So I had a client who was paying me regularly for several months. He is in India so was having troubles with PayPal and asked me to accept some payments for him and then keep some of the money for work I'd done for him and send the rest on to various people who had done other work for him. Several weeks later, I have had two disputes open with PayPal (and am expecting more) from two of the people who I accepted money from. One amount is $175 and the other for $250. Apparently he has not delivered the work so they naturally want their money back. The problem is, I'm a very poor student doing what I can to earn some extra cash from writing, and to be honest, I just don't have this money to refund. I'm so worried - what am I supposed to do? What are my rights according to PayPal? Most of the payments I made were personal payments, although a select few were business payments. HELP!!!!!!
First off, have you contacted your client and spoken with him about the problem? If yes, what was his reply?
Well, I hate to be negative, but this sure sounds like you have been scammed by your former employer. Could be a very expensive lesson. You could contact Paypal and explain how you were scammed by this person (his problems with Paypal were probably a result of other scams) and see if they will be willing to invalidate all of the activities associated with this scam (you need to compile a list of the payments accepted and made.) This is a longshot, in my opinion, but if you can make the case that the recipients of the payments you made were part of the overall scam, they may accept your story and invalidate all of the transactions. You need to act quickly, of course, and be sure to read the Paypal TOS regarding scams and how to notify them, what information to provide, etc.
Well, I guess that already speaks volumes. Anyway, tell the whole situation frankly to the people who have opened disputes against you and talk to them about why you're not in a position to refund. Tell them you're trying your best to contact this client of yours but he's not responding. Reasoning won't work every time but you'll have to take a chance. As of now, I don't know any other solution. Just hope someone who knows a way out posts here. As soon I get some info that will help, I'll let you know immediately.
Thanks for your responses so far. I just hope the other guy who made a payment of $450 doesn't open a dispute or I really am screwed. I have contacted PayPal and I hope I get a response from them pretty soon.
Instead of contacting them via email (- well, I'm assuming so), try calling them on their customer service number. You might reach them faster and get your disputes sorted out quickly.
I doubt there's going to be much they can do for you. By accepting payments for someone else, you also took on the liability involved with accepting payment. On a side note, people in India can accept PayPal just fine as long as they have a bank account linked to it.