Paypal Dispute Suggestions Needed

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 14 Jul 2011 7:16 am

I need some help please. I mistakenly sent money to the EMAIL ADDRESS of a respected Forum member for some of his CDs and instructional material. It should have gone to his PAYPAL ADDRESS. When I found that out I used the wrong address, I sent the same payment to his PAYPAL address. Now I'm trying to get the first $66 back from Paypal and they insist that two transactions were completed and $66 was a was accredited to his email account AND to his Paypal account.

After trying to resolve things using email over several days, I called and got a human being who said "two transactions had been completed to the seller for the same amount". I really doubt it did because the seller, whom I've dealt with before and respect, told me he received no funds sent to his email address only to his Paypal account address. I told the Paypal person that the email account was "unverified" according to my records from Paypal for the first transaction.

She was nice enough to send an email to the seller and to me which said that I had been double billed and that he should send a refund to Paypal for my account. She also told me to ask him if his email address was a "confirmed email account" which I did. I'm waiting to hear back from him, but I'm sure he will say he only received one payment, the one to his PayPal account and that he has no "confirmed email account"

My questions:
1. Has this happened to anyone else before and if so how did you resolve it?

2. To anyone who uses Paypal, what action could I take next?

Obviously this was my fault, but I can't believe I'm the only person to have done this. Thanks, stevet

Richard Grasty · Post by **Richard Grasty** » 14 Jul 2011 7:22 am

Yes paypal sucks most of the time..I have been a ebay sell for 12 years and have had a number of issues with paypal...The best thing,would be to contact the seller,and if he indeed did recieve two alike payments ,he can just hit the refund tab and your problem will be solved...You just need to see if he got two payments.....rick G

John Turbeville · Post by **John Turbeville** » 14 Jul 2011 7:34 am

Ive never had any problems with them. Basically theres a digital track of the exchanges, they will fix it or he will have to refund the extra set of charges. They want you to stay with them so they will help you.

Jerry Roller · Post by **Jerry Roller** » 14 Jul 2011 9:27 am

Steve, you can go to your PayPal account and file a dispute. They should be able to clear it up for you.
I had to do so one time and the seller who had not shipped the merchandise I paid for immediately sent the merchandise to me when he was advised by PayPal of the dispute.
Jerry

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 14 Jul 2011 10:29 am

I really don't know what I would do without PayPal, especially when dealing with steelers from the outer most regions of the globe.

Jim Parker · Post by **Jim Parker** » 14 Jul 2011 11:38 am

Not sure how you got it mixed up. The PayPal address is always an email address, so if you made a payment to an email address that corresponds to the seller's paypal account it should have cleared. If you sent a payment to some other email address, it should be credited to that email/PayPal address. Send an email to the person whose EMAIL address you sent the erroneous payment.
Paypal is quite buyer-centric, so you should be able to track whether or not both payments cleared. You can log on to your PayPal account and check the sent payments tab to see if you did indeed send payments to two different people.

Al Vesel · Post by **Al Vesel** » 14 Jul 2011 1:07 pm

Like Jerry R. said, go and file a dispute. Very easy and it definitely will be looked into then. That is because it then becomes a 3 way dispute, between, you, the recipient of the funds, and Paypal.

Good luck,

Al V.

Kevin Bollivar · Post by **Kevin Bollivar** » 14 Jul 2011 1:22 pm

I agree with Jim.....he's right on target for this scenario!!Thats true about the email!!

Chris Lucker · Post by **Chris Lucker** » 14 Jul 2011 4:24 pm

I have made the same mistake and the online PayPal process was useless.

I spoke to a PayPal person who cleared it up swiftly by having the receiver declare that there was a mistake. In other words, declarations of an error at both ends of the transaction solved the problem in a few hours.

Whip Lashaway · Post by **Whip Lashaway** » 14 Jul 2011 6:03 pm

Where does it show the money went? If you try to send it to a bad email it has no place to go and the funds should never have left your bank. If it was a good email then the funds went to the acct associated with that email and are there. Possibly this seller has some funds setting somewhere and doesn't know it. Should be easy enough to track since you have all the info. Good luck. I've used them for many years and never had a problem.

Don Brown, Sr. · Post by **Don Brown, Sr.** » 15 Jul 2011 9:19 am

A good guess might be that the notice from the first attempt, is still sitting in his/her SPAM folder that some folks don't check on too often.

Just a guess, unless it went to a totally different address from an incorrect email address.

