posted on April 16, 2001 07:23:16 PM new
After listening to all the horror stories, it did happen to me. A Russian purchased an item and over two months later I have a "chargeback". Yes, it was for only $94.00, but it still bothers me that PayPal screws me for their mistake. It was sent express with a tracking number, but that is not enough proof. PayPal should not have people in their system who are not GUARANTEED!
posted on April 16, 2001 07:52:45 PM new
Hi flamoral,
Sorry to hear of your issues. I have been posting some information on charge backs for some time now and how you can be protected from them. Charge backs are a fact of life when accepting credit card payments and liability for them is explained in the terms of use.
I would recommend following the guidelines of the Seller Protection Program in the future to help reduce the probability for problems.
posted on April 16, 2001 08:09:39 PM new
I would give half the blame to PayPal and half to the seller.
Flamoral, I wish PayPal educated its customers better. Selling overseas is extremely risky. Most merchants in the United States will not ship overseas. You heard me. They can't risk it either. It's virtually impossible to get address verification. Whether it be Amazon to a small merchant in Oregon, they will be out the money if the charge turns out to be fraudulent. And recovering the funds is basically impossible.
So PayPal is out the money and thus so are you. I recommend trying a different service for international transactions called http://www.bidpay.com. They use Western Union money orders to facilitate your international transactions and you eliminate your risk, but the buyer can still use their credit card.
Meanwhile, I still scratch my head over how PayPal gives you the chargeback when they insist the transaction is not between the buyer and seller but between you and PayPal, therefore not allowing you to make disputes under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act and The Fair Credit Billing Act.... And then plus they refer to the Visa/MasterCard rules of not allowing surcharges.
They just kind of pick-and-choose which rules work best for them.
posted on April 16, 2001 09:24:49 PM newAfter listening to all the horror stories, it did happen to me. A Russian purchased an item and over two months later I have a "chargeback". Yes, it was for only $94.00, but it still bothers me that PayPal screws me for their mistake. It was sent express with a tracking number, but that is not enough proof. PayPal should not have people in their system who are not GUARANTEED!
I'm sorry you haven't heard about the extremely high risks of sending anyting to russia where a credit card was used as payment. I thought that had been mentioned many, many times on the boards. Providing a tracking number is of no use unless you ship to a confirmed address. If you ship to Russia there is no way you could be shipping to a confirmed address.
posted on April 17, 2001 12:10:40 AM new
Hi loggia,
While I can certainly sympathize with the issue at hand, there are two things I have to point to:
1. Charge backs are a fact of life when accepting credit cards.
2. There is always the possibility of a card being stolen and being used fraudulently.
To offer protection, we advise our users of the Seller Protection Program and what is covered.
Russia is not one of the countries approved for service with us (a list of approved countries is on the site). Other areas of high credit card fraud include:
a) Thailand
b) Indonesia
c) Malaysia
Generally these fraudsters have been able to pass the screens employed (used by all merchants---we also have developed our own methods of detecting possible fraud) and they then ask for overnight shipping or they bid on highly liquid items (electronics,computers,jewelry).
Users greatly reduce the charge back probability if they ship to the confirmed address (and get proof of shipment---this is for domestic users only) and ship to a country where we have approved service.
Please refer to my post on charge backs for more information on charge backs or the Seller Protection Program.
