What recourse does one have once you have been screwed over by PayPal?

February 29, 2008 8:37 PM

Asking for my fiancé: What recourse does one have once you have been screwed over by PayPal? Lots of details inside.

Backstory: My fiancé was beginning grad school last August and wanted to buy a new MacBook Pro. He decided, after his mother had some success selling her iBook on eBay to sell his aging PowerBook. Before the auction ended he was contacted by someone asking if it was O.K. if she bid on the item and had it shipped to the Philippines. At first my fiancé was hesitant, but through a bunch of e-mails back and forth the woman seemed to be legit. In retrospect, perhaps the fact that it was going to the Philippines should have been the red flag, but what's done is done.

My fiancé agreed that if she won the auction and paid via PayPal, waited for it to clear into his bank account, he would ship the PowerBook to the Philippines. She won, it cleared, he shipped it via FedEx. Again, this was back in August.

Fast forward to November, around Thanksgiving where my fiancé received notification of a chargeback for the PowerBook. PayPal gave him 10 days to respond with proof that he shipped the item and luckily, he kept the receipt/tracking number. He immediately transmitted the information to PayPal.

Around December 1st, my fiancé noticed that PayPal had deducted the amount of the eBay sale (a little over $1100) from his PayPal balance and was asked by PayPal to give back the money until a verdict had been come to. He immediately called PayPal and explained the situation: He is a student who sold his old laptop to buy a new laptop and that he did not have an extra $1100 to give them. He explained that he did, to the best of his knowledge, everything by the book. He asked if there was anything else he could do to fight this. The PayPal representative told him that he had done everything that was required of him (gave them the tracking number) and that he would just have to wait it out. Since he was a student, the representative told him he would make a note that my fiancé did not have the funds to bring his account into the black.

The beauty of this situation is that PayPal gave him 10 days to respond and state that they have 180 days to respond back. So we waited.

PayPal contacted my fiancé by e-mail to inform him that the credit card company and indeed PayPal found in favor of the buyer and that he would have to pay back the ~$1100 to PayPal. So he is now "out" $1100 and a PowerBook.

The e-mail stated that the due date was: "none", but PayPal, or a collector on their behalf have started calling.

Do we have any recourse here? PayPal suggested we try to get the computer back, but (not surprisingly) we am unable to reach the buyer.

We'd really appreciate any suggestions or input.

posted by Becko to computers & internet (7 comments total)

If they try to collect then dispute the debt.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:57 PM on February 29, 2008

I am going through the same thing. You can apparently dispute the debt, ad Rhomboid said, and they would have to sue you to collect the money. You can also file an appeal by writing [e-mail]. I did this, and after several rounds of email and sending in documents, they disputed the charge with the credit card company. No word yet on if it was successful. I don't expect it to be.

By the way, I strongly suspect that the reps you talked to are there to make you feel like PayPal is doing something, when in fact it mostly isn't. The branches that handle the actual claims are not reachable by you, the customer, and the people who answer the phones are often completely wrong about what to do and what is going on.
posted by procrastination at 9:15 PM on February 29, 2008

This is why you should never use paypal. My advice would just be to not pay them. If it does end up on your credit report, dispute it. The dispute process isn't perfect, but it does sometimes work. Also, does your paypal balance say $-1100 or what? Did he just leave that money in?

If Paypal has your bank account information, they may try to withdraw the money themselves, so I think you actually need to move the money to another account.
posted by delmoi at 10:48 PM on February 29, 2008

Since your fiance is a student does he have access to student legal aid services? A letter from a lawyer to show that you are serious about your rights is often all it takes to get the company to be reasonable.

FWIW, we have done over 100 Ebay / Paypal transactions as both a buyer and seller and have never had a problem. However, we refuse to ship outside of the US.
posted by COD at 6:13 AM on March 1, 2008

Be sure to file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov. You might not get your money back this way, but it's a way to inform the FBI of all the details of the crime that has been committed against you. The FBI uses this information to build larger cases against these bad guys by locating as many victims in common as possible.
posted by LightMayo at 6:26 AM on March 1, 2008

[comment removed - morning-after quarterbacking not helpful here.]
posted by jessamyn at 7:40 AM on March 1, 2008

The dispute process isn't perfect, but it does sometimes work.

If you dispute, and they leave it on your credit report without bothering to verify it, then you get a (relatively) easy $1000 out of them.

If Paypal has your bank account information, they may try to withdraw the money themselves, so I think you actually need to move the money to another account.

If they do try to withdraw the money, and you haven't authorized them to do so, you can dispute it, because they're illegally withdrawing money from your account. There may be affidavits involved at that point, wherein you swear that you did not authorize the withdrawal(s) in question.
posted by oaf at 2:07 PM on March 1, 2008