I've done tons and tons of business through Paypal and have never had a problem with them.

Just something to ask if they happened to have checked in their SPAM folder.... They will eventually resolve the problem.

Like others have said, file a dispute report with Paypal if needed.......... Don

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 15 Jul 2011 9:44 am

I want to thank all who have replied. This, was my mistake as I cut and paste the vendors wrong email address when I sent money. I believe that other people have done this (other than Chris Lucker) but I have not found anything on the Paypal site that deals with how to deal with this mistake.

Jim, I sent both payments to the same vendor, but the first was his email address (which is not listed as his Paypal address) and to his Paypal address which he used when people buy his products. The vendor says the first is NOT his Paypal address and I believe him. As i said, he is a respected Forum member with whom I've dealt before. The Paypal person with whom I spoke told me the email address had to be a "confirmed email address", which I assume means the one you use when a person wants funds deposited to one's account.

Al I would only dispute this as a last resort since vendor says he only received funds once and he did send the product.

Whip,I agree that if I sent funds to his UNCONFIRMED email address (not to his registered Paypal address account) the funds should never have left my bank. However, my account says the "transaction was completed" to both addresses for a total of $132.

I have written the vendor and asked him to double check to see if he received $66 twice and if he has, to send me a check for $66. As Chris explained, I have also asked the vendor, if he has NOT received the payment twice, to declare to Paypal a mistake was made. I told him I'd call Paypal and have them call the vendor for confirmation.

Again, thanks, everybody.

Ken Pippus · Post by **Ken Pippus** » 15 Jul 2011 3:23 pm

If he hasn't collected it, don't I remember a mechanism on PayPal to "Cancel Payment?" I think that's how I got cash back after sending to an incorrect email address.

KP

Steven Stewart · Post by **Steven Stewart** » 15 Jul 2011 7:19 pm

pay pal has your money safe go to your history and request money back on that transaction it will take 4- 7 days to show up in your pay pal account. then you have to send your money back to the bank or us it in pay pal hope this helped

Steve a pic for you

Larry Haas · Post by **Larry Haas** » 16 Jul 2011 2:15 pm

I have used paypal a lot. The only problem I've had was they were updating their site when I used it and it double posted a payment. The Co. I had sent it too refunded one of the payments, but I had to file a claim through paypal to get it back. It took about a week to get it back. Good luck on your transaction.

Larry

James Quackenbush · Post by **James Quackenbush** » 16 Jul 2011 4:38 pm

I have had problems with PayPal in the past trying to get back money that Overstock.com had .....Overstoack.com even admitted that they did not send one of my items and still owed me the item ....After 2 mos. of backorder, I wanted my money back .....PayPal sided with Overstock.com even though I had proof that they owed me the money for the item ....Ebay sucks and Paypal is the same company and they do NOT back you as much as you think they do .....I wish you luck getting your money back, and if they don't give it back , threaten them by telling them that you have contacted the Attorney General of your state ..... My money came back to me in a week !!.....But this was after going thru the due process of filing a LONG PROCESS with PayPal which they STILL denied ..... If you don't fight it , they just keep the money .... They do this kind of thing all the time .....Everybody I told just said " I've never had a problem , you must have done something wrong " .....Yeah , I did .....I used PayPal !!.....Never again !!....Jim

Bill Howard · Post by **Bill Howard** » 19 Jul 2011 5:15 am

I think everyone knows that Pay Pal was purchased by e bay a while back,I read where the goverment is not really happy with this set up,Of course right after they bought pay pal e bay stopped taking any form of payment except pay pal.
I sold a banjo on E Bay I posted 18 pictures of it. I even sent the man 10 more detailed pictures of tone ring it was not assembled,He paid me via pay pal.
About a week after he got it he calls
"Oh I forgot to tell you last week the banjo is broken"...really why wasn't this mentioned the day I called after you had gotten it?...He never made any demands a dispute was filed I ended up getting my broken Gibson Banjo back his money was totally refunded,Filing a claim was not an option since the banjo was moved from his location back to mine, So beware you can end up with NO Money and a broken item I talked to others on e bay who has had the same thing happen to them, Broken item, No Money for it..

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 19 Jul 2011 9:21 am

Guys, it turned out like this: The vendor had an old account which he has not used for quite a while. My money ended up there, so he contacted Paypal and my double payment was noted and a refund issued.

Thanks to all who provided helpful comments. Chris Lucker's and Richard Grasty's were the ones that led to the solution. By I learned a lot from many other.

