THIS IS NOT A THREAD FOR YOU TO TELL "YOUR STORY" OR HOW MUCH YOU HATE PAYPAL. READ THE INFORMATION I'VE COLLECTED AND TAKE IT ON BOARD OR DON'T. IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE OR ADDITIONAL TO ADD, PLEASE DO SO. "**** PAYPAL" IS NOT CONSTRUCTIVE. IT'S TAKEN ME A COUPLE DAYS TO WRITE THIS UP AND I THINK IT'S PRETTY MUCH INCLUSIVE OF WHAT YOU "NEED TO KNOW" TO HAVE HAPPY PAYPAL EXPERIENCES. DO NOT FILL THIS THREAD WITH "SCAM" STORIES.

DEEP BREATH.

Here's my QUICK little take on Paypal.
Paypal is a great tool... but like any tool, if you're not using it properly, the chances of getting hurt by it are pretty good.

The first thing to understand is that Paypal is not your friend. They don't care about you. They don't care if you're lying in a hospital dying or were out of town on vacation and didn't get their emails. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU!

Most people who think they've been scammed by Paypal simply made the mistake of assuming Paypal cared. Do yourself a big fat favor before you ever make your first transaction. READ THE PAYPAL POLICY! If you ever got "scammed" by Paypal, the chances are probably about 99.9% that YOU didn't do something you should have that was clearly spelled out somewhere in the POLICY. People just simply send money or ship an item and assume you're covered if anything goes wrong. Paypal is not an insurance or warranty source... they're just a mediary for money transfers and their RULES are very clearly spelled out.

Policy Page:
https://www.paypal.com/ua/US_en_US/ua.pdf
"USER AGREEMENT" should be something you read end-to-end.
Some of the **** in there is unbelievable and I guarantee you'd never think about.

If you choose to read only a few things:
Section 10: SELLER PROTECTION POLICY
Section 13: BUYER PROTECTION PROGRAM
Section 14: DISPUTES WITH PAYPAL (basically if there's even the slightest little thing you've done anything wrong with section 10 or 13, you'll neve win).

NOTE: The full PAYPAL "BUYER PROTECTION PROGRAM" SPECIFICALLY ONLY APPLIES TO ITEMS PURCHASED ON EBAY. ITEMS PURCHASED OUTSIDE EBAY (forum classifieds, etc...) ARE COVERED ONLY THROUGH THE "BUYER COMPLAINT POLICY". SECTIONS 13.7/13.8/13.9 SPELL THIS OUT VERY CLEARLY!!!

Policy Updates Page:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we..._update-policy

A few things you might not know about Paypal:
You agree that you will not receive interest or other earnings on the funds that PayPal handles as your agent and places in Pooled Accounts.

You agree that you will not impose a surcharge or any other fee for accepting PayPal as a payment method.

Sellers may not communicate to buyers that they only accept, or will not accept, specific forms of PayPal payment.

Except as otherwise agreed by the parties or as described in section 14.3, you agree that any claim or dispute you may have against PayPal must be resolved by a court located in either Santa Clara County, California, or Omaha, Nebraska.

PayPal Buyer Complaint Policy - Our best efforts program to reimburse Users for losses only to the extent we are able to recover the funds from sellers.

RULES TO LIVE BY WHEN SELLING WITH PAYPAL!
1. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS use some sort of "trackable" shipping service. Paypal will always require you to submit proof that the package was delivered.
2. Take pictures of the products you're selling, including any serial numbers... and take pictures of the item in the box you're shipping it in to prove it was packaged well.
3. Archive the ad you placed online so you can prove exactly what you told the seller about the item.
4. Be very specific about the shipping timeline and stick to it.
5. Print/Save all emails/PM's.
6. Never ship to a P.O.Box.
7. Be very specific about your RETURN POLICY.

RULES TO LIVE BY WHEN BUYING WITH PAYPAL!
1. When you "send money", be very specific in the comments section. Things to include: a specific description of the item, including condition, color, application, age, and a shipping timeline.
2. Always try to send money from you bank account.
3. Never send more money than the user agreement states you're covered for.
4. File a complaint the INSTANT you have recieved a bad product, or a specific timeline is not met. File a complaint, then send an email to the seller. Sellers will drag buyers on (or vice-versa) until their statute of time has passed... FILE A COMPLAINT!
5. Open the box carefully, remove the item carefully, do nothing with the item other than place it back in the box if it isn't exactly as described... file complaint immediately.

If you read through all of this stuff, visit the websites I've linked, and understand exactly how Paypal operates, it will start to sink in that it's a complete crap-shoot every time you use the system. You are extremely vulnerable and the decision-making-process is heavily weighted in favor of the seller.

BOTTOM LINE: When you send money through Paypal, there are absolutely ZERO guarantees. Any seller who knows the USER AGREEMENT can beat any buyer who doesn't, 100% of the time. If you know the rules, and follow them, you stand a good chance of being able to recover at least some (if not all) of your funds. But if you violate even one of the clearly spelled out rules/conditions/clauses/steps/lists/etc... then you're screwed, you have no leg to stand on, and Paypal won't give a **** because they told you how to do it right.

That's my advice... check the pic for an example of how I write my "send money" subject box. Hope this helps some people.

Other Websites:
http://www.aboutpaypal.org/
http://www.paypalsucks.com/ (check out the links page)

 

perhaps this should be made a sticky in our classified section?

 

yeah Sticky, Ive never had too much trouble, but I know its a thin line

 

+3 for sticky. That's amazing that Paypal will only defend suits filed in Santa Clara County, CA or Nebraska. I've never heard of anyone locally getting burned by them, but I live in Santa Clara County so maybe that's why.

 

I'm just curious as to what prompted you to write all of that? I don't understand how so many people have problems with Paypal...

