PayPal
Reversed 963 Laptop Payment Two Days After Buyer Collected It

I sold a 1,800 laptop on eBay for 963 and received an instant payment through PayPal. I confirmed the payment was in my account and then allowed the buyer to pick up the laptop. Two days later, PayPal reversed the payment, claiming "unauthorised" use of the payer's account. Over the next 10 days they carried out an "investigation" and sent me this email:

"Dear xxx xxx,
As you know, we have been reviewing the transaction detailed below. Our investigation is now complete and we have returned the funds to the PayPal account holder."

This is all I get for having had almost 1,000 taken from my account (a large portion of which was taken from my credit card without my permission). They will not give any information about the "investigation," nor report this fraud to the police (or even admit that any fraud had taken place).

PayPal behaves like no other financial institution, like no credit card company or bank. They are a law unto themselves. I tried reporting this fraud to the British police, but they just say that eBay and PayPal handle all such investigations themselves. I cannot even report this crime or get a crime reference number, so this huge loss to me will not even be reflected in the government's crime figures.

I argued to a (pleasant) PayPal service agent that the crime had been committed against the person whose account had been hijacked (if this was the case) by my "buyer." I pointed out that if a robber spends his loot in a supermarket, the guy or bank that lost the money does not go and demand recompense from the supermarket! The agent responded that "if the robbery was of a credit card that was then used in the supermarket, the funds would be returned to the credit card owner." This is true, but these funds would be repaid by the credit card company and not the supermarket, i.e., me!

PayPal is bad news; use it and you will get caught out one day. I am much more angry with PayPal because they gave me lots of reasons why I should trust them that were revealed to be downright lies. They should at least be charged with misleading promotions and advertising, "PayPal, the safest way to pay and receive money online," etc. Lies!

Company: PayPal
Country: USA
State: Nationwide
Address: P.O. Box 9473 - Dublin 15 - Ireland

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