Trucking hell: Kid leaves dad in monster debt after buying oversized vehicle on eBay We've heard it all before – tot addicted to crappy freemium game on Daddy's iPad runs up £3,000 bill from in-app purchases, Dad whinges to local newspaper. However, our cynical hearts go out to the father whose six-year-old son splashed £19,000 through his PayPal account – on an actual, real-life monster truck. Mohammad …
A few years ago, I had a credit card I typically used for the usual household items and computer equipment. One day I used it at a household appliance store for a purchase much larger than I'd even used it for. The store got a notice back that the card wasn't declined, but I had to call a number to verify the purchase. The reason was the purchase was so many thousands of $$$ more than I'd normally used the card for it counted as "suspicious activity".
I'm surprised PayPal doesn't have a similar system for fraud prevention.
Ditto my credit card, which also texts me for normal transactions made without the card present.
While I hope he gets it sorted out, EBay and PayPal both require you to log in and unless you're making lots of transactions every hour you're an idiot if you don't logout, especially if your son is computer savvy.
Last year I bought a diamond engagement ring for ~£10k in a jewellers in Hatton Garden. I was expecting that to trigger some kind of call from my bank, fraud check etc, but that just sailed through - most I've ever spent on a thing that was not a house.
Afterwards, I went into a Boots and tried to buy a bottle of water. Both cards rejected, had to spend 10 minutes on the phone to HSBC re-activating them.
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I'm surprised PayPal doesn't have a similar system for fraud prevention
That would get in the way of them squeezing every possible bit of cash out of their marks^w clients..
I loathe them. In fact, loathing is probably a pale imitation of what I really feel for them...
You would need to prove it was actually made by a minor.
Under EU rules - if they still apply in UK - any online purchase can be cancelled withing 14 days:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm
But it doesn't apply if you bought from a private individual - which may be this case. Probably the seller was happy to have offloaded to some stupid the stupid truck eventually, and doesn't want to wait for another one.
That's one reason not to enable any auto-payment features - I prefer I'm always required to enter credentials for purchases. If there's some form of 2FA, the better. Even for small purchases.
the purchase was made by dad, as it was him that was logged in.
Whether it was his son, his cat or his pet goldfish that actually worked the keyboard during the purchase is impossible for the remote parties to discern, nor whether said creatures are authorised to use that account or not.
A sanity check for an out-of-character purchase, especially one of that magnitude, would not be amiss, though.
the purchase was made by dad, as it was him that was logged in.
No, the purchase was made by whoever made the purchase, not who was logged in.
If there is a dispute over the facts, that is something that (if it ended up in court) the court would have to determine who was telling the truth and who wasn't.
However, I would guess that the T's&C's make it clear that the account holder agrees to be held liable for any payment made while logged in.
Of course, IANAL -- this is just my understanding from reading the various financial agreements I have signed over many years.
I would tend to agree with you on the whole. There's no way to prove the person logged in is the person making the transaction in the same way that someone can take and use someone elses credit/debit card and use it in a shop. If they have the card and PIN, there's no way for the shop assistant to know that the person is not the valid cardholder. In effect, the child "stole" his fathers identity.
"No, the purchase was made by whoever made the purchase, not who was logged in"
You could very well have a point there although I suspect that the likes of PayPal would wait until you prove it in court....
My little boy loves doing the 'beep' (contactless payment) in the shops. I normally let him but one day he was stopped by the cashier because I was buying alcohol. She was adamant that it would be illegal for him to tap my card in that scenario.
I never checked whether there's any truth in that but I do recall having to comfort a sad little boy who didn't understand why he couldn't 'do beep' that time.
>>I never checked whether there's any truth in that but I do recall having to comfort a sad little boy who didn't understand why he couldn't 'do beep' that time.
If it was me, I'd have refused to sell you the booze. Because at that point you are clearly purchasing it for a minor!
What is also odd is that there is the option to request a cancellation of of the transaction. My assumption is that this was made and the seller refused.
Is that because the selling price was so OTT that he knows it is better to fight it and force the issue?
If the price was not OTT then he could just sell it again. I also thought that PayPal took the money immediately, and if there was insufficient funds it was declined.
Was the PayPal transaction taken on a credit card? If so then it surely both PayPal & the credit card provider should have had due diligence.
If it was a straight bank debit then (assuming you are in the fortunate position of having £19k available) it should have been held by the bank.
As more transaction become instant and digital the controls appear to be getting worse and anything that goes wrong is the fault of the customer.
If the purchase was made by someone other than the owner of the account, then it was either:
A) authorised by the owner, in which case the account owner is liable for the purchase.
B) not authorised by the owner, in which case the actual purchaser is guilty of unauthorised access to the account. In which case you can report their crime to the police and it may be covered by the bank/card issuer using fraud protection. The bank will want to pursue the criminal however in an attempt to recover the costs.
so you want to abandon secure logins in favour of scribbled biro?
