GotMyAlly
Well-Known Member
I always thought using paypal provided a relative amount of protection for both the buyer and the seller.
I sold a prop to a guy on S&F. He paid using paypal and asked me to expedite the shipment so he could have it to run that weekend. He signed for the shipment on Thursday. The following Wednesday, he dropped it in the mail back to me - demanding his money back. It had obviously been ran and looked to me like it had impacted something. It was a sharp prop, so it wouldn't take much to dull a blade or two. Obviously hadn't hit a rock or anything immovable, but maybe a sandbar, etc.
When I refused to refund his money, he told me he was going to dispute the charges on his AmEx. No problem, I thought. I didn't take payment from AmEx. I was paid via PayPal. But to my surprise, I got a letter from PayPal stating that he had disputed the charges with his credit card company and the funds in my PayPal were being placed on hold until resolved. The note went on to say that PayPal would help me put together a rebuttal to the dispute, but ultimately the decision to pay or not would be made by the credit card company. And of course, in most cases, the credit card company is going to side with their customer. If you've ever filed a dispute with AmEx, you know they almost always side with the cardholder. So now I'm stuck with a damaged prop and most likely won't get paid for it (dispute is still pending). And the 'buyer' got a free test run out of my prop.
Moral of the story - I won't take paypal from someone I don't know again. Probably won't do business with paypal anyway after this episode. The dispute is still pending, but I've got a bad gut feeling about how it's going to end up. PayPal does NOT offer the level of protection to the seller that most people think. When you read the fine print, even once that money is still in your account, it's subject to be pulled back if whatever form of payment the buyer used does not clear.
I sold a prop to a guy on S&F. He paid using paypal and asked me to expedite the shipment so he could have it to run that weekend. He signed for the shipment on Thursday. The following Wednesday, he dropped it in the mail back to me - demanding his money back. It had obviously been ran and looked to me like it had impacted something. It was a sharp prop, so it wouldn't take much to dull a blade or two. Obviously hadn't hit a rock or anything immovable, but maybe a sandbar, etc.
When I refused to refund his money, he told me he was going to dispute the charges on his AmEx. No problem, I thought. I didn't take payment from AmEx. I was paid via PayPal. But to my surprise, I got a letter from PayPal stating that he had disputed the charges with his credit card company and the funds in my PayPal were being placed on hold until resolved. The note went on to say that PayPal would help me put together a rebuttal to the dispute, but ultimately the decision to pay or not would be made by the credit card company. And of course, in most cases, the credit card company is going to side with their customer. If you've ever filed a dispute with AmEx, you know they almost always side with the cardholder. So now I'm stuck with a damaged prop and most likely won't get paid for it (dispute is still pending). And the 'buyer' got a free test run out of my prop.
Moral of the story - I won't take paypal from someone I don't know again. Probably won't do business with paypal anyway after this episode. The dispute is still pending, but I've got a bad gut feeling about how it's going to end up. PayPal does NOT offer the level of protection to the seller that most people think. When you read the fine print, even once that money is still in your account, it's subject to be pulled back if whatever form of payment the buyer used does not clear.
