Bad PayPal Done Good No Not Really!

It seems like mostly PP did what they could and either individuals don't have access to the right information or we idiots who didn't know what they were saying. I suspect the payment record in their system doesn't say what bank the card is only if it is Visa, MC, Discover, etc. I would expect that in a disputed payment that the bank reaches out the company paid or their processor so at that point it would become known and I would expect the dispute process to be recorded and that record to contain the names and contact information of the other party in this case the bank who denied the charge. The fact mom cancelled the card may have been part of the reason this didn't get turned back to your favor as they had limited or no way to bill the customer once the account had been closed. The main blame lies with son who didn't think to properly communicate with your or his mom about this purchase. Glad everything turned out alright in the end PP definitely didn't handle things right if they didn't keep record of the dispute and who they worked with but so many dropped balls here it seems it is hard to just point the finger at one.
 
A few years back I sold items as a vendor at a show and convention. I used Square and my phone. Money goes directly into your account minus a small fee — 3%? — and you could enter the credit card info manually.
 
As someone else suggested I think, it would be nice if there was an escrow service for online sales. Item is sent to escrow with print out of sales description and given an escrow number. Purchase funds are transferred to escrow company for item of given escrow number. When item is confirmed against description and buyer approves, then buyer is verified against internal list of known cheats as if passed the funds are transferred to sell and item sent to buyer.

This would provide security that both parties have to send their part of transaction, feedback stats could published for both as well as escrow transactions issues, escrow has full personal info for both parties in case of legal action while parties could keep that info private (email, phone, address) from each other unless legal action is taken.

I’m no escrow expert, but this is the principle upon which houses are transacted. It would take some doing to initially get it started but once running I don’t think it would have to take much time to manage a transaction. The main cost would be temporarily inventorying items in escrow.
 
over the last six years I have been using PP for there protection with buying/selling knifes and other things over the internet, but for the 1st time I broke my own rule and used my MasterCard to order from Wilson Combat about three months ago!the usps lost my parcel in mail/never delivered, as I am still trying to get this worked out though my CC company! long process to be sure and not over yet!!! I once did pay with money orders but not everyone accepts payment in this way on the forums, but I really hope things work out better for you in the end.
 
NWPilgrim said:
As someone else suggested I think, it would be nice if there was an escrow service for online sales. Item is sent to escrow with print out of sales description and given an escrow number. Purchase funds are transferred to escrow company for item of given escrow number. When item is confirmed against description and buyer approves, then buyer is verified against internal list of known cheats as if passed the funds are transferred to sell and item sent to buyer.

This would provide security that both parties have to send their part of transaction, feedback stats could published for both as well as escrow transactions issues, escrow has full personal info for both parties in case of legal action while parties could keep that info private (email, phone, address) from each other unless legal action is taken.

I’m no escrow expert, but this is the principle upon which houses are transacted. It would take some doing to initially get it started but once running I don’t think it would have to take much time to manage a transaction. The main cost would be temporarily inventorying items in escrow.
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Sounds extremely costly in comparison to risk and creating more risk than a direct sale. There would be multiple mailings (and their cost) along with the risk of loss during each shipment. You would have to then pay the escrow agent to handle this. If any problem came up about condition( agent would have to open package to confirm contents) that agent would likely be dragged into it . It would also greatly delay completion of the sale-where buyers are impatient to get the item, which is why they use PP in the 1st place.
I'll stick to a direct sale, taking proper procedure & precaution, but if you are really worried consignment dealers may be your answer.
 
Yikes. That right there is why I:

1) Do not leave money in my paypal account
2) Do not have my paypal account linked to my bank account

Paypal can't give money back to some yahoo that they don't have. Paypal also can't reach into my bank account and take money out if they don't have access.

I'm glad that this worked out in the end. Good on you for not giving up.
 
I think it is worth some perspective - Dave writes - "After thousands of transactions" before the first PP snafu. As a buyer I would be very unhappy to lose PP for transactions. Money orders and credit cards have their own layers of aggravation and inconvenience - none of which I encounter with PP. From a sellers perspective - PP is as good as it gets, IMHO. Eventually a scammer will find a way to scam you with any of the alternatives, if that is the intent. I would not be selling and buying on the BF exchange with any confidence and convenience without PP. My 2¢.