Vash-

 

That's a fairly standard limitation.

eBay (PayPal's parent company) is headquartered in San Jose, and they appear to have a large office in Omaha. By limiting filings to these two jurisdictions, their legal department saves itself the cost and hassle associated with traveling all over the country to litigate claims filed in a thousand different courts.

 

this is a wonderful writeup....i too have had some bad experiences with paypl though most were taken care of if not in a timely fashion....this 100% deserves a sticky

 

"2. Always try to send money from you bank account."

How come? I actually always send thru my Amex card (have a ton of free protection from them, so figured if I have problems w/ Paypal, I can file a claim with Amex)

 

The only problem I have with this is "2. Always try to send money from you bank account." PayPal's buyer protection will only refund money to you, after you win your dispute, if the seller still has money in his account. Being as this takes about a month, if the seller is going to skip out he will have cleaned out his account. My rule is if it's over $50, the seller has low feedback or many negatives especially recently, I put it on the credit card. At least with a credit card you have some recourse for a longer time.

 

^YOU WOULD THINK THAT... but...
If you win and the seller has cleaned out his account, Paypal will go to lengths to get you your money. They can source funds from his bank account and charge any CC assigned to his account to get you your money back. A seller will not be allowed to make any further transactions until money is paid up... most sellers will pay when they lose... or they lose the ability to use Paypal completely.

The reason I suggest send cash is because it's money you have, and can reasonably stand to lose.

What you're referring to is called a "CHARGEBACK". When the buyer uses a CC, he has added protection in that if Paypal decided against him, he can always call the CC and attempt to use whatever protection plan they offer. Then your CC Company will come after Paypal for you. What Paypal does to the seller who ripped you off is not the concern of the CC Company.

But, CC Companies aren't stupid anymore, and they work very closely with Paypal. Last year, Paypal handled 6% of all worldwide internet paypament... something like $12billion dollars. CC Companies stand to lose a lot of $$$ by supporting Buyers who don't follow Paypal policy, and "ALLOW" themselves to get ripped off.

CC Companies almost universallly won't talk to you about a dispute until you've completed the full PAYPAL DISPUTE process and been denied. They make Paypal do the homework and gather all the information, then when they call, Paypal just sends them a copy of the investigation that usually explains in great detail why you fucked up.

If you have violated some "clearly spelled out" rule in the Paypal User Agreement, your CC Company will learn this in their investigation and there is a decent probability you won't get anything back from them... and now you're out $1k you don't have.

I personally would rather flush $1k cash down the toilet and have it be gone forever than get stuck with $1k CC bill I can't pay for. Since whatever you were buying is 99.9% something you could probably live without (like this: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/540076210.html), no matter how bad it sucks to get ripped off and lose... it's only money.

AGAIN, this is just info. DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK before you decide where you get your Paypal funds from. Call your CC Company and ask very specific questions about how well they function with Paypal and their specific policy on Chargebacks. When you call a CC Company and tell them you have a Paypal problem... be prepared to go on hold for a minute while your call is transferred to their in-house Paypal pro who'll disect your claim in about 10 seconds and tell you exactly why you probably won't get any money back from them either. Buyer beware.

EVERYTHING you wanted to know about CHARGEBACKS:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/we...-outside#goto1

I've also added an extra note to the Seller Rules: Be specific about your "return policy".

 

I have been involved in 3 cases now in which the seller has removed the funds from his paypal account and paypal simply leaves it at that. I have heard of no cases where paypal has reached into a bank account to find those funds. Furthermore, a paypal CSR rep I spoke to recently told me that they do not have permissions to remove funds from a bank account without asking.

I STRONGLY recommend using a credit card to make the purchase, as you WILL have a much better chance of recovering the funds.

 

I have been very happy with paypal except for one instance. I have 2 accounts, 1 that acccepts credit cards and one that doesn't(free). When I sell an item I instruct the buyer to pay account A if the money is coming from his paypal balance or bank draft and to use account B if it's being drawn from a credit card or check card. Now most people understand that and pay to the right account but you still get the occasional idiot that sends from a credit card to my personal account. I just hit the deny button because I don't want to upgrade that account and pay on every incoming transaction. That's the whole point of the 2 accounts. Then I instruct the buyer that he has to resend it to my other account like I ******* stated in the beginning.

Now here is the problem. I sold an AEM EMS through eBay and the buyer sent payment(from CC) to my personal account. The "deny payment" button was grayed out. I didn't have the option to deny it. There was only an accept(and upgrade and get fucked in the ***) button. I called paypal and a manager explained that Paypal's new policy is that you cannot deny payment for an item purchased on eBay. Even though that paypal account the guy used isn't linked to eBay. She then went on to assure me that the buyer has the option to cancel the transaction from his end. Well he didn't. Paypal refused to reverse the transaction and the only option we were left with was to let the payment lapse after 30 days! Well that sucked because now the guy was out $900 and had no ECU coming anytime short. Sucked for me because I needed the $900 to buy an MSPNP. After 30 days the guy sent payment again to the correct account.


I do love the paypal plugin that creates a 1-time CC number for online purchases. It's great when buying things online from vendors that don't accept credit cards.

 

Sam, wonderful write up

 

why? Paypal clearly states your transactions are 100% guaranteed when using your paypal balance ******* prompts you if you choose CC, ftl.

BTW, if you have a paypal balance and want to use your CC to pruchase something large and need to use paypal, send your balance to a random email. then make the purchase with the credit card, then cancel the sent money.

 

I don't know what you're talking about, that big vagina couch looks damn comfy.

 

Sorry, just realized this topic was old. My bad.

 

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: Never respond to a post that you find in a search without checking how old it is first! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha... (Falls to the right)

 

It was actually linked from another and I didn't realize it was old.