Hi all.

Prepare to weep as i tell you a story about Ebay and PayPal.

I have sold in the last 6 months 2 mobile phones to the value of £500. Each one was sold via Ebay bidding to Ebay members living abroad. PayPal informed me that i had received my money and i duly sent the phones to these Ebay Members.

Within 3 months i have received notice from PayPal that the monies i received were from stolen credit cards and i am liable to pay back the money that PayPal sent to me. Can you beleive it?

Ebay and PayPal say that i am liable and they cannot protect me because a. the phones were sent abroad and b. payment to PayPal fom these fraudsters was by credit card.

So if you do use Ebay, ignore all bids from bidders from abroad and do not use PayPal as they can demand money back within 12 months.

My solicitor and Trading Standards say that as this is in the Terms and Conditions of Ebay and PayPal, I have no come back.

So Beware and if you can, ask for postal orders it is safer.

oh these buyers had 100% feedback. They get their gang members to register and give positive feedback. Trading Standards say that they receive hundreds of complaints about this!!

regards

Ian

 

let me guess
nigeria?
africa?
the far east?
Ill lay cash it was one of those- i will NOT sell to any of those, and state clearly in my descriptions that that is the case

 

Gee, that's harsh. Sounds like PayPal needs a kick up the a**e - after all, it was PayPal that failed to refuse a stolen credit card, not you. How can they expect anyone to accept payments if they're not guaranteed by the time the money arrives in your account? It's not as if credit card fraud is confined to any particular country.

 

My wife bought a DVD from Ebay and paid using switch visa through Paypal. DVD never arrived, so she contacted paypal. The came back to say in their opinion the seller was at fault, but there was nothing they could do about it. I thought the point of paypal was that it would make transactions safer

 

Thats real bad luck mate. I have noticed lately more and more people putting "no bidders from africa, nigeria, far east etc". obviously this is why. I will have to add that statement to the bottom of my auctions too. Thanks for the info, hopefully will stop others having to loose money like you have found. B**tards.

Chris.

 

Yeah I get that all the time.

Don't sell abroad and that cuts out most of the hassles.

These days I can smell the rat, so funny when they start offering you double the price aslong as they can pay by card!!

 

Exact same thing happened to a mate, phone went to Africa, stolen CC, paypal want money back, mate tells em' to naff off, now he's got debt collectors after him !!!.
What he does do now is put on anything he's selling "will NOT accept paypal", if enough of us put that then they might actually start doing something about the fraud, which seems to be widespread.

Ian..

 

If I sell something, I always state that I'll only let people use paypal if I get "seller protection". This means that I have to ship to their registered address, and can only sell to the UK, USA or Canada.

Others have to pay by other means. End of story.
Cheers,
Nick.

 

I tried that but it's useless because many genuine buyers don't have confirmed addresses in Paypal because of slight differences in the address.

 

Yeh too right GSM1. My Paypal account doesn't have a confirmed address either and I'm not a fraudster.

I was told it was due to some debit cards, mine is an Abbey account, not being able to provide address details to Paypal, not sure if this is correct.

I'll not use Paypal when I'm selling, due to Paypals apparent bad attitude to this problem. They should be liable, not the seller, they charge enough.

 

I had my account hacked by some tosspot and took me months to get access back into it as they said i wasnt who i was normally that square trade that deals with paypal is quite good but foreign bidders can be a pain in the bum!
sorry to hear of your losses but it happens to all of us at some point in our lives Makes you more aware for the future though!

 

Avoid Paypal & ebay all together.

Almost every other day there is another type of scam or way of being ripped off.

You only need to be ripped off badly once to negate savings/profits on multiple buys/sales.

I'd rather deal with Pawnbrokers. Much more trustworthy IMHO and you get to physically inspect the goods before parting with cash. Even if the goods are stolen, the pawnbroker is liable.

 

Stopped taking paypal for our business 2 years ago...heres why:

http://www.paypalsucks.com/

 

That's a strange excuse for Paypal because they have a credit card validation system to confirm a card is valid and genuine before they allow its usage for payment. Unless the bank has cancelled the card for any reason after validation, the process should eliminate the usage of stolen cards, as you need a validation number from the card statement, as opposed to physical possession of the card.