Ray
 
Well, Dave...a very interesting book you wrote here.
Where do you and family find the time to work leather and make knives?
I have used PP for hundreds of items, bought/sold, and have never experienced a problem.
Of course, Murphy's Law might read my post...
Dave, I've had your fanciest knife and your best leather sheath and belt.
Folks reading this...gotta know there is NONE better....IMO.
cheers,
don
 
After reading the story, not sure why the thread has a negative PayPal title. Seems PayPal did right, and the customer and their credit card were the problem here.

I've been using for PayPal for 9 years or so, 1000+ feedback on Ebay, never had an issue. They arent perfect, but they catch more crap then they deserve. Especially from most of the non forum knife communities.
 
Well that was a saga and a half. Glad ya got made whole. Good thing it was a small town and the cop knew him cause pretty much there would be no way of resolving this. Seems there's not to much investigation on the banks part unless it is pushed. There was an incident on our account where it was a random charge for $75. No idea where it came from and the bank couldn’t tell us. So I called my bank and without question it was put back. I asked if there was anything I had to do. They said nope just keep a close eye on your account. (Nothing else ever happened) but it seems almost to easy to get a bank to do a charge back. I felt for sure my phone was gonna be ringing with a bill collector wanting money but all was accounted for. I guess the ease of a charge back can be good and bad.

On another note. Come on guy?? Your mother. And the douche of the year award goes toooo. The gentleman that steals his mom's cc to buy a custom knife
 
Thanks guys! Wow Don, thanks for the kind words. Our biggest question was and there never was an answer that PP could provide What protections do we as a merchant using PayPal (not in the traditional PP sense) but as a credit card processor have against this happening again. The answer .....crickets.


In other words when does your money become your money? The transaction was made on May 15 th following all proper security measures. It process smoothly even though it shouldn't have since the billing address did not match correctly (where's PP blame? there for one), also only the last name matched. On Aug 13th the charge is disputed. Thats two days shy of three months! What information was forwarded to the great mystery bank? What investigation did the great mystery bank do to determine this was an unauthorized charge? 1)They never contacted us. Period. 2) Mrs So and so? Hi this is George with First Bank of the Nameless. I'm working on your disputed charge, I've got some paperwork here from the merchant (if indeed it got forwarded). I have a couple of questions for you. Do you know Carl same last name as yours? This order form shows that he placed a phone order with this company on Apr 12th for this product. Oh he's your son. Ok and the paperwork shows the product ordered was shipped to this address in your same very small town. The paperwork also confirms that it was delivered there on Jun 2nd. Do you know who lives at that address? Oh your son? Does your son have permission to use your card? (since it processed in his name). Do you know where the product is? But what questions where asked? You don't know a company called Horsewright? Ok here's your money back.

So think about this. The perfect scam. I'll call up Best Buy and order a big screen, that lil 55 incher is a little dated. Then in 3 months I'm gonna call my bank and say I never heard of Best Buy. They'll say well heck here's your money back. Boys come on over and lets watch the game at my place. Got this new big screen, you should see the picture and I got the beer and pizza ya don't need to kick in, I got some extra cash.

Ray is right it is a matter of perspective. Are we gonna dump PP. Heck no. 99.99999 percent of the time its a great service. When not its a mindless bureaucracy like any other. Speaking of which got to go to DMV next Friday.....
 
Horsewright said:
Thanks guys! Wow Don, thanks for the kind words. Our biggest question was and there never was an answer that PP could provide What protections do we as a merchant using PayPal (not in the traditional PP sense) but as a credit card processor have against this happening again. The answer .....crickets.


