So I sold an item on Etsy for $135.00 last week and received the payment the same day via Paypal and shipped the item via USPS with shipping confirmation. Buyer received the item today and immediately filed a claim with Paypal as well as leaving me negative feedback on Etsy before making any attempt to contact me to resolve the situation. At this point my paypal account is in the red for the transaction amount since I transferred the funds to my bank account. How do you handle the situation from here? I took care to carefully package the item and have no way of knowing if the item was damaged or not and haven't received any communication from the buyer. My main concern is being out $135.00 and never receiving the item back which I highly doubt was damaged in any way during transit. Also, the damage to my reputation w/paypal and etsy is something which I would like to have the chance to rectify as well. I have a feeling this buyer is trying to scam me out of my item as well as the money that he initially paid for the transaction. I've googled the buyer's email and he runs a sketchy website which involves paypal transactions so I'm sure he knows in detail how Paypal works. If anyone has experienced a similar situation and could provide any advice it would be much appreciated.

[Edited on April 14, 2012 at 9:23 PM. Reason : ]

4/14/2012 9:17:49 PM

Just tossing this out there, but have you tried to contact paypal?

4/14/2012 10:00:01 PM

I have, called and spoke with a representative tonight. She suggested opening up a dialogue through the dispute claim process. I had to deny the buyers refund claim to communicate and posted the delivery confirmation w/ USPS. Also let the buyer know the item was well packaged and shipped as is in good condition. If the buyer doesn't escalate the dispute in 20 days the claim will be denied by paypal. Just didn't know if anyone else had been in this situation previously to offer some advice outside of what the scripted dialogue I knew I'd be getting from paypal.

4/14/2012 10:42:59 PM

Never mail stuff till PayPal payments clear.

Showing up does NOT equal clearing.

There is a huge difference which most people do not realize.

There are a bunch of people who "buy" stuff like this, and do exactly what this person is doing to scam the system.

They rely on the fact that most sellers will probably have no clue how to combat this properly, and even the few that do, do not outweigh the ones who don't in the long run.

Paypal is owned by eBay though, and they have a pretty good rep to resolving this as long as you have a decent understanding about how to resolve this.

90% chance this gets resolved in your favor.

4/14/2012 11:06:47 PM

Thanks for the reply, the payment has cleared and I have the funds in my actual banking account. I immediately transferred the funds electronically after receiving the confirmed payment.

4/14/2012 11:18:07 PM

Sounds like you already know what to do and you have your ass covered.

I see no reason why paypal won't side with you.

[Edited on April 15, 2012 at 1:49 AM. Reason : .]

4/15/2012 1:48:59 AM

You might want to unlink your bank account from your paypal account and tell your bank to deny any attempts from paypal to reclaim the funds from your account.

4/15/2012 2:02:51 AM

Yea photographer I work with told me that he did this once and almost got screwed the same way. Bride got all of her prints and paid him by PayPal, then tried to file a claim and get the money back from PayPal. He got smart and had already withdrawn the funds from PayPal and then told his bank to block any transactions from PayPal. He said the bank was happy to oblige him, and when PayPal tried to go through his linked bank account, he saw it disappear and then 2 minutes later saw the bank automatically reverse the withdraw and his funds were right back where they belonged.

He did say that after that experience he decided to never deal with PayPal again. He said they do not handle the matter impartially and almost always side with the customer even when it is the customer who is trying to screw over the business. In his case the bride did a session with him, chose the shots and poses she liked, and when she got them she said she did not like them and wanted a full refund. His solution was to reshoot or refund and in either case return the prints. She did not want to return the prints she claimed she did not like, so he said fuck ya.

4/15/2012 8:08:26 AM

Thanks guys, woke up this morning to see the buyer has escalated the claim and I have 10 days to respond with "supporting documentation". I'm thinking about waiting til the last day then responding with what paypal is asking for. At this point I'm unable to unlink the bank account and the visa debit card from my paypal account since my account is in the negative. I'd hate to have paypal try and draft my bank account for that amount and have to put a stop payment on the transaction. This would likely ruin my current account which I've had since 2001 w/paypal and have done many transactions both buying and selling. Pretty frustrating situation..

4/15/2012 9:43:35 AM

When I used to sell things on eBay, I always took pictures of the items when they were about to be packed and packed and included them with the package when it was shipped. If they broke in the process, it was the post office's fault, because I was a pretty damn good packer - only direct kicks would break anything. If you didn't get insurance after I said to it's your fault. This way when they received the item and it was damaged I had proof that it wasn't because of my negligence and if you didn't get insurance it was your own damn fault.

That said, good luck with this, I never had to deal with that in my years of doing eBay/paypal - as the main things I sent out were my old Transformers and helped my Mom when she was selling old crystal and china on ebay and because of how we packed we did really well apparently.

4/15/2012 11:07:40 AM

So I just randomly got a payment for $200 to my paypal account. No it's not just a phishing email. It was actually sent to my account. I rarely use my account so I'm certain it's not me just forgetting about selling something.

Is it possible for this to be a setup for some kind of scam or phishing attempt? Ideas?

[Edited on January 28, 2013 at 5:11 PM. Reason : d]

1/28/2013 5:08:48 PM

Did you get delivery confirmation? If not, you're screwed. Also:

Quote :

"they do not handle the matter impartially and almost always side with the customer even when it is the customer who is trying to screw over the business."

1/28/2013 7:00:38 PM