AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Chat Area Paypal/eBay beware

I bought something in Italy in July and paid from my UK Paypal account (linked to a UK bank account). Everything went smoothly. About US$1500.

I later saw that they had ALSO taken payment from my US Paypal account. This is linked to a US bank account that at that time had very little funds in. It went into unauthorised overdraft, so I've so far incurred over US$140 in charges, AND standing orders like my Vonage account have been refused and hence cancelled.

I've now written three times to Paypal to get something done about this. The first two times they ignored it, the third time they mentioned perhaps crediting my UK bank account - nothing has actually happened. They have so far ignored my request to restore my US account to the state it was in.

I checked with the seller, who seemed totally honest, that they have only received payment once.

This is now over two months ago and I have got nowhere. They seem to be a nebulous organisation, a will 'o the wisp, that is impossible to pursue. I think I've lost around US$1700.

This is my first such experience, but I've heard of other people having big problems with fraud on Paypal. I had previously assumed it was fraud by others by using Paypal, but it now appears to be fraud BY Paypal themselves. Either that or reckless incompetence.

Be VERY careful with this organisation.

I have bought and sold tons of crap on E-Bay using PayPal and have had to deal with PayPal problems 2-3 times. The bottom line with E-Bay and PayPal is that they dominate the market and as such they feel like that they can get away with not throwing many resource into customer support.

However, you can get get problems resolved if you are persistent and make enough noise. I would never dream of writing a letter to them because it is too easy to ignore. The customer support is too small and generally overwhelmed with customer problems. You need to call them, get somebody on the phone, and not hang up until the problem is resolved.

Also it may surprise you but some of their customer support people are really pretty good. The trick is getting a hold of them and getting their attention.

The second step would be not to hesitate in filing some legal action against them (if in the US I would file a small claim against them). An official letter that they have to refer to their legal department should get their attention. And most likely get the problem solved out of court...

I have done a lot of e-bay selling using paypal but never had an illwill against them. Thay have been very friendly to deal with.

I hope you are able to get your monies back.