Note to sellers: Alarming Paypal incident

03-09-2008, 09:14 PM

I recently received a paypal payment from a customer. Everything looked fine (paypal status: complete) and three days later, paypal placed a hold on the payment stating that the person or the person's bank withheld the money. WTF! Luckily, this was a honest mistake by the customer who had not cancelled an old checking account with paypal and accidentally used that account for the purchase. So I was thinking if that's the case, that means paypal has no idea that the account holder's bank had any money (or even an active account) for three days after the transaction was completed! From now on, I'm going to wait three days on paypal payments before shipping out animals.

T. Chiang

03-09-2008, 09:37 PM

This isnt new. I have heard of lots of incidents like this lately with Paypal.
And just a hint, you have to post your full name when posting on the BOI.

03-09-2008, 09:54 PM

Doesn't surprise me one bit.......I would advise dumping them before your story doesn't have a happy ending.......Good Luck

03-09-2008, 10:24 PM

I myslef had an encounter that i almost lost a very large chunk of money because the person used a credit card and then later refused the charges to the credit card and Pay Pal accepted the reversed charges with inquiring if the items had been returned or not. In the end it turned out ok...but it took several months to get it settled and I felt it should not have happened at all. Pay Pals "protection" sucks.

03-10-2008, 08:18 AM

This happened to Me and another person i was sending money to as well.

I had deposited a set amount of money in a check in my checking account, generally checks will go in immediately the following morning, but the ATM will automatically tell me that 100.00 is available for withdrawal immediately.

I sent the 100.00 through paypal, which takes another two days to go through and also post to my account. Plenty of time for a payroll check to go through and post as well.

Something happened and, im still not quite clear on what exactly went down for that, but that they tried taking the money BACK from the other person's account when it was not theirs to take.

*sigh* paypal sucks, but... its there and works ( for the most part)

if something better came along, that was just as easy to use id be all over it!

03-10-2008, 09:15 AM

That's pretty funny that you have to wait 3 days to make sure the payment has cleared, because in order to be eligible for seller protection you are required to ship within 7 days of receiving payment.

In August we accepted payment for an animal, the temperatures were out of control so all parties agreed to wait until September. We shipped the animal and it arrived safely. A month after the animal was shipped (October) we were informed the person used a credit card and said they did not authorize the charge. Paypal investigated and found in our favor. Two weeks after that we were informed by Paypal that after re-investigating they found in favor of the buyer because we did not ship within 7 days. In addition to that they tried to charge us a $10.00 fee because of the charge back. So, we were out the money, the animal and an additional fee. We were able to recoup part of the money from Paypal, but that was after another two months of phone calls. Of course we contacted the buyer by phone, he laughed and hung up.

If you have a business account you are required to accept credit cards. Paypal chooses to accept the credit card on your behalf, you having no choice in the matter or even knowledge that it's a credit card, then they hold you responsible for any charge backs.

03-10-2008, 09:16 AM

That's pretty funny that you have to wait 3 days to make sure the payment has cleared, because in order to be eligible for seller protection you are required to ship within 7 days of receiving payment.

In August we accepted payment for an animal, the temperatures were out of control so all parties agreed to wait until September. We shipped the animal and it arrived safely. A month after the animal was shipped (October) we were informed the person used a credit card and said they did not authorize the charge. Paypal investigated and found in our favor. Two weeks after that we were informed by Paypal that after re-investigating they found in favor of the buyer because we did not ship within 7 days. In addition to that they tried to charge us a $10.00 fee because of the charge back. So, we were out the money, the animal and an additional fee. We were able to recoup part of the money from Paypal, but that was after another two months of phone calls. Of course we contacted the buyer by phone, he laughed and hung up.

If you have a business account you are required to accept credit cards. Paypal chooses to accept the credit card on your behalf, you having no choice in the matter or even knowledge that it's a credit card, then they hold you responsible for any charge backs.

Thanks
Anna Strate
www.homegrownherps.com

03-11-2008, 10:52 AM

Folks I've posted this every time I see a thread here about PayPal, when Buying or selling live animals, Paypal does not offer buyer or seller protection. Anyone can either not send your animal or do a charge back after you sent an animal and paypal isn't going to cover you.. Also when it comes to Credit Card companies Paypal will roll right over for them, even when the charge back is done beyond Paypals TOS limit. You use Paypal at your own risk.. Randy

03-11-2008, 08:38 PM

There is a great blog about merchant accounts written by someone who works in the industry (it doesn't promote any specific services, and IMO is very objective). I've found it immensely helpful. The most recent entry (Feb 29, 2008) is about PayPal and buyer/seller protection:

http://www.merchantaccountblog.com/

03-11-2008, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ravensgait

Folks I've posted this every time I see a thread here about PayPal, when Buying or selling live animals, Paypal does not offer buyer or seller protection. Anyone can either not send your animal or do a charge back after you sent an animal and paypal isn't going to cover you.. Also when it comes to Credit Card companies Paypal will roll right over for them, even when the a charge back is done beyond Paypals TOS limit. You use Paypal at your own risk.. Randy

Where does it specifically outline that in the PayPal policies ?
I did not see that anywhere in there policy.
I have talked to them extensively on the phone about shipping live animals ( specifically reptiles ) and they said I still qualify for seller protection as long as I follow the seller paypal protection policy.