posted on March 3, 2004 10:47:43 AM new
I had a payment made a couple of days ago reversed because of fraudulant activity. It was a low amount, so I am not going to really lose much sleep over this, but besides rejecting mailing to a verified address, are there any other options out there? It seems 50% of my paypal payments are from non verified addresses. Quite honestly, it would cost me more money (in terms of time) to reject these payments than to deal with the occasional fraud. Maybe I will set paypal so I have to where I have to approve these, and anything over a certain dollar amount reject? Perhaps holding a non verified address for an extra amount of time before shipping? It seems like a real pain, how do others handle this? I emailed the customer, but I don't think I have much recourse, oh well!
And for those who say that is what happens when you accept paypal, there is risk with most forms of payment, so not accepting paypal is not an option for me or most sellers...
posted on March 3, 2004 11:18:27 AM new
Yes, but buyers use paypal, not bidpay. I'd rather accept bidpay more often, but since the cost is on the buyer and not the seller, ain't gonna happen. I know as a bidder I reject most auctions that don't accept paypal, others do to.
As an update to this, the buyer contacted me, paypal reversed this without his knowledge, and he has made good on the payment - So this is paypal doing this on their own.
posted on March 3, 2004 05:35:55 PM new
You can set up your account to give you the option to accept or decline payments from unconfirmed addresses. You can't set a dollar threshold for this option. I have it set, and use my discretion each time it comes up. It depends on the level of risk you are willing to accept. We all must understand that this unconfirmed/confirmed address business is just a part of the picture with dealing with Paypal. You take a risk with every payment that you accept, and you don't have much recourse if something goes wrong. I recently was involved in a paypal reversal that happened after I shipped to the confirmed address, and followed all the other steps to be covered. Still, after 363 days, the buyer disputed the charge on grounds of not as described. So even if you ship to a confirmed address, and have all the tracking info required, it means nothing. Bottom line...I'm out the goods, and the money. Paypal is flawed and skewed towards the buyer, but I still accept it. A successful seller will accept it and accept the possibility of fraud and make it a part of the cost of doing business. It's a fact of Ebay life that you need to take it to maximize your sales. I'd love for everyone to pay by BidPay, or even better cash, but it ain't gonna happen. Everyone must set their own personal limit of risk on each transaction, and use common sense in looking at all the info that you can in every Paypal transaction that is a high dollar amount for you.
posted on March 3, 2004 10:09:00 PM new
The problem isn't verified or confirmed addresses here. What the problem with PayPal is, they check the credit card during registration and then it sits. If for some reason, the credit card is stolen or account is closed for some reason, the PayPal transaction will still be approved. Then in a day or two later when PayPal actually does the transaction to find the account is closed or has a restriction. Then they do a chargeback stating fraudulant funds. And this is why PayPal is not safe for sellers. If you have your own credit card processing system, it will check the validity of the account right then and there. And bidpay, (now auctionpayments) actually checks the accounts before giving the OK to send the items where paypal says send the items, then we will check to see if the account is still in good standing.
posted on March 3, 2004 11:15:35 PM new
When I get a notice from Paypal that a buyer has paid through them and there is an unconfirmed address, I ask the buyer if he's aware of that. 9 times out of ten they're not, and they've always had a good reason for it. I either get a different address from them or just send to the unconfirmed. Never been stung.
I always e-mail the buyer when payment is received and tell him I'll be sending the item within 24 hours--so it's easy to ask about the address at the same time. They always respond, too.
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