I’m writing this post due to a recent incident on PayPal which I feel was unfair towards me; The seller.

I recently sold a laptop for £500 ($1,000) to someone online, that person sent me the payment via PayPal and then came and picked up the laptop by hand (locally).

Oblivious to thinking this guy might be a scammer, I didn’t think anything of that as he had already sent me the payment so what did it matter.

Anyway, a few days later I saw a dispute on my PayPal account. This wasn’t raised by the ‘buyer’ supposedly but by PayPal themselves. They obviously have some automated systems to detect fraud etc. Now, the dispute was that they thought the payment itself aka the money may have been stolen; Sent from a stolen credit card on a hacked account to be exact.

Understandably PayPal want proof from the seller to prove the item was sent / handed over. Given that I didn’t sell this via eBay or postage this was impossible for me. What proof could I provide that I handed somebody over a laptop… I think this is a little bias from PayPal. To only accept postage tracking as proof is a bit unfair as there are some things that you cannot provide tracking for. For example; Digital items, I have sold digital items in the past and obviously because this is done online, you cannot provide tracking because you haven’t posted anything. Also pickups as in this case.

I can obviously see it from PayPal’s perspective in that they only cover people who sell with recorded delivery of items and do not cover sellers who do pickups or digital items… so they say although I don’t remember reading that. Anyway, even if that is right, I think their system is flawed. Anybody could just buy something off eBay - go pick it up locally and then raise a claim saying they didn’t get the item. And PayPal saying they will investigate is pointless as the ‘buyer’ will always win in that case because it’s impossible for the seller who sold by hand to provide tracking information.

I think they should really take everything into account. For a start, I have been a PayPal member for well over 2 years so surely hundreds of successful transactions back and forth with no complaints should count for something? That itself proves I am legitimate. So if they believe whoever sent me this payment stole that money; Why not go after him? If they can’t find him, that’s their problem, how was I to know this guy stole the money he sent me via their service.

Despite everything, I lost the case (inevitably) and the unfortunate thing is I had already spent the £500 by the time I saw the dispute. So as a resolution PayPal have reversed the payment and given that I have already handed over the laptop to a buyer which is long gone and spent the £500, I’m £500 in debt thanks to someone elses crime and PayPal’s incompetency.

Why should I be punished because somebody else stole money. A scammer with no track record gets a free laptop and no action against him and I get £500 into debt… that’s justice (NOT). That’s like somebody getting mugged on the street; The mugger getting rewarded and the victim getting charged.

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