Monday, July 26, 2010

*** SELLERS BEWARE - BUYER PAYPAL POSTAL SCAM ***

Id just like to make everyone aware of another little scam that Ive recently come across!

Now most sellers have a paypal account so buyers pay for there items by using this method - This is an easy way to pay and we are all very grateful!

BUT

I bet you didnt know that a buyer could request that money back! EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE DISPATCHED THE ITEM!


Well Im afraid so! A few months ago I sold my mobile phone on ebay as I had recieved my latest free upgrade so didnt need it anymore... Well it states in the paypal rules that unless the item sold is over 150 you dont have to record the delivery.

WELL - This is what happened to me.....

I had put in the description a choice of either first class post or first class recorded delivery which I put as 80p more expensive as thats what it is. The buyer chose the cheaper option and paid for first class delivery and so thats what I sent it as. I sent the buyer a message saying that I had just sent the item and that it should arrive the next day, and then transfered the money to my bank account..... I didnt think anything else of it.....


THREE DAYS LATER

There were a few things that I needed to buy and being pregnant I took the easy option and decided to buy them from ebay instead of walking miles around the shops. I bid on a few things and was lucky enough to win 3 of them so later that day as always I went to my computer to pay for them.

THATS WHEN I FOUND OUT!

I typed in my password for my paypal account and all of a sudden I had a red warning notice saying that my account had been suspended as it was in arrears!

Naturally I was horrified to see this and so emediately went to the main paypal website and to my HORROR the buyer had filed an 'item not recieved' claim against me! The worst thing however was when I found out that the claim had been made less than an hour after I had sent the email to the buyer stating that I had sent the parcel.....

You see as soon as a buyer files one of these claims, paypal automatically takes the amount out of your account and stores it somewhere so that neither the buyer or seller can get hold of it until the dispute is resolved.

The big problem then is that you cant pay for anything using paypal until you have cleared the arrears by doing a bank transfer from your own bank account into paypal - This takes up to 7 days though!

The dispute concole at paypal said 'click here to resolve dispute' I did and then was horrified to find that the only way that I could resolve this in my favour was to enter a recorded delivery number which I just didnt have. (Because I hadnt recorded it)

So there you have it, I couldnt prove that I had sent it and even after about 30 messages to paypal not one person even had the curtesy to contact me and hasnt to this very day! Plus unless you have a recorded delivery number the dispute is automatically resolved in the favour of the buyer after 20 days.

My advise to you is to record the delivery of every parcel that you send and even better than that use ebays postage label facility! Its all linked to paypal and so stops the scammers :)

I hope this helps,

Hayley....

No comments:

Post a Comment