I called my credit card and asked them and they were very definite in that I am not covered. They say once the money is with Paypal they are out of the loop. Their only responsibility is to get the money to Paypal. I could chargeback if Paypal did not credit me the money for example, but once I have the money in paypal I’m stuck.
I would say the use of logos and language in Ebay is very misleading and should be clarified
It seems the guy really didn’t understand how escrow works and rather than ask or find out was just avoiding the issue. He really seems to be a pretty dumb, irresponsible, jerk more than a bad guy. I guess it finally got through to him that we were not going to complete the transaction so he finally said he didn’t like escrow because he wasn’t protected. I explained to him how it works and told him to have a look at tradenable.com and he has finally agreed he’ll do it. But of course, rather than be nice about it, he just keeps grumbling. Of course, he is unhappy we’ve wasted a week, but we could have progressed if he would have communicated with me rather than just ignoring me. Anyway, I hope we can complete the transaction now.
And remember: you are not protected by your credit card when you use Paypal.
Well, according to this(from paypals site):
You are.
Just to be sure, I called my credit card company, and they said that you are protected just as you are with any other credit card tansaction. You can charge it back if you do not recieve the merchindise you payed for.
Badger
Please forgive me coming BACK into this discussion, but I think I’ve identified the place where we’ve been losing each other.
Sailor, there are two ways to pay using PayPal. One is the method you keep describing - you open an account with them, and you transfer money from your credit card into your PayPal account. Then, to pay someone, you shift the balance from your PayPal account to their PayPal account. In this situation, all you’ve said about not being protected is probably fairly accurate.
However, there is another method. You can have PayPal withdraw money directly from your credit card, and deposit it to the seller’s PayPal account without ever listing it as a credit in your PayPal account. This means that PayPal act as a “bank” - they handle the money as it passes from you to the seller, but it never belongs to them, it’s never in your account, and it is a credit card transaction performed for and on behalf of the seller. In this case, you can indeed get the money credited back, because you were never paying the money into PayPal, you were paying it to the guy through PayPal. Can you understand what I’m trying to say? I don’t quite know if I’m making it clear.
This also clears up why you insist that accepting PayPal is not accepting credit cards. The first method of using PayPal certainly doesn’t count as accepting credit cards in my book, however, I believe the second does. It’s no different that the large Australian record chain who use a German Fulfilment Company to do their online billing - it’s still a credit card transaction that can be reversed if the vendor doesn’t come through on the deal.
Again, sorry for intruding on this thread again. I just hoped that I could make this point clear.
Cazzle, thanks for that info, it is very interesting even though it confuses me even further. Well, if that is the case, I wish they would explain it clearly and they would have saved me a lot of aggravation. There is no way for a normal person to go to ther web site and figure this out. In any case, it comes too late as I have already set up the escrow (dang it! I could have saved myself the escrow fee!)
You know, I just read again handy’s post and it seems to corroborate that. Now I see something in there which I missed the first time around.
dang them! I wish they would explain it better or have a phone number where you could call to ask these things. I hate it when they make it impossible to contact them.
bdgr, we already discussed that paragraph. I called my credit card and the way they explained it is that the merchant is paypal, and the service they provide is the bank-like service. If they credited your account, then they’ve done their part and the credit card is out of the loop and is not concerned with what happens later. It is like if you use your credit card to get cash at an ATM at a store and you pay the store with that money. The credit card has nothing to do with it.
In fact, imagine this. I send paypal a total of $400, $200 to my credit card and $200 in the form of a check. Now I pay for an ebay item which is $100. Am I covered or not? Did the $100 come from the card or from the check?
The way it was explained to me is that that paragraph is what specifically disclaims the possibility of charging back.
Now, if there is a different process as cazzle says, then I have no idea how it works. One thing I do know is that all this is not explained in their website anywhere close to what it should be. No one really knows for sure the answers to these questions which are quite fundamental.
Thats not what it says.
[/quote]
**
Credit Card Transactions: The Buyer Protection Policy does not obviate any other consumer rights Users may have, including chargeback rights that may be granted by a User’s credit card issuer.
[/quote]
**
says right there that paypal DOES NOT prevent charge back
**
This says that it is not a cash advance, paypal is the merchant of record. In other words, they are taking the role of the seller, just like they were shipping you the goods, not the person doing the auction. As far as the credit card company is concerned, you bought the item from paypal, and if anything goes wrong, the credit card company
had to charge it back. If you call up the credit card company, and suggest to them that its a cash advance, then I can see where they would say no way.
**
which can only mean the right to charge back. Sailor, I don’t see how they could make it any clearer than that. I called Citibank, and they verified this. Paypal is just like using your credit card to buy something.
Which brings up the whole cash advance thing
CASH ADVANCES ARE EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN BY PAYPAL!
**
therefore it cannot be a cash advance, and must be a credit card trancsaction! period.
**
First of all, you cannot send the more than the purchase amount from your credit card. The only way you can use your credit card from paypal is to purchase an item(because otherwise that would be a cash advance, which you are not allowed). You cannot send them a check either, but you can have them draw the money out of your bank account(which is what I usually do).
A friend of mine bought a motorcycle the other day, payed 3000 cash, and put the rest on his credit card. If the motocycle turned out to be a lemon, he could return it and get the credit card company to credit him back the amount on his card. (assuming he made a effort to resolve it first, as required by law) He would be screwed for the three grand. In fact, since it was his companys credit card, they are trying to do just that(they didnt get too far, since there was no wrongdoing on the part of the motorcycle shop).
This would be the same deal
**
No, it doesnt. See above. What Paypal is trying to say by all this, is despite their seller protection, if you sell something on Ebay, and the other person charges it back, then paypal will come after you(the seller), for the money that the credit card company took back from them.
** The reason it is not made much clearer is that Paypal does not want to advertise this to the users.** They do not want a bunch of people buying stuff, then when they get it, charging it back. Retail stores dont advertise this either, in fact many will deny it. On several ocasions I have used this as my trump card when dealing with unreasonable merchants. When they flat out refuse to refund, I say"well I will just charge it back then", and usually my money is promptly refunded. Fry’s Electronics is good place to use this.
Restrictions. PayPal, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to restrict an account for any one of the events listed below.
Reports of unauthorized or unusual credit card use associated with the account including, but not limited to,
[ul]
1 notice by the card issuing bank
2 Reports of unauthorized or unusual checking account use
3 associated with the account
4 Complaints received regarding non-shipment of merchandise, merchandise not as described, or problems with merchandise shipped
5 **Initiation of a chargeback process through your issuing bank **
snip
[/ul]
Obviously they would not offer to restrict your account for chargbacks if you could not, in fact, do chargebacks.
bdgr, I am not going to argue with you because I am utterly confused by this issue. My credit card said differently. I am not saying the guy I talked to could not be mistaken but I have to give his word more weight.
He did not say you could not do a chargeback against paypal, only against the next link in the chain.
At any rate, they do not explain this clearly. If it is as you say and they would make it clear, I would have used them.
Handy also got stuck with paypal and has not recovered… I’d rather not have to deal with the hassle…
I just wanted to make a quick comment…
First, the seller should not have been rude. I’m not trying to excuse the way he acted.
However, he probably specified “no escrow” when he listed the item. There is a section about escrow on the form you fill out when you list an item. You have to make a selection.
When I sell an item I always select “no escrow.” But my listing never says anything about escrow. My guess is, the listing only says something if escrow is selected. So he probably did specify “no escrow.”