I recently sold a site. The buyer sent the money through paypal and I verified that it arrived. The person has a verified account. I then proceeded to give him admin access and changed the domain name over. During this process I went back to paypal to check my balance and the money he sent me was be held. It seems he put in an unauthorized transfer complaint in. I had him on msn so I asked him what was going on. He said maybe his paypal account was being hacked. After that statement I never heard from him again! Paypal is investigating. If they release the money back to him, he gets the site and the money back! I would be out $1000.00US! What do I do here? I am about to lose my site to a crook? Anyone go through this and have advice? I have bought and sold many sites and this is my first experience with someone trying to steal from me!
Can you change admin log in so he can not log into site. He will still have domain name but not control of site it points to.
he changed the admin password right away (which I then changed again through phpmyadmin after the paypal thing). The site however now points to where ever he has it. So I can't get in. Anyone go through this with paypal? I was under the impression that you can't dispute a transaction for a digital product?
That is pretty much true but that isn't what he is claiming. You said he claimed unauthorized use. Do a quick whois on the domain if you did not get full buyer information. The fact that you can prove the domain was in fact transferred to him may help you with any chargebacks. I would do a couple of screenshots of the info and save in high resolution. Also at Godaddy you have 14 days from the time of the transfer to attempt to rescind the transfer. Not sure what steps are involved in that one. At least it always says something like, "if you believe there has been an error you must act within 14 days".
It sounds like he is trying to scam you. Unfortunately if you use Paypal then he is likely to get away with it. Paypal protects the buyer when the item sold is virtual like a website. It seems that you always use escrow for website sales. If the transfer does go through I would contact the new owner's ISP and explain that he is hosting a stolen site with stolen content. Keep doing that and make his life difficult. Turn yourself into a problem that won't go away until he does something to solve it in your favor.
Well, PayPal will follow whatever rules they have to the letter, try ringing them and chatting to a supervisor and explain the situation, Also try and see if you can undue the domain transfer by contacting the register. A few prayers to St. Jude (Patron Saint of Lost Causes) wouldnt go amiss either...
Look at the whois.sc of the domain owner.. Try contacting with those details.. Try ringing Paypal too..
he still hasn't responded to paypals inquiry. Maybe he is stupid enough to think that if he ignores it, it will go away? I use paypal daily for subscriptions and when I challenged one, they old me that they can't refund money for a digital transaction? If the buyer is claiming unauthorized use of his account. That would be very hard to prove, especially since I am pretty sure he sent the payment and then cancelled during the same login. It was within a few minutes he did it. I have initiated the domain return thing through godaddy. I don't think they will return it though. The document they want you to fill out is two pages and takes 20 secounds to fill out! I talked to customer service at godaddy and they said to do it this way. When I talked to another department there, they told me that they can't get involved with sales of domains?? Fortunately the nature of the site allows me to notify the customers of it of what happened. So in the end he will end up with a useless site. By the way, his display name on sitepoint is protectyourself Paypal address is: Name: DANNY BONN MSN:
Update: I did the godaddy reversal thing and they returned the domain to my account (they actually make a new account for you and put the domain there). So there is hope if you are scammed! Now I have to wait and see if he can do the same thing!
I once got paid $575 dollars on virtual goods from a game. He claimed I had "failed to deliver goods" and challenged it. they took the money back, but I was able to get the goods on the game back, so I used another service instead of paypal.
same thing happen to one of my site sales, except it was paypal who took the initiative so the buyer sent the domains back to me.
Well it seems paypal is full of crooks! They refunded the money back to the guy even though it was a digital purchase!! This clearly goes against their own policy!! They are a bunch of thieves themselves
i am pretty sure it was a unauthorized transaction , there are lot of scammed paypal accounts , if that guy was a scammer he can scam paypal accounts as well . Unauthorised transactions are charged back within 10-15 mins , that shows paypal's security . its you who have to verify the buyer with phone number or something the buyer cannot spoof.
If you sold the site as a service, forget your money. However if you sold it as "GOODS", then there is high chance that you get it back. Normally what I do is, give a backup of your files & database to the buyer before the payment. After I get the payment, I transfer it to my second account on PayPal after which I transfer the domain. This way although I've to pay the PayPal charge twice, but even if PayPal decides the case in favour of the scammer, they don't have anything in my account to return. Please post the scammer's email ID here. Also, you should not uplift a dispute before 15 days. If the seller does not reply to PayPal, they'll automatically rule the case in your favour. PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH THE DEAL & DON'T SHOW PAYPAL THAT YOU'RE DESPERATE. Show them that if you don't get your money, it'll be unprofessional on their part. Show them that that the money is your right & you're not begging for it.. throw some attitude & don't be tooooooo polite.
Well rmail godaddy about your domain , is transferred in error , If your website is on [aid webhosting try to submit a ticket to them that , the transfer was done in error , If you sold your website via service then , forget it. Try to geting the proofs , like who is and charged the paypal dispute.
I did call paypal and they told me to email them with the details... again I filed a complaint and just waiting for the results I guess Scammers ID: his display name on sitepoint is protectyourself Paypal address is: Name: DANNY BONN MSN:
Did you already call the domain reseller and chat with them about it? They might give you some idea of what your options are.