A warning for all paypal users and buyers of downloadable products

I had an issue with a seller who didn’t deliver the product
it was an ebook download. Never got the link and no autoreponder .

They never responded to any of my contract attempts.
After trying to resolve this with the seller. I contacted paypal

So I thought im safe, thank goodness for paypal and thier

PayPal Buyer Protection

After a weeks of so i got this email

We have granted this claim. You have received a refund of $0.00 USD for this claim. Any portion of your original payment that was funded with credit has been refunded directly to that credit line. Please allow 3 days for the refund to appear in your balance.

Sweet I won. but huh a refund of $0.00 USD

So i emailed paypal this is what i was told


We were unable to continue our investigation as the merchandise in dispute
is not tangible or virtual.

PayPal was not able to resolve the dispute between the two parties due to
the item purchased being virtual or intangible. As a result, PayPal has
taken no action on either account at this time. However, the seller's
account has been noted for future reference. Thank you for your cooperation
with our investigation.

So I lost my money and never got the product
so much for buyer protection
be warned

 

Yea, but it's OK.
Google is going to be rolling out their payment system. We will all get to watch paypal die a slow death. Chhers to the day paypal is dead. =]

 

This is very weird paypal seems to side with whom its more convinient...

as long as they dont lose money...

worse happened to me oh well, i know not to trust paypal anymore

 

Who did you purchase the e-book from? I don't want to see anyone else here getting the same deal!

 

Lets just say thier NOT a member of this forum

 

Ok - good enough. I probably wouldn't buy e-books from people not on this forum anyways.

 

But true!
I some time back got my money back on software I bought by putting in a claim via paypal.
Paypal contacted the seller about it, the seller paid me back.

Then, right after that, paypal did the same thing to me....would not refund the money I had spent for a service and the seller would not answer paypals emails or mine.

So I am not going to mention the bitch, it was a woman, whose initials are mm.
She is shit on my list and will always be.

 

and to think paypal is trustworthy. now i'm having second thoughts on ebay. thank goodness i've had all positive experiences so far.

 

That is so helpful. Now I will know exactly who to avoid buying ebooks from. I don't get why you are so focussed on PayPal when someone has so obviously ripped you off? PayPal's assurances did not work for you. That sucks. But you still have a problem with someone buying coffee on your tab. Why so little wrath for them?

 

Paypal sucks for reasons more than one. I am waiting for google to launch their payment gateway. I think google will rollout a better service and google is trustworthy.

 

So far, me personally really like paypal.... it is easy and quick... I did not have any problem with paypal yet... I pay via paypal, get money via paypal as well!

 

You have been lucky so far......

 

Paypal's issues with downloadables have been discussed before. It's a shame, and it should probably be discussed more. every paypal customer really needs to understand that policy.

I don't recall, is it mentioned in their TOS?

 

From experience, I know it can be hard to get money back for a virtual good. I think it was last year, where I was paying for a dedicated server with paypal. Sadly the company I was renting it from all of a sudden disappeared, and it was right after I paid my bill to them. This was during the 6th or so month of renting the server. The company was good, so I wasn't expecting them to disappear like that. Well, I knew that paypal's policy said they can't refund virtual goods, but I filed a dispute anyway. Of course I didn't get my money back.

 

Hmmm... I think I may definately have been defrauded through Paypal on this forum. I contacted a member via PM in order to purchase their directory submission services. They proceeded to charge me $22 via Paypal, and then promptly stopped replying to PMs....


This sucks! Especially if what you say is true, that money is gone forever!

 

i don't really fancy paypal... but in this instance, you really cannot blame paypal... they do not allow chargebacks for non tangible items... this is because it's really going to be difficult for them to take sides... the fraudulent party can be either the seller or the buyer...

how would paypal know if you were lying... i.e. you have received the goods and am now asking for the refund even if the seller has fulfilled his obligation... since this is a non-tangible product, how can paypal be in a position to take sides?

 

Fault if one of their members is a cheat.
Though paypal will investigate and if too many complaints, will shut their account down.

Somewhere in the TOS, it does explain about virtual goods, etc.
Mind is a bit sketchy on this, but I believe they explained once upon a time that it was to cut down on fraud to merchants.

Selling or buying virtual (or real products) on ebay is a bit better controlled if there is a problem.

 

I have used ebay hand-in-hand with paypal for probably 8 years. I have only purchased real goods (physical) items with it on ebay 'buy now' listings. I have bought over 60 ps2 games, numerous shirts, jeans, fudge, and other items. In all them years...... and buying, not one real issue. I once bought a used zip drive, for $60 that failed to work, I didn't make an issue over it, I threw it in the trash, and gave the guy a negative feedback. But I figure that is part of life, you get what you pay for......... I didn't even try getting my money back. I mean $60 isn't nothing to fret over, heck I pay more than that every month to watch tv.........

Overall I love paypal and ebay, and use them both a LOT.

 

Ive lost $700 to paypal so far. Both times i got scammed. And trust me im very careful.

Ebay and Paypal do whats best for them in order not to lose money [they both suck but we have no alternatives]... they favored a user with 29 feedback who supposedly lost her password instead of me with 160 feedback who lost his product.

 

For Xmas I purchased a mp3 player for $199 and paid with paypal. The seller's rep was over 5,000 and 95% positives.

I got the the box but it was empty - the seller never answered emails, so I filled a paypal complain on December 15th.

February 20th (2 months later) I got an email from Paypal asking to file a report with the city police and to fax it back before February 17th.
Well, I filed the report the same day, and faxed it with a copy of the email specifying that I got the email 3 days after the deadline, I called and was told, sorry we got the report too late. February 24th I got a reminder to fax the report...

As I paid using bank account... I just lost $199 and I feel that paypal is playing in the court of the big sellers who make paypal/eBay earn fees.