" where I signed for this"
Signatures prove absolutely fuck all . Its just a weird tradition that they are held as the be all and end all of authentication.
Its about time people (i mean instituitions) got that 17th century bullshit out of their heads.
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I assume you are talking about the US, and there are many exceptions where minors can enter into valid contracts (implied or written) without approval. Yes, buying a monster truck, or most(all?) large purchases would not meet these exceptions. There are many websites that can give you more details about voidable and non voidable contracts, but the concept of "necessity" is important, as would be reasonability. So if your 9 year old goes into a store, pays a dollar for a banana, and eats it, don't expect to go to small claims court and get your money back. If they charged him a thousand $, then you're probably going to get most or all of the money back.
Same in Germany. It saved my wife a couple of times, when her daughter tried downloading MP3s from a site that then sent invoices for a monthly subscription afterwards. A lawyers letter stating the child was under age and not capable of entering into the contract cancelled the invoices and threatened legal action.
It happened in March and is reported in August!
The "victim" claimed no notifications from EBay or PayPal - I'm calling BS, each of them send confirmations almost immediately.
"I haven't got that kind of money in my bank account". PayPal was able to collect it - in near real time, from the default card
Bull_shit
i did wonder about how he paid 19k he hasnt got.
I use a credit card with my paypal, and auto pay it off - it sure as hell wouldnt have bought that though.
So what happens if you have a debit card? Paypal removes it from your account immediately?
They check the balance first right?
so he either had 19k in his current account or an extremely gold credit card?
hmm , thinking about it i need to empty my current account into a savings before something like this happens ! ...
Whoa, not so fast...
If you received an email from "ebay" or "paypal" notifying you of a transaction of epic proportions, what would you do?
Now be honest, what would you do?
The chances are that the user would flag it as spam without thinking.
Not sure of the current stance on whether proof of sending an email legally infers deemed to have been received and opened.
Doesn't sound too bright.
A) EBay *and* paypal DO send notices saying a purchase was made. So the bit about having no notification is false.
B) It's not their job to decide you didn't really want to buy something, or to ask "are you sure" a bunch of times. They DO have you go through several screens on the web site first, and they DO have anti-fraud systems -- but this purchase was not fraudulent, it was made from your computer on your account.
C) Obviously there's some way to cancel a purchase, particularly when nothing has been delivered. Waiting until it goes to collections is not the way to do it.
A) The purchase was allegedly fraudulent, the 6 year old was impersonating the logged in user, therefore identity theft.
B) Did the purchase match normal patterns? If not normal bank/card companies would block payment due to possible fraud, just because it is on the account doesn't mean it was them, the same way just because I used your card details doesn't mean it was you.
C) How did Paypal transfer funds to pay for the purchase? Did the account have that much sat there in Paypal? I doubt it. Did they have a linked card / bank account? £19k would have been rejected by either or triggered a notification for confirmation. Hell of an overdraft facility Paypal are now providing.
Looks like Paypal have fucked up, he should sue them for £19,000.01 + costs.
I've been using paypal for a while, with it attached to my bank account, and whilst they used to do the charge to the bank in real time, these days they authorise transactions immediately (I've in the past had zero credit within paypal itself, yet bought things, and later had them refunded without the bank account being touched)
Mind you, I'm talking £40 quid items, not £19,000 !
This really is an issue with eBay, allowing the bid to be placed / purchase made. Definitely need 2FA / separate authentication for each transaction before the bid is placed / purchase made whenever the amount is above a preset limit or outside of normal purchasing patterns.
One of my (US) credit cards has a limit significantly higher than that. They kept raising my limit, without my ever asking them to. Consumer protections are good enough over here that it's no risk to me to leave it like that, and hey, I may just want to buy a monster truck with it one day.
I've never had it anywhere near the limit, and pay it off 100% every month so I pay no interest.
"There's nothing wrong with a good truck in much of America. Plenty of things to haul, unpaved roads to explore and alligators to shoot and bring home to eat."
While true in some case, the vast majority of the population live in cities where a truck, big or otherwise is personal choice or a status symbol. We call them "Chelsea Tractors" over here. The clue being that no one would EVER need a tractor in Chelsea! (Well, maybe a tractor pulling a grass cutter in a local park, but I'm sure you get the point.
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We call them "Chelsea Tractors" over here
No we dont, thats an SUV
I'm still find it weird that most americans have "trucks" , like pickups. 2 seats , impractical in a lotta ways. (and cool!)
And i'm sure they'll come up with myriad reasons - like alligators
But you could use other vehicles for 90% of those reasons.
