France and Paypal Scam

Anyone who does business online will have encountered Paypal and their unusual policies including random account freezing and illegally withholding money.

I use them as little as possible nowadays as they cannot be trusted, are VERY expensive and one must pull all kinds of stunts to stop them having access to your card details and bank account details.  I find it wise to sweep the account out daily and never leave too much money in there. When the account has money in is when they freeze it with some BS excuse. When its low, they never do.

That said, I have been using them for many years now as they are a necessary evil. I have a verified premier account. Now they have kinda scammed me — again.

About a week ago, I received a payment from a woman in France via a “buy it now” button on our website.

Moments after the payment landed, I get this email from Paypal:

A review of recent transactions indicates that you might have received a
payment that the PayPal account holder did not authorise.

To protect you from problematic transactions, we sometimes request
additional information about PayPal payments.

We need more information about this transaction. Please log in to your
PayPal account, click the “Resolution Centre” tab, and provide more
information by 20/09/2010.

If you need to provide information by fax, click and print a cover sheet:

Please fax proof of postage or proof of refund to 08707 303 196.

We recommend that you do not post the item until our investigation is
complete. If you’ve already posted the item, please log in and let us know
where you posted it.

We have placed a temporary hold on the funds until we complete our
investigation.

So someone using a dodgy card maybe? No skin off my nose right? The item hadn’t been sent and wasn’t going to be until funds had cleared. However, I hadn’t encountered this one before, so I called them up to see what I could find out. Some evasive Irish guy wouldn’t tell me very much. I came off the phone knowing nothing.

Then out of the blue today, this email arrived:

We’ve concluded our investigation into the transaction detailed below.

Because you did not meet the eligibility requirements for the PayPal Seller
Protection Policy, you will be charged for this reversed transaction. We’ve
returned the funds to the PayPal account holder. Your account will be
debited for the amount of this transaction.

———————————–
Helping ensure safe transactions
———————————–

Most payments you receive will be from good, honest buyers. However, there
may be some that are not.

You can often reduce your risk to these payments by paying close attention
to payment details and unusual requests.

Watch for address inconsistencies:

Although it’s fairly common for a buyer’s postal address to be different
from the billing address, in some cases it could indicate fraud. For
instance, a high-priced item that has a billing address in one country and
a postal address in another may be suspicious.

Beware of unusual requests that could indicate suspicious activity, such as:
– Buyers who want you to post an item to them ASAP and at any cost
– Buyers who send partial payments from different PayPal accounts
– Do not make payment in full

Visit the PayPal Safety Advice Centre for more information.

Just a moment…… I am to be charged for them reversing a transaction I never saw? Yup — that’s right! I have to pay £6.25 because some dodgy French bird either pulled a scam, had her account hacked or used a dodgy card on our website. Somehow this is my fault?

Naturally I have complained. I look forward to the copied and pasted stock reply from India with glee! Paypal have ripped me off again! *sigh*

Comments welcome.