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Sorry to hear this. This is always my biggest fear when using paypal. And just a caveat to all of you, Paypal offers NO protection on transactions outside of eBay. Zero. So it doesn't matter if this happened with a US buyer or a Asian buyer. Paypal's position would still be the same and the seller would be on the hook.

I would absolutely follow 9 Irons advice. I believe if you push the right buttons, you will ultimately find that Paypal in responsible for processing the payment.

Its kinda like those signs you see in pay parking lots that say "we are not responsible for theft or damage". They can "say" that, and they can have nice big signs printed to convince you that they aren't responsible, but any lawyer will tell you that they are. Once you pay them to park there, they have a responsibility to provide adequate care for the vehicle. If they can deflect 80% of the claims away from themselves by using these signs, they save a ton of money.

I think Paypal is doing the same thing. They push you and hope you cough up the money. If you do, as many people would, they win. Case closed. If not, and you take a legal approach, I bet they fold.

Best of luck and please keep us posted as I'm sure we can all learn from this.

Mark

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paypal has a gift option now, kinda like a bank wire in that the buyer has no recourse...

geralder do not give in to paypal. i guess their new thing now is threat of a collection agency. used to be it just leaves your pp account with a negative balance...so until you pay up you can't use it anymore. was the address in Asia confirmed? i'm thinking outside of the US no address can really be "confirmed"...really sucks and scummy of paypal to ding you for the money since the transaction was done all under their umbrella of ebay/paypal.

I agree with the other that say you shouldn't give in to PayPal. This isn't you're fault. They are the ones who took the bad credit card payment. How could you have known?

Let them send it to a collection agency. Those agencies can't really do anything to you. And I'm not sure this will even show on your credit report.

I emailed Scott Thompson President of Paypal and John Donahoe of Ebay, Figured I go straight to the top. I just dont want to find out the hard way and have Paypal take me through the ringer with my credit or collection agency. Its litle 'ol me aginst a multi-million dollar orginization . I dont want to be the example.

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Breitling for Bentley Barnato 42
Rolex Submariner

Had this happen to me on a small scale.

Was about 1500$ Yes they will send it to collection and yes it droped my credit score about 25 points. And yes it will show a open collection on your report.

However i havnt been turned down anything due to that on my credit and sorry @$$ed paypal never got there money out of me.

I wish you goodluck but when it comes down to it... I would take the hit all over again before i would let paypal take money out of my pocket due to there screw up.

I think if they give it to the collection agency, you should be able to deny you´re responsibility. Any unpaid bill can be given to them and they´ll first try to collect it with the knowledge they have from paypals side. then you deal with them not paypal. Tell them why paypal is collecting on false grounds. Then the collection agency have to get confirmation from Paypal of the grounds why they think you are obligated to pay them. The collection agency is a neutral party. They have lawyers who then determins if infact you´re legally obligated to pay or not. If they find that paypal is responsible party they will withdraw your case and you´re of the hook. Even if at this point you loose you can still contact your own lawyer who can see if their interpretation is accurate. As long as the dissagreement is pending it shouldn´t effect your credit score.

At least this is the procejure in Finland. I unfortunely have to use collection agencies in my work from time to time.

Hope it turns out well!!!

The liability for fraud lies on the merchant, not the credit card company. The merchant must pay the full cost of the fraud plus a chargeback fee (unless the merchant's chargeback insurance covers it).

Question is, who is the merchant? Paypal?

Another thought...Perhaps you can contact the local consumer advocate at the papers and tv stations. They usually have people who look into consumer complaints. A little negative press might change their mind.

I won my arguement with a collection agency in one conversation. I simply stated what happened and when they realized that I was right, they never called back again and it didn't affect my credit. Like stated earlier, the collection agency can't come after you if you did nothing wrong. If all the "free" attempts don't work, then see a lawyer.

I have contacted everyone I can at this point . FBI online fraud site, Illinois and California States attorneys, Trade commision , one of the websites below actually gives the home phone number of John Donahoe CEO of Ebay Some websites with some interesting info for anyone who is interested: http://www.paypalsucks.com
http://www.screw-paypal.com


Im not giving them a dime until I have to.
The way my luck has been going , they will probably sue me

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Breitling for Bentley Barnato 42
Rolex Submariner

paypal will not sue you, it's not worth their time. they will try to intimidate you and make threats so you will back down. good to hear others' experience with collection agency. good luck and $3500 is alot of money, well worth it for you to fight till the end.

so sorry to hear about this. i have heard horror stories about paypal and some of their practices. i know that in most cases pay pal works well for the buyer but offers little in the way for the vendor or person selling a prduct. like another poster mentioned you should get in contact with you local police and find out what can be done.

My opinion differs slightly. If u can afford the loss, take it, chalk it to experience & move on. The collection agency will give u nightmares, if not now, way in the future, when ur abt to buy/sell property -- That's when u'll suddenly find the "hold" of this unfinished biz. Look at it another way, $3500 won't be enough to "gain" the points lost by this on ur credit score.

Btw, in my experience, even for eBay transactions, Paypal will NOT offer any seller protection. Paypal's position has always been, "we're neither the seller nor buyer. We only process the payments & never responsible for any chargebacks." imo Paypal is great only if I'm a BUYER. If I was to SELL something valuable, I would insist on USPS Money Order.

Don't get me wrong, I do symphatize w ur ordeal, but would hate to see this drag on & on, and worse -- recurr!

My .02 as a former owner of 2 brick-n-mortar eBay drop-off stores franchises.

My deepest sympathies to you. That really sucks.

Oh, and for the record, PP sucks as well. I'm going to close my account NOW in protest. HA! That will show them, the greedy buggers.

Consider also, that if this does go to a collection agency, you can always negotiate. $3500? Ha! It's gone, used it to buy braces for the kid. I've got, um, $500, how's that? They'll take it. People (bad people) do this all the time with credit cards, run them up, default, then when it goes to collection they pay 10, maybe 20% of the balance.

Best of luck to you.

This is increasingly becoming the case. Creditors will often "sell" the debt to an outside agency at a low percentage of the actual balance and write-off the difference as a loss. I don't believe the percentages are as low as 10%-20%, but they are low. At this point, any money received by the agency from the debtor in excess of the "purchase" price is profit. This still won't avoid the damage to your credit score or cure the headaches that come with dealing with a collections agency. Also, the collector still has an incentive to get as much as he can from you because they will typically get bonuses if they achieve a certain total dollar amount collected.

I have friends who collect for a living (great job in an economy like this) and I hear these kind of stories all the time.

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein