and then bitched at me about the carrier basically destroying the box, damaging the HDD i sent him. i had sent out 4 hdd's that week, 3 arrived fine, his didnt. he put in a dispute and paypal decided that he could get a refund if he shipped me the hdd back. the guy refused to ship the hdd back, so no refund, and never heard from him again.

the other one was pretty similar. expect that he was complaining about the item i sent him not being what he bought. basically provided the ebay listing description, paypal confirmed with him and me that what i sent was what i described in the ad. "no warranty, given or implied", etc. and done, never heard from them again either.

[seadoo2006]

Good article.

What's absolutely mind-boggling is how many people still think an eBay Motors Auto auction is a legally binding sale. IT'S NOT! A bid on eBay Motors for a car is just a promise saying you're interested in the car for the auction price. You DO NOT have to buy the car, you DO NOT have to pay the price you "bought" it for, and you DO NOT have to buy the car sight unseen.

Again, it's a non-binding bid meaning if you want to buy that $100k Porsche and put in a bid and win, you are not obligated to either buy the car or pay the price the auction was for. It's amazing more people don't know that.

[Cousin Eddie]

I almost did one time. I ordered some OEM 1970's JDM fender mirrors for my Datsun Z from Bangkok. Extremely rare, expensive and hard to find.

The shipper wouldn't give me tracking info for the damn package and kept giving me the run around. Mind you he always replied quickly but still it was annoying. "I will have the tracking info weds". "I am sorry i'm out of town in Japan til Tues" and on and on. Three and a half weeks went by and you only have so many days (40?) to file a claim. The day I was set to file a claim just so I didn't miss the deadline it showed up perfectly packaged on my doorstep.

It's weird how sometimes even shady ass people end up being really honest in the end. He did give me the tracking info like the day before it showed up but I was still worried because he'd been so flaky. I hate ordering expensive stuff online from unknown sellers. However the guy was good and sells a lot of JDM stuff from the 70's/80's. If anyone is looking for anything in particular let me know and I can get you in touch with him, he was honest in the end and I apologized to him.

[josh_did_what]

Only experience that I ever had was that the seller was totally non-responsive as soon as I bought the parts, but PP was really helpful and I got everything back within two months.

[AZGolf]

There's an ebay/paypal rant thread going in the Money & Finance forum:

Making money with ebay/paypal just got even harder

[crannky]

I did twice. Once as a buyer, once as a seller.

[WhatSpareTime?]

Moved to The Car Lounge (which probably isn't the best place for this either).

LOL...Nater I had no idea where to post this, but I thought it relevant considering the Buyer/Seller Feedback thread is in the MKIII Forum. It was a judgement call

Seems like if you're using Paypal to buy from vendors or ebay listings, you're probably ok. If you're just sending some dude some money privately, Paypal won't touch it.

Agreed...upon reading the T&C this is my perception as well.



For those of you who claim you won a dispute...how did you 'win'? How was it favorable? What if the seller just goes M.I.A and you never received the parts? Did PP pay your claim then?

[jesiman]

I won one through paypal and they take money from the persons paypal account. If they have no money in the account then you get nothing and they wait for them to put money in there.

[VWObsession]

I won one through paypal and they take money from the persons paypal account. If they have no money in the account then you get nothing and they wait for them to put money in there.

Mine was through eBay. Ended like the above, with me only getting about 40% back. Luckily it was cheap, so I didn't lose a lot of money.

[ChristopherB]

I sold a small item on Ebay(only about $20), was paid on a Saturday afternoon, dropped it in a mailbox the same day without any tracking. Sunday morning I get an email from Paypal saying that there was a problem with the buyers credit card. I complained to them about them telling me the payment was good and it was okay to ship. After a lot of complaining, they finally agreed to pay me the money assuming it didn't get straightened out by the buyer(it turns out he bought a bunch of things and did this to everyone). Not wanting the scammer to get his item, I went to the post office Monday morning and explained the situation. The supervisor got in their car, met me at the mail box and gave me back my package.