In other words when does your money become your money? The transaction was made on May 15 th following all proper security measures. It process smoothly even though it shouldn't have since the billing address did not match correctly (where's PP blame? there for one), also only the last name matched. On Aug 13th the charge is disputed. Thats two days shy of three months! What information was forwarded to the great mystery bank? What investigation did the great mystery bank do to determine this was an unauthorized charge? 1)They never contacted us. Period. 2) Mrs So and so? Hi this is George with First Bank of the Nameless. I'm working on your disputed charge, I've got some paperwork here from the merchant (if indeed it got forwarded). I have a couple of questions for you. Do you know Carl same last name as yours? This order form shows that he placed a phone order with this company on Apr 12th for this product. Oh he's your son. Ok and the paperwork shows the product ordered was shipped to this address in your same very small town. The paperwork also confirms that it was delivered there on Jun 2nd. Do you know who lives at that address? Oh your son? Does your son have permission to use your card? (since it processed in his name). Do you know where the product is? But what questions where asked? You don't know a company called Horsewright? Ok here's your money back.

So think about this. The perfect scam. I'll call up Best Buy and order a big screen, that lil 55 incher is a little dated. Then in 3 months I'm gonna call my bank and say I never heard of Best Buy. They'll say well heck here's your money back. Boys come on over and lets watch the game at my place. Got this new big screen, you should see the picture and I got the beer and pizza ya don't need to kick in, I got some extra cash.

Ray is right it is a matter of perspective. Are we gonna dump PP. Heck no. 99.99999 percent of the time its a great service. When not its a mindless bureaucracy like any other. Speaking of which got to go to DMV next Friday.....
Click to expand...

Yeah this is nothing new when it comes to merchants, it's a huge problem world wide - it's called 'friendly fraud', you can google it. I suppose it depends on what your knives sell for and how much demand there is for them as to what route you wanna take, but for me any work over $400 requires 50% down in the form of cash, USPS money order, or Walmart money transfer so at least I'm not scammed the full amount if it happens (has happened once which is why I changed my policy - don't you love working for yourself?! lol). I think for customs over $1k I will require full payment in one of those payments instead of paypal. Another thing you may want to look into is voice recording on your phone, its completely legal here in SC so every phone call I make is recorded. It's not only helpful with stuff like this but also just if you are driving and can't write down a phone number or remember a name :)
 
I'm glad it worked out in the end.

But, you're blaming PayPal, when it sounds like PayPal did everything they reasonably could do to help you - other than maybe one phone rep who was probably giving out bad information and didn't understand their own processes. If the alternative is to use a different credit card processor - Square, etc., then the exact same thing would have happened.

If the alternative is to only accept checks or money orders, or direct cash transfers - I mean, that's an option, but expect to lose some business because of it. I personally wouldn't go through the extra hassle to buy something if the business didn't accept a credit card unless I really wanted it badly. At some point, the extra business you get from providing customers an easier means to pay likely more than pays for the occasional issues you'll run into.

On the other hand, I'm surprised PayPal didn't hassle you about selling knives using their service. Another maker I spoke with on a recent show was absolutely livid with them (and had stopped using them) because of issues he ran into, given he's selling "weapons".
 
I honestly don't use PayPal a lot ... even off the forum ... and maybe 15 times on the forum ... and for the most part it's a great service ... but to think that at anytime you may decide to sell that one very expensive knife you have ... and this situation comes up ...

you would think PayPal would have at the very least a working relationship with the credit card companies and should keep records of info so they could at least give you the needed information to contact the bank needed ... and I think they should assist in the initial contact ...

especially when they have a loyal customer such as Dave or Josh that have thousands of transactions with them ...

so I understand the frustration ... and to be fair Dave orginally gave PP a glowing GOOD feedback ... and only after the fiasco of a son who is ok with stealing from his own mother by using her card without even asking it appears ...

and to me this is key where the switch to a bit negative feedback comes in ...

PayPal should never have processed the transaction if the address and name on the card did not match the account info ...

so yes PP is 99% good ... but maybe lax in some areas ... and most buyers and sellers are legit and transactions go smooth ... but just one or two negative experiences can leave a bad taste in your mouth ...

I use PayPal with established members and those I see are contributing members not only in the exchange ... but I have missed a few deals because I wanted a USPS money order or to pay by money order ... to be safe.

And I still need one of your knives Horsewright Horsewright ... I'm hoping this fall or winter I will have things settled in to order one finally.

now I wrote a book I'll apologize for being so long winded ... and just say I'm glad it worked out and that most people still are basically good folks ... so this is rare.
 
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