How PayPal and 'Sang Lee' Ripped Me

I never expected this to happen. Please, please read this guys.

Several weeks ago, I was surprised when I found out that I was accepted into the Yahoo Publisher Network. I was so happy, but then I realized you can't enroll if you live outside of the US (I'm from Amsterdam).

I was pretty dissapointed, but after a while of browsing SitePoint and this forum, I found out YPN invites are actually worth a lot and people are buying them all the time. So I just posted in a thread saying I was selling mine.

After an hour or so I got a PM here from austin07, known as Sang Lee in real life. He told me this: "i'm interested in buying YPN invite.. please email me at sjleee@hotmail.com". So I did.

After talking to him on MSN he said he was offering $1000 USD, which is a common price, and I accepted it. He sent the money through PayPal (he didn't want to use Escrow even after I asked him), and I just gave him the URL, and forwarded the email. He told me it all worked and he seemed very happy. He even wanted me to create a logo for his site. He really seemed like a nice guy.

But then, exactly a month later, he tells me his account got banned, and he can't access it anymore. I had no idea what happened, but I felt sad for the guy so I helped him out. He wanted a refund, but I already spent the money on some debts. It wasn't my fault, so I wasn't going to anyway.

I offered to design him a logo and a layout for his new arcade website, which he accepted. But he also wanted me to email Yahoo for a new key. He wanted me to lie in the email, that I lost it. I know it's against Yahoo's policy to sell invites, but it seemed fishy he wanted me to lie about that anyway.

I emailed Yahoo, but never got a reply. He told me he called them, but he was a bit vague about their response. This is when I stopped trusting the guy. I just let it rest, and if he asked me to make a logo or something I'd do it.

Then, a week after his incident, I get an email from PayPal. He filed a claim with them, saying there was an unauthorized transaction on his behalf, and I had to pay it back. It said I never delivered the goods too. I was scared as hell. I mean, I couldn't possibly pay back all that money, I didn't have anything left.

My response was pretty much like this story, and I wrote that I had email and MSN proof that it worked for him. I was fairly confident they wouldn't side with him... I mean... how could they do that?

Well, they did. Somehow he got his money back, and I'm 800 bucks in debt. This guy probably has a free YPN account now, using it for http://www.sjl.cc/

I emailed and called PayPal several times, but they kept telling me that unless it's a physical object with a tracking number, they can't proof anything, and that it's always the seller's risk for virtual objects. What the fuck? How can this be my risk? I'm not the one sending money. There wasn't even a contract. How can they just take my money and give it to that guy without any proof? Somehow it happened and they kept giving me the same response.

I can't pay this money. I can't sue PayPal. I can't find this guy called Sang Lee. What the hell do I do?

 

I dont think you can do anything unfortunately since they where downloaded goods however what you should have done is this:

write the info out on a text file and then send him that as a package then you can say you sent him the package and have the tracking info for it which can be provided to paypal.

Yes he could say you never sent him what he ordered but there is always a smaller chance of that happening than what happened to you. We have lost loads to something similar with hosting and designs, and with hosting there is little we can do about it , did you look at his paypal authorisation before sending him the goods? if it said unconfirmed I wouldn't have sent him anything and would have sent him his money back.

So unfortunately you cannot do anything, but I do know your pain, sometimes I have wanted to go to their address and confront them but wont do any good.

 

Yeah, he's a confirmed seller from the US. Can you get his address from PayPal somehow?

 

yes paypal does this all the time....

 

Send him an envelope with tracking in the mail. Paypal is stupid, their stupidity can work both ways.

 

What an ordeal.

Unfortunately not only was it a "virtual good", I don't think it's legal for you to sell YPN invites...

 

@ elscapo: Too late now

@ eXe: I know, but PayPal doesn't have anything to do with that.

 

Because it isn't legal, you don't have any other legal recourse to recover the money

 

Well that sucks. I surely hope you're not Ruben, or however you spell it, as I believe he owns Electriq (the site...if you are him, you deserve what you got).

Everyone's been fucked over with PayPal like that. You should've been smarter, and not have used PayPal for anything above $200-$250.

 

If he is going to scam you, honestly I would just send a letter to him with tracking to his delivery address then paypal sees the online tracking and being idiots they will reverse his claim. It may not work, but I definitely could see it working, one time a Chinese scammer won a paypal chargeback against me by providing random tracking numbers for addresses that have nothing to do with me. But you have to call paypal and yell at them, dont do this online because they will just send you the same auto-response 10,000 times. Point being, everyone on this forum with half a brain knows Paypal is the scammers payment of choice.

 

Hey man that sucks. Well you have to deal with it. Try to find out some details on him.

- Prilep

 

1. First of all, I was wrong to buy the YPN invite, because it's against the TOS. In the beggining, he guranteed that the invite works, but after a week I got banned from yahoo..

2. He PM'ed me saying that he got another fresh YPN invite from Yahoo since the one he gave me did not work. He is definately lying here.. Maybe he can sell it again lol?

3. MSN Proof? I agree that it worked for a week, meaning I only logged in and did not even input code to the website for a week period, because i was so busy with schools. After a week i got banned

4. Please stop lying.. where's yahoo ads at http://www.sjl.cc??

5. i'm sorry if YPN account did work, why would I do this?? If i really tried to ripp you off.. why would I respond to your thread?

6. Lastly putting someone's name and email address are not civilized.. I can do the samething, but i'm thinking about it

P.S. Can someone teach me how to wrap around his quote? so that i can respond to his claim more accurately?

 

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/misc.php?do=bbcode#quote

 

First off all:

1. It's not my problem you fucked up. I sold the invite, it was legit (you could log in and everything).

2. You should've put in the code in the beginning.

3. You're a little twat for not talking and just filing a dispute.

4. I don't know how you won the dispute, but you caused me a shitload of trouble, and I will never, ever forget this.

Remember me.

 

So whats the point of this thread? You guys want us to be your jury? If you want legal advice, post it in legal section. If you want to argue, settle this tet-a-tet

 

I was just asking for help. Then he hijacked the thread. How can I get the money back I already spent?

 

Please close this thread.. reported to Moderator