PayPal
Sellers Beware: Chargebacks, Frozen Funds and One-Sided Policies
- 11-03-2005
- 8
Online sellers, be very careful about accepting PayPal as a form of payment! I am a long-time online seller and I have learned these lessons through hard experience!
You are not protected in any way on international shipments. If the buyer claims not to have received the product, PayPal will charge you back. Even if the product was insured, PayPal will not make the buyer participate in insurance claims. Even if you can show a tracking number, it is of no help on international items.
No matter what you put as a warranty (or lack of warranty) in your ad, PayPal can and will charge you back within 60 days, especially if the buyer used a credit card and files a claim with their credit card company.
USPS delivery confirmation on Priority Mail is not acceptable proof of delivery to PayPal.
A buyer can send you back a rock in a box, and as long as UPS or FedEx shows they returned something to you, PayPal will charge back and it will take you forever to resolve. In the meantime you will be out the money.
Claims, even frivolous ones, can result in funds being frozen in your account, or your checking account charged. They stay frozen until PayPal goes through its painfully slow process.
Customer service by phone? Forget about it. It is a toll call and you can be on hold or transferred around for hours. (They hope you will give up.)
They are not a bank, so the usual courses of redress do not apply to PayPal for sellers. They can mess with your money any time they want, and their user agreement is so one-sided you have no recourse at all.
Items over $1000? You would be insane to take PayPal. No protection.
Until something better comes along, sellers pretty much have to take PayPal. But make no mistake, every transaction with them is a nail-biter. You can easily be out your product and the cost of shipping, and because their process is so slow you will probably run out of time to get even a part of your eBay fees back too.
Beware.
Company: PayPal
Country: USA
Site: paypal.com