Its just a cultural thing i guess, that pickups (real open back pickups with cargo beds) are as common as cars in the US
I've had the same problem with my credit card. I keep telling them to reduce my credit line back to $25k on a regular basis. It's there, only for emergencies and I make sure it's paid off every month. My wife, on the other hand, doesn't understand the concept that paying more in interest than on actual purchases means she doesn't really need a credit card.
Barclaycard will quite happily keep bumping your limit up as long as you're using it and paying on time, mines got 15k available at the moment so I can imagine that 19k would be quite achievable on a card if you had a decent credit score.
Of course, you'd be mental to spend this much on a credit card... But stranger things have happened.
Yup. My CCs are paid in full by direct debit every month. Still very useful because a)Section 75 of Credit act and b)It's not my money being taken when defrauded.
I don't want scrotes being able to siphon funds out of my bank account but if they want to steal my CC issuer's money it's no skin off my nose. I'll just strike the bad transactions off my statement and pay what's left.
But using a CC to borrow money? Hell no. I don't want or need it for that.
"19k would be quite achievable on a card if you had a decent credit score."
He's described in the story as a "takeaway worker". That means he works in a fast-food place, pizzas, kebabs, currys, fish'n'chiops, whatever. Unless he owns the place, he's not likely to be running that high a credit score or have enough movement in his account that a £19K credit limit is likely. Especially after the payday loan kerfuffle in the last year or three resulting a tightening of the rules on giving easy credit to people who can't afford to pay it back. £19K is likely more than his annual salary,
What's wrong with spending that much on a card? If you're going to be spending anyway, why not do so on a card that gives you some kind of benefits like cashback or airmiles etc? Better than spending the same amount on a debit card or with cash where you'll get absolutely nothing back.
Before covid i used to travel a lot for work, that would routinely involve multiple long-haul flights, several weeks in hotels, food, car rentals etc. This all adds up and can take a significant chunk out of a credit limit. So long as the company reimburses the expenses before the card payment is due you're never out of pocket. Plus with some cards you will get a small percentage back which is basically free since the company reimburses the actual expenses anyway.
I dunno. In the last 2 weeks I was transfering £20,000 per day via Debit Card (I was told it was limited to £20,000 per day - wrongly), and it all worked fine. At least my retirement savings have gone to a place better than 0.001% interest. Wonder when the Banks will charge 0.001% interest on borrowings...
>>>19000 is above credit limit.
My personal Amex has a £32k limit, and I once (two years ago) had to purchase a server for work and claim back on expenses, all £30k of it.
Amex didn’t bat an eyelid (although to be fair I had made several expensive flight purchases in the previous few weeks).
My Avios balance did well out of it.
there is no way i would have trusted any employer i've worked for to pay that promptly enough, just down to tripping several near sighted corporate buerocrisy rules.
- only biuld up so much flexi ir you lose it
- no overtime we cant afford it - um, but you pass that directly to the custmoer with mark up and make profit wtf, no i have to explain why i cant stay and finish the job even when they say money is no object.
- you want to claim 30k back on petty cash? no sorry , the limit is one pack of postits. um , yeah but i was helping the company out , saving the day , preventing us losing a huge customer becasue our finance dept still use ink blotters ....
"well that was silly of you wasnt it"
etc
That Paypal window that comes up when you go to pay through Paypal to enter your password has a pre-ticked option to leave it permanently logged in.
Don't take it. This guy must have done that and this is the consequence.
Annoyingly the only other option is something to the effect of not now. The option to never show it again isn't presented. I wonder if having a default which leaves the account exposed gives him some slight leverage.
Turn on 2FA in PayPal, it'll ask you for the code every time unless you tick remember this device. Also, don't verify your credit card, that means PayPal will enforce its own yearly spending limit on it. And, of course, never ever give them your bank account number.
But PayPal is a necessary evil, otherwise you're reduced to entering your credit card details into far too many websites.
I have 2FA on for PayPal - except it doesn't work for eBay, where somehow it just magically pays with one click using only my active eBay session for authentication. I imagine I set this up when I sold some stuff years ago (back when you had to get a physical 2fa card for PayPal), but now I don't have any idea how to turn it off.
Fortunately my default PayPal card messages me for purchases so at least I would know.
Monster Truck Madness predates Midtown Madness by several years (1996/1999, respectively). Really enjoyed dialing up the horsepower and other vehicle parameters in the game data files of Midtown, leading to such fun as accidentally driving up the sides of buildings and other glitches. :) ...
Both great games, along with Motocross Madness. Each of them have at least one follow-on version that provide additional content, improved game engine, etc. Still good fun if you're not looking for photorealism, accurate physics, or realistic damage models.
> Really enjoyed dialing up the horsepower and other vehicle parameters in the game data files of Midtown, leading to such fun as accidentally driving up the sides of buildings and other glitches. :) ...
