Hi,

I used Paypal as my primary source of collecting funds from customers - but today I received a Notification of Pending Reversed Transaction for the amount $175.95.

They have placed a pending reversal on the funds in question until the investigation is complete but this has not stopped them withdrawing the funds from my account.

One of my orders they said was supposedly from a fraudulent card but has taken them 1 month to tell me this? also there are safeguards now to insert your CC number / security code AND a matching billing address - so I highly doubt the order was fraudulent ( the order was for a specific amount of targetted unique visitors to the person's website )

I have told paypal but I doubt I will get any reply - the person has simply used my service and said to their credit card company the order was not authorized how low.

:(

the card was probably stolen...it is possible to obtain the cvv2 code and the billing address for a certain credit card...read the recent 1mhost thread..

Welcome to the wonderful world of paypal.

www.paypalsucks.com
www.paypalwarning.com

Paypal does not offer any protection for people offering services of any kind. Sadly, I went through a similar situation and lost my money.

The phone rep informed me that there is nothing I can do to prevent this from occuring again, since I offer a service.

I suggest switching to a merchant account ASAP...

Ditto... same problems, same neglect from paypal.

but what happens when you think the order was simply reported to Paypal as fraudulent when it may actually not be ?
Not a good situation but hey what do I expect from Paypal ( this is the first problem I've actually had in nearly 2 yrs with them )

but what happens when you think the order was simply reported to Paypal as fraudulent when it may actually not be ?


Paypal keeps your money. It's almost impossible to get it back.

Ok and how would having a merchant account of your own help this?

So 2 months later you get a chargeback from Visa due to the fraud, instead of Paypal.

I can say this, the amount of fraud that gets through Paypal is minimal at best, I've had 2 orders reversed due to fraud. Considering how much I get thru Paypal this is a GOOD number nothing at all to cry about on my part.

i agree with gary paypal or charge.com (a real merchant account) this can and will happen there is nothing u can do but hope it is rare!

Guys, any idea whats the cost of chargeback at Paypal.

eg:-
I client bought domain for $10 from me. That client paid via PayPal.

After one month chargeback occurs. So I will loose $10 only or $10 + $xx.xx as some chargeback fees from Paypal?

Thanks

Nothing, they reverse the money and I've never seen them add to it.

Sometimes customers can do stop payments on the checking draffts causing that.

I had 2 $105 reversals this week from the same customer who was trying to stop a DIFFERENT paypal payment to someone who yanked him around, so his bank stopped all Paypal activity.

He finally got his bank to quit it and then had to re-sign up for his subscription, I finally got my money today, and it had absolutely nothing to do with Paypal, had I nto been in full communication with this particular customer and what was happening I'd have been pee-ohed too (but he didn't want to be cancelled he makes too much money off his site).

Folks, the end user can bend you over the table with or without Paypal's help, so far I haven't seen Paypal themselves be really at fault for anything, except possibly being overcautious.

From past experience, every merchant account i have had has screwed me one way or another. Charge backs are a "cost of doing business". Write it off.

I own a restaurant, small carryout which is cash only now due to the ghettoness (is that a word) of the patrons. People would come and feast and say they never ate there. I use to process more chargebacks than food orders. Now the tables have turned, I have an ATM machine inside that charges $3.00 a whack for cash.

Anyways, one more problem in a computer store i worked with a few years ago. Man came in and bought nearly $5000 worth of stuff, top 'o the line everything x 2. Picked up systems a few days later. A month or so later, CHARGEBACK !!!! Says he never bought anything. Went as far as making a $1.50 purchase at the gas station up the street before coming in. Seems like fraud to CC company. We had this fool on video tape 3 separate occasions and CC company sided with card holder. Bottom line: Out Hardware/software and transaction fees totaling more than $5500 and wasted time filing police report.

Zero protection for merchant and 100% protection for consumer. If they (consumer/cc company) are gonna screw you, you are gonna get screwed. Just a matter of time.

A place I worked at would often ask for a check the day the sytem was sold, even something as small as $20 "down payment on PC invoice #xxxx" and then put the rest on the card on day of delivery typically 3 days later and plenty of time to cash the check.

However checks are another issue, had a guy come in this same place, order several systems, a company check from the next state over, bought PC's we already had built, and left, checks all bounced, police said yeah dude is one of those who makes a living of this sort of thing, apparently he bounced over $16,000 of those checks all over town that day, and then left, they didn't know where, to do it again. So where's the protection for taking checks?

Face it, if you deal in anything but cash you can be screwed, it's that simple. Credit cards, Paypal, Checks all can mess you over.

This is one reason I'm glad I don't have any real big ticket items like dedicated servers/etc the occasional chargeback I do get is usually not enough money to even get a meal at a cheap restaurant, much less a good one.

Yes, having your own merchant account will help - in saying that at least you will know when chargebacks come thru, and you are given the paperwork for the person requesting the chargeback to followup etc

Cheers!

Ok in regards to paypal, this just happened to me not to long ago, paypal reversed a few of my transactions as being fraud transactions to the merchants. However, what it really was, was my bank. I was getting dedicated servers, deposit money into Enom, and alot of other online transactions, thought nothing of it had the money in the bank to do so so I started to go and use it. All transactions were done thru paypal as instant transactions, where the funds are not in the paypal account but paypal will pay the request and then take the funds from your checking account. Being my bank called me and I didnt return their call thinking they wanted to push a loan or something on to me, they put a freeze onto my account and not allowing anything paypal pushed thru as a securiity measure, I never heard of this before until then. So I had to call all my merchants and get things fixed quickly. This wasnt an error on paypal, but the merchants thought I was a fraud, so this could be a reason for a chargeback.

Also, having your own merchant account, if you get a signature even if you put the funds on hold and not capture them as you have either 5-7 days cant remember to hold an authorization number, so if you can fax over to them a signature request form requesting a signature along with a photo id, and on there put the cost and the services they received that would hold up and the bank has to pay it as the signature is there that matches the card. If they dont have a fax machine ask them if there is one in the area they can go to as alot of drug stores, and grocery stores have em for public use. If they say no then ask them would they mind paying for a 2nd UPS air letter @ the rate of 8.00 and 2nd it to them with a return envelope back to you, this gives you a signature from UPS and verifies the address as well.

Think of the cost to a merchant of 25 dollars for each reversal someone does on you, if you dont accept the transaction and it expires then you just put your customer on hold and reprocess it once you get all the signed paper work

Just my 2 cents

Tom