Hello, fellow eBay and PayPal users. I am reporting this to let you know what happened to me with PayPal and eBay's response to it.
On January 17 I sold a sofa on eBay, and it was listed as pick-up only, buyer pays all shipping, or arrange your own shipping. The winning bidder of this particular auction paid via PayPal almost immediately. I emailed the customer asking her to contact me so that the transaction could be completed, and I received a mailer daemon message not long after the first email was sent. I sent her an invoice through eBay and every other way possible, and eventually the customer got back to me and immediately started complaining about picking up the sofa.
I had listed this sofa as regional in Virginia, and she was not happy with my location. We went back and forth over how to get the sofa to her, and I eventually caved and offered to pay for a truck to deliver the sofa to her if she would meet me in Richmond, Virginia, which is a long, expensive drive for me. She turned that down and refused all offers and information sent to her for shipping. She eventually requested her money back, and I sent her an email indicating the auction was listed as all sales final, and I deleted the bill she sent me through PayPal.
A few days later she went to PayPal and reported me for non-receipt of the sofa, when all along she was refusing to pay for shipping. At this point PayPal froze my account and stole all subsequent payments from me to pay her back.
In the meantime, I was on the phone with PayPal and was told to pay her back or send a tracking number as proof of shipping. They told me they were not interested in any evidence I held that this customer was a fraud and was refusing to pay for shipping. PayPal also told me that I should choose my customers more carefully. I reminded them of the eBay rule that I cannot be a non-selling seller, meaning I cannot run auctions and selectively choose who I accept payment from. As a side note, they told me that even though the account was frozen, I could still use it to send payments.
A few days later I had a payment I needed to send, and I sent it to be pulled from my personal checking account in town. At that point they decided to steal the $232.35 that was still due on this complaint. Just by dumb luck, I had been on the phone with them about this complaint and then signed on to PayPal to check the status, when I discovered they had a pending transaction for the remainder of the disputed money along with the payment I had made to someone else. That prompted me to go immediately to the bank to sign an affidavit stating I did not authorize the transaction to PayPal, which I had not.
As could be expected, the bank blocked the transaction, but not without PayPal trying to slam their way into my checking account, causing fees and a negative balance, which effectively left me with two accounts with negative balances and no money. About two days after the customer filed the complaint with PayPal, she emailed me indicating she had changed her mind and wanted the sofa, and she made me a heartwarming offer: "I will meet you in Richmond, but I will not pay for your gasoline or the truck." Or she would pay $100 toward the cost of shipping, which had been quoted between $250 and $500.
At this point I felt I had some leverage and called PayPal about this, and they asked if I would email them this email, which I did. In later phone conversations, they indicated to me that they cannot and do not have a system for reporting fraud against a buyer, only against the seller, and they insisted on me paying the money back again.
At this point the buyer was emailing me a lot about making arrangements to meet in Richmond, when PayPal indicated to me that she was an unconfirmed buyer and told me not to meet her with the sofa, because she could still hold me to the complaint and make me pay money back, and then she would have the merchandise as well. I then did some investigating of my own and discovered the customer was signed up with eBay with a dead email address, was showing two addresses, one in the Virginia Beach area and one in South Carolina, and was operating under an email address that you only got if she emailed you.
So I reported all of this to eBay, and their final response was that I did not have to go outside of the boundaries set in the auction, but that they could not force her to complete the transaction, and that I would be considered fraudulent if I did not handle the situation.
eBay owns PayPal, they eat and sleep together, but cannot work together. That negates any rules set in my auction, which in my opinion means you are beholden to PayPal when paid by PayPal, and nobody can help you when a situation hits the fan. They are in ultimate control of your business and finances, their arm has pretty good reach when it comes to your checking account, and PayPal loves to quote the Terms of Service agreement and blame you from one end to the other.
Eventually I had to borrow the money to send back to PayPal to get my account unfrozen and to get this situation out of my life. In the meantime, while I was waiting for funds to clear from my bank to my PayPal account, they sent me an email indicating that they had ruled against me and had paid the customer back, and ended the email with "This matter has been resolved amicably."
If I was not so broke financially, I would have laughed at the final line in the email. However, when I checked the PayPal account to see if the money had cleared, I was still showing a $9 negative balance. I called PayPal and asked why and what the $9 was for, which I already knew. They had initially charged me $9 for being sent $300. So they charged me another $9 to send back money I did not authorize. Of course this occurred after they saw that I had sent the money and it was pending, but they did not want to admit it was another fee. They had quoted me $208.08 as the amount owed to resolve the complaint, and then they charged me the $9.
So I had to give the entire situation a rest. Then one day last month I got mad again and called them about the $9 negative, and I got very angry with the first agent when she indicated I needed to pay the $9. I requested another agent or a higher authority or supervisor, and she initially refused and then switched me over to another so-called team leader, who is not a supervisor. I went through the same thing again and requested someone in management again. She kept asking me if she had answered all of my questions, and I would say no, and it went round and round. She finally went dead silent and did not say anything, but I knew she was still on the line, so I went silent too. This went on for about 10 minutes, when all of a sudden I was switched over to another line with music playing for about another 10 minutes. Then someone answered and said they were going to remove the $9 and my account would be at a zero balance. I said that was fine, and he advised me on how to be safe with online payment transactions.
At this time I am trying to find someone interested in hearing this story. I have contacted the FTC, the Commonwealth Attorney here in Virginia, and Consumer Affairs, which told me they cannot do anything about it but forwarded a copy of my complaint to PayPal, and that I would have to sue in a court of law. I know that $300 is not a lot in comparison to what they have done to people who deal with much higher balances, but it is the principle of it all, and I had to sell the sofa to try and even survive in the month of January.
I am not a rich eBayer or a big player in the online auction world, but $300 is like $300,000 to me at this time. I would like to move on and say forget it, but this is wrong. They operate like a bank but do not have to adhere to banking laws. I also feel that if they want to leave this open portal of fraud and want these fraudulent customers paid back, then they can do it with their own money, not mine. My auction was final, which is normally the case in live or online auctions.
It turned out this customer was trying to get the sofa and the money back and was trying to get free shipping to boot. Very evil. PayPal is every fraudulent buyer's dream: buy or order online, receive the item, and then report to PayPal that you did not receive it.
If anyone is interested in this case, or has an idea how to sue without having any money upfront, that would be great. And please take this seriously if you are a seller online who uses PayPal: it is only a matter of time before they find some way to freeze your account and hold you liable. This also happens to sellers who are paid with a stolen credit card, which is not your fault, but PayPal will decide that it is. Thank you for this great way to report these cases. I also have all emails and proof of this printed out.
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