"Accidentally"?
Oh come off it. :) If memory serves, similar tricks could be played on Motorcross Madness, to hilarious effect.
The best 'adjustment' of game parameters that I ever was party to was a very old game called Deathtrack. If you had missiles or other expendable weaponry, it was quite easy to always have them completely 'restocked' for each track--they were quite expensive. But the better trick was to set them to negative quantities, as the game would subtract 1 from your total each time you fired.... and they never hit zero, so they never ran out. Good times, good times.
I'm not sure stupid is the word. Ill-informed, or ill-advised, perhaps? The whole online marketing thing is designed to make it absolutely painless to purchase online - Amazon, Ebay and no doubt others want you to just click and go.
There's a psychological block, I think, about handing over five pound notes. Using plastic doesn't tend to trigger the same thoughtful response, and click to buy is an absolute menace.
The whole online marketing thing is designed to make it absolutely painless to purchase online - Amazon, Ebay and no doubt others want you to just click and go.
It's why I periodically check that Amazon hasn't set my account to use "1-Click". To me it's something whose only purpose is to trick you into accidental purchases, so I refuse to use it. It means of course that I can't but digital media through them; oh well, their loss.
And on my Amazon account I have an expired CC as my "default" payment. So I have to go in and select a different payment method anytime I buy anything there. Some years back some banks had set up one-use credit card numbers, which would be perfect for your on-file CC for feeBay and the rest of their ilk. Also handy for those sample subscriptions that will never end. But I expect it's for those very reasons that the banks were "convinced" into dropping the program. Because we can't let personal security get in the way of screwing the customer.
My bank still offers the service for one time credit cards, and I can also generate one with a predefined duration in months and a max amount available. That's the card I use on Paypal. When it expires or the max amount is reached, I generate a new one. The max amount is usually a few hundred euros, I never used Paypal for larger sums.. I always wonder why such system isn't more widespread. When you know you can buy safely you buy with less fears. I made purchases I would have not done otherwise. If I felt conned, I would buy less and less.
Similarly I've been using PayPal with a linked bank account that usually has just a small balance, and zero overdraft. Larger purchases that I need to make via PayPal I either transfer the appropriate amount from my main account beforehand, or PP makes the payment, the bank rejects the DD and PP notifies me that I need to settle the debt I now have with them some other way.
By which I mean the seller, eBay, PayPal, and the bulk of commentards. The gentleman in question is a "takeaway worker," which I assume means either delivery driver, cook, or cashier. In any case, he's probably poor and not especially educated and not a computer expert. It seems like a genuine mistake was made, one which should have been caught by PayPal, but even if it wasn't, the seller could have shown some compassion and cancelled the sale.
Hopefully the general public is not as misanthropic as the commentards here. The guy is taking the issue to the court of public opinion, which is probably the right move at this point. Hopefully the other parties will feel the pressure and let the whole thing drop. Deals fall through all the time.
Oh, sweet summer child. You've never had a dispute with PayPal, have you?
Friend of mine had £4k - literally his income to cover him for three months - arbitrarily frozen by PayPal, and it took three months for them to claim 'unusual account activity'.
It took two years and a subsequent grand and a half of legal fees (after he had thrown himself into his business for 18 hours days for three months cover his rent) for him to get his money back. And yes, he got his legal fees back, eventually. Because he won.
I was on the dole at the time, and even I loaned him a fiver here and a quid there to get food. Because he was self employed in the early days of Universal Credit so dole wasn't exactly being helpful for him.
Paypal do not care about you. Paypal only care about their bottom line. Anything they can do to get out of releasing funds of lettings debts drop, they will do, absolutely without exception.
Unless you have the money to take them to court, obviously.
Do not, ever, put any serious funds in Paypal. Period. They are the most mercenary shitheads out there.
Steven R
Closed and burned my PayPal account to the ground years ago.
Haven't looked back, and this sort of thing just validates my motivations.
Ditch PayPal. You can feed your credit card info through them on individual purchases, and if they try to get cute they get to try and explain themselves to a primary payment provider that is Not Amused and perfectly capable of revoking their ability to process payments.
For everything else, use actual reputable companies.
I am in the process of saying goodbye to PayPal. I have a credit card that I use only for online purchases, with a bank (Co-op) that is very good at halting any suspicious payment and querying me. It can be a pain, but it has actually saved me twice from huge scams on the card. I don't find it a burden to have a few extra seconds of inputting -- it allows me time to reconsider and stop impulse buying, or to double-check my order.
I bought a car off FleaBay, and paid for it through PayPal. It was described as being "a good little car", and still had some MOT left on it. I bought a train ticket to collect it, and drove it home. When I took it to the MOT station next morning, it failed comprehensively. I contacted the seller, who said that it was fine