AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

I took an order online 45+ days ago. Order was paid using PayPal. Shipped the order as usual and have the tracking info to prove delivery.

Last night I received an email from PayPal saying the payment had been reversed. I spent an hour on the phone trying to get to the bottom of why something like this can happen with NO communication from PayPal or the customers or the customer’s bank. PayPal states that this order did not qualify for sellers protection - but they could not tell me why!

I am not sure if this is a common issue but it is very disturbing to think that someone can just take back their money whenever they feel like it and leave me scratching my head in disbelief. (Has PayPal become a government agency?)

Because Able integrates with PayPal so easily I typically don’t take the time to see if an order qualifies for Sellers Protection before I ship. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this from happening again? Or maybe we can pass the 'Unverified' info back in to Able in some way?

Any other suggestions?

Usually to be protected I think the buyer has to be verified with paypal and have the full address info etc. It also has to be shipped within so many days. I had a customer do a reversal like this. Paypal supposedly fought it for me but lost. I contacted the people and found out it was a college student who used his moms card. Even after she admited that it wasnt fraud and her son purchased stuff from me she wouldnt pay up so I called thier local police and luckily got a cop who was into internet crime as he got the guy to pay me plus filed charges against the guy.

Wow, congratulations on getting the police to help. We very rarely got assistance from them.
You have to check each paypal transaction to see if it was a protected sale- they do have certain criteria spelled out in their docs. But they don't give a lot of assistance and you're lucky if you even get anyone to talk to.
They can shut off your processing with no notice also-- Joe (solunar) went thru that so he doesn't use them now.

Yup. I won't ever use PayPal again, buying or selling. Ever.

PayPal buries some interesting language in the agreement you accept when creating the merchant account.

Specifically it states they have the right, without warning or advance notice, to LOCK your merchant account at any time they deem you are in violation of their Terms of Service. They lock the account AND KEEP YOUR CURRENT FUNDS BALANCE for 180 days. Yeah, that's 6 months. Without warning. Put that text on their "Sign up for PayPal Today!" page and see how many new accounts they get......

There's no arbitration - you cannot speak to that department on the phone. You can only email them. I spent about 3 weeks sending emails 1-2 times a week without a single response from that department. On the 3rd week, I sent a very "blunt" email and had a call from them in 20 minutes. My account was unlocked during the call. I emptied the funds and haven't touched it since.

When they locked my account, all my pending authorizations failed to capture. Shipments that went out that day failed to capture and had to be recalled. I blew a fortune in recall fees and my own time trying to get access to MY cash, MY captured funds. Not to mention the embarassment and suspicion raised by my customers with outstanding orders paid via PayPal. I lost most of the orders that were outstanding - to them it had to have looked like I'd been raided by the Feds or something.

PayPal had no right to keep MY money from me. If I violate their terms, fine - lock my account. But when you deny me access to my own cash, you cross a BIG line in my book.

Thank god I didn't use them as my only payment gateway. If all my business cash had been in that account, PayPal would have sent me into bankruptcy and I would have lost Solunar. All because I sold tripods, rifle scopes and holsters. These are considered weapon accessories and are in violation of their Terms of Service. I used PayPal for 7 months before they shut my account down. Again with no warning, no opportunity to arbitrate and no access to existing funds.

No one company should ever have that much power over the financial success of my business. No one company ever will if I have anything to say about it.

Fortunately I've learned to move on and I'm not bitter about it at all

Tomgard wrote:I took an order online 45+ days ago. Order was paid using PayPal. Shipped the order as usual and have the tracking info to prove delivery.

Last night I received an email from PayPal saying the payment had been reversed. I spent an hour on the phone trying to get to the bottom of why something like this can happen with NO communication from PayPal or the customers or the customer’s bank. PayPal states that this order did not qualify for sellers protection - but they could not tell me why!

I am not sure if this is a common issue but it is very disturbing to think that someone can just take back their money whenever they feel like it and leave me scratching my head in disbelief. (Has PayPal become a government agency?)

Because Able integrates with PayPal so easily I typically don’t take the time to see if an order qualifies for Sellers Protection before I ship. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this from happening again? Or maybe we can pass the 'Unverified' info back in to Able in some way?

Any other suggestions?

This is what I have discovered

If a person disputes using Paypal's system and if you can provide a tracking number you will generally win your dispute. In this respect Paypal is much more lenient than a credit card dispute. However if a person uses Paypal and uses a credit card to pay with and in turn does a credit card dispute the credit card company will issue a charge back against Paypal and in turn Paypal will charge you.

Paypal makes claims that they will be fight in your behalf but they have never been provide any documentation to me so I have concluded that the reps are talking from script and it is to make you feel good as if they are fighting for you, but once you logically think about it they really don't have any incentive to fight for you. You are basically at their mercy.

With credit card disputes dealing with a relative using a cardmember's credit card I have had very good luck pointing out that the card member is responsible because on the affidavit they submit for credit card fraud it asks if they know who the person was. They will put 'No' even if they know because they do not want their relative to get in trouble. This false statement will void the customer's claim and thus the credit card will rule in your favor. If the customer knows who used their credit card then they have a responsibility to file a police report against that person thus making it a criminal issue.

For some interesting paypal information see:

http://www.paypalsucks.com/