[Philly215]

I had a guy win an auction on my car on ebay. He paypaled the deposit. ($500 I think) He came to pick the car up and then decided he didn't want it and he wanted his deposit. I said no and he filed a claim. I had to defend my side of the story to paypal. I had ebay fees to pay because of him and I didn't sell the car because he won the auction and backed out when I could have sold it to the next person in line. I won. He wasn't happy and filed a claim with his credit card company. I won that too. Never heard from him again. Guessing he was pretty pissed off.

[pknopp]

Section 13.3 states 'Personal Payments' are ineligible

Don't make it a "personal payment". You can make it a regular payment (with fee's) and you are covered.

But as noted, use your credit card and you are always covered. Just call the C.C. and cancel the payment.

[Enchiladas]

Great story here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...lipping-crook/

I just read that whole article and it was very informative and almost entertaining.

[jettagli1991]

I make my living on eBay, probably selling 7-10 items per day, all paid with PayPal. I've had very few issues, not that I don't fully believe they are a shady company at best, and screw people on a regular basis. I've noticed they tend to not bother their volume customers by holding money and all that nonsense. Probably because they know I'm big enough to accept credit card payments elsewhere, and that I also have too much to lose. Once in a while I'll get the old "unauthorized user" credit card charge back, but I've always kept my money with proof of delivery, with one exception, a shady buyer in Thailand who did that, but after losing it on the phone with them, they refunded me. They tend to bother honest people who sell occasionally, even if they've had a perfect track record for many years. One of the many reasons smaller sellers are leaving eBay in droves. Lately it's tough finding anything since you have to narrow your search down so much to avoid all of the Chinese garbage. If anyone wants to start up a replacement for eBay Motors specifically for auto parts, I'd invest.

-ALWAYS get a tracking number. Without it you're screwed and they know it.
-Certain items attract scammers, like phones, ipods, jewelry, big rimz, laptops, etc, basically the type of items someone can easily flip on the street or Craigs. Very few people will go out of their way to scam sellers out of Miata parts or vintage lamps.
-If you're selling those risky items, avoid international shipping. Not worth it. I ship worldwide, but my stuff is lower risk.
-Don't be afraid to keep calling them. If you did everything right and you're still getting scammed, don't go down without a fight.

[$teve]

No, never. Best I ever got was 1% give or take of the money I lost.

[elementpb]

I sold around $2000 worth of antique fishing gear to a guy on ebay. I guess he wanted to pick through it to see if I had anything he needed, then return it so he damaged some of the old wooden cases the spools came in, and filed a claim. ebay gave him his money back and he returned the items to me. after probably 20 hours of phonecalls, they randomly decided that it was all UPS's fault, and sent me a check for the full amount since it would be nearly impossible to find a true value on rare collectibles from the 50s.

if you aren't 100% on buying something, have them put up an ebay auction and then buy it through there. its a double layer of protection, and they can't get the money until you leave them feedback.

[arethirdytwo]

Always had it work out for me. Both as a buyer and a seller. I will say it is the slowest damn company ever. The best was the guy who bought an amp and "forgot" he received it. Filed a claim and I wasn't checking that email as I had no need to. Confirmed delivered. 3 months later $450 is missing from my account and I see PayPal took it. Kid filed a claim a month after he got it and I did not see the emails within 10 days. They escalated (never called me though) and finally sided with him.

I called PayPal and raised holy hell. Took FOREVER but they actually gave me the money back. Worst part was the kid had to just be an idiot as he immediately called PayPal and apologized yet they still drug ass.

[rabbitnothopper]

if you can present a viable claim then yes you win

or if you present a viable claim to the seller (especially ebay) they will typically refund you the money
to avoid negative feedback on their user...

reasons for scams? is it a scam? or were you just scammed?

think more clearly about giving your money to people before...giving your money to people

[megaDan]

Yup, on this very forum.

When they start making excuses, file a claim. Don't wait. Thats how they get most people.

"UHhhh oh sorry I had a baby then my wife had a baby we're both in the hospital I got kidnapped I'll ship it next week".

As long as you keep everything documented and make sure to spell out your terms in the payment you should be OK.

I've only had to file one claim (I try not to deal with shady people) and it went through successfully.