PayPal Frustration

by on May 13, 2009

Someone filed a dispute, and immediately escalated it to a claim, about a purchase they made on one of my sites. It’s a membership site that charges a small fee to access the information and has done fairly well. The site uses a simple script that requires the person to choose a password and submit payment via PayPal and their PayPal email address is used as their login. The script includes a password retrieval system that requires the person to enter their Paypal email address. So, where did we go wrong?

The person claims that they paid and could not log in. The email address that they contacted me and filed a dispute with is not in the system, so I can’t verify any of the claims. I also cannot check the logs to see if the person did, in fact, log in and use the membership.

My only thought is that the claimant has multiple email addresses under one account and used a different one to register than he did to contact me and file the dispute. There is no way for me to know and he hasn’t responded to my email yet. And, he’s cancelled the subscription, so he’s not due the ability to log in at this point anyway.

It’s a small fee, so I will be refunding the amount without too much of a hassle, but it does irk me that this can and did happen and I don’t have any answers, yet, that will help me avoid it in the future. Another concern is that the person simply wanted to access the information to copy it and use it elsewhere. If the fee is disputed, and I issue a refund, he gets it for free. Therefore, it’s important that I get this figured out.

The frustration with PayPal mainly stems from the fact that I cannot adequately communicate, nor resolve, this situation via their system without refunding the money. It largely works in the buyers favor because he immediately escalated it from a dispute, which allows me to respond, to a claim, which doesn’t. Here are my three options:

  • I can provide proof that the item has shipped
  • I have not shipped the item and I will refund the payment
  • I can provide proof that I refunded the payment for this transaction

Well, I can’t provide proof that the buyer got what he paid for without verifying who he is in the system and whether or not he was able to log in. I can’t make sure he has access, and he’s already cancelled the subscription, so I can’t give him access at this point. I don’t want to refund the payment without knowing that, so I can’t provide proof that I refunded the payment.

There’s no way for me to select one of those three options, or to post the facts to the PayPal Resolution Center. I would like to respond to get more information and to clarify that, despite his claims, he did not contact me numerous times. I received one extremely brief one line email with no name or other information, which seems suspect in and of itself.

  • http://buypennystockstoday.com buy penny stock

    I also have problem with paypal. Yes you are right it is hard to communicate with them. But there’s no other alternative for online payment. Every body uses it.

    buy penny stock´s last blog post..Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits

  • http://www.mojadieta.eu Dieta

    If he did send you money just send it back and get it over with. It’s better than to argue with people like that. If he’s still interested he might pay again.

  • http://drivelocity.com drivelocity

    That’s not the issue Dieta. I had no problem sending the money back. The issue is threefold: 1) the buyer jumped the gun and immediately upgraded it from a dispute to a claim, thus removing my ability to respond, 2) PayPal gives you limited options and those options are set up in the buyer’s favor and 3) there was a problem with the script I was using, which isn’t PayPal’s fault.

    The problem has been fixed, but this isn’t the first time I’ve run into an issue like this, where PayPal didn’t make any attempt to protect the seller. One issue I had before was selling advertising space. The buyer ended up getting free advertising because PayPal sided with him, even though I proved that they got what they paid for. It makes selling advertising space a somewhat risky business. Next time I’ll fight harder.

  • http://www.trade-show-guru.com/about/ trade show guru

    The fact that he escalated it so fast makes me suspect he planned to pull a fast one all along… I would be pissed to.

    I once bought something on ebay that didn’t work. I sent it back and the company gave me a full refund. But paypal deducted a “transaction fee” so I didn’t really get all my money back. It wasn’t worth pursuing, but it has left a bad impression about Paypal with me ever since. I only use them when I absolutely have to. ~ Steve, the trade show guru

    trade show guru´s last blog post..The Dirty Little Secret to Designing Great Trade Show Exhibits

  • http://www.colorprintingwholesale.com/custom_printing.html Wholesale Printing

    What would the qualifications be, for a dispute to be upgraded to a claim? It would be a really great thing if you learned how this happened and why it happened. This way, you can be prepared how to handle similar issues in the future. Good luck!

  • http://drivelocity.com drivelocity

    Unfortunately, I don’t think a buyer has to qualify his/her decision to upgrade it from a dispute to a claim. PayPal encourages buyers to try to resolve it otherwise as the purpose of the dispute is to open a line of communication. The buyer in this case didn’t seem to want to communicate, or didn’t understand how the system is intended to work.

  • http://my-weightlosshelp.blogspot.com kent

    Things like this keep happening once in a while. It is best to get over such things by issuing a prompt refund. The good thing to note here is that such occurrences are not too frequent .
    .-= kent´s last blog ..Discover Six Fast Ways to Loose Weight =-.

  • http://drivelocity.com drivelocity

    kent, It may be the easiest route, but I’m not one to reward stupidity, or bad behavior. I also wanted to be able to determine the problem… I found out what was wrong, resolved it, and issued the refund right away.

  • http://stockspenny.net/ Amy

    Despite some of paypal’s problems, I still have found it much better than dealing with checks and money orders, especially some of those US money orders that at only accepted by the US Post Office or certain banks.