In spite of getting the refund I still have my doubts about Paypal. Sure, it is convenient but I am bothered by:
1.the fact that nowhere could I find on their site a way to deal with the problem of sending a payment to an incorrect address. In this case it was a correct "confirmed email address". Had it not been, what would have happened? Guess I could do a test with a small payment.

2. The EBAY/Paypal marriage. I was not thrilled when EBAY required a seller to use Paypal after they acquired Paypal, as noted by Bill Howard. I guess one can use a credit or debit card when buying from a seller with an Internet merchant account, but does the seller also pays the 3.2% fee as if he were using Paypal in addition to the amount EBAY charges the seller for a sale?

3. stories like James mentioned where he had proof he was owed a refund but only got it when he threatened government action, and Bill's broken banjo ordeal.

I do know in the end, it's up to a person to use or not use EBAY/Paypal. Again, thanks to all who took the time to help me and to b0b for The Forum. I turn to it often for all kinds of help. stevet

Curt Langston · Post by **Curt Langston** » 19 Jul 2011 10:04 am

I am a hypocrit. I will only use paypal to pay for things.

You can ship someone an item only to have them claim it was damaged IE: (No speaker in the amp), buyer can go to paypal and get refunded the money they paid, and you're stuck waiting on an amp to be shipped to you without a speaker in it!

More and more people have done this. Use a transaction as a "parts store", then return the item claiming it was damaged. When in fact the only "damage" was the missing parts that where taken out before return shipping!

I guess, all in all, I will never take PayPal as payment for these reasons.

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 19 Jul 2011 10:20 am

Curt, You are not a hypocrite but just being smart with your money and instruments. I was not aware of this little "parts store scam". thanks, stevet

D.C. Williams · Post by **D.C. Williams** » 19 Jul 2011 5:25 pm

Same thing happened to me. Buyer damaged the item, waited TWO WEEKS after receiving it, filed a claim that it was defective when shipped, and I lost the money AND had my item damaged (no extra charge) in the process. Pictures proving it was NOT damaged when shipped were completely disregarded.

Never, never again. Not ever. Never.

Scot Rush · Post by **Scot Rush** » 20 Jul 2011 7:38 am

PAY PAL SUCKS THE SOLUTION IS NOT TO USE THEM
IF ENOUGH OF US STOP USING PAY PAL THEY SHOULD
CHANGE THEIR POLICIES BUT THEN AGAIN THEY ARE ERROGENT JERKS

Bill Howard · Post by **Bill Howard** » 21 Jul 2011 7:24 am

D.C. Williams wrote:Same thing happened to me. Buyer damaged the item, waited TWO WEEKS after receiving it, filed a claim that it was defective when shipped, and I lost the money AND had my item damaged (no extra charge) in the process. Pictures proving it was NOT damaged when shipped were completely disregarded.

Never, never again. Not ever. Never.

I had pictures of my Banjo taken at the FEDEX facility proving it wasn't damaged.
But after my incident I found the seller ALWAYS LOSES ANY DISPUTE on E Bay. One man I talked to had a vintage item taken and a fake put in He lost his Money after e bay refunded the thief,AND his vintage item believe me E Bay WILL refund someone either stealing OR breaking your item then claiming a refund ... Then take it BACK out of YOUR ACCOUNT, I take offense someone stealing money from my account then sending me a pile of worthless JUNK in place of it:)

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 21 Jul 2011 7:54 am

Bill, I'm curious, does Paypal have the power to take money out of one's bank account (if it is connect to Paypal) if a person has very little cash left in his Paypal account? I thought they could only do that if you made a purchase or sent money to someone and your Paypal account was low on cash. stevet

Larry Haas · Post by **Larry Haas** » 21 Jul 2011 11:35 am

steve takacs wrote:Bill, I'm curious, does Paypal have the power to take money out of one's bank account (if it is connect to Paypal) if a person has very little cash left in his Paypal account? I thought they could only do that if you made a purchase or sent money to someone and your Paypal account was low on cash. stevet

Hi Steve, I keep very little if any money in paypal. They take it out of my checking account. So, if it was required to refund someone, they would have to take it out of the checking account. I am pretty sure that is how it would work. Paypal would probably send you an email stating they were going to use the checking account for refund.
I didn't realize there was this much trouble with people selling and getting ripped off, but from the post on here it looks like I need to start looking at another way of selling and buying for myself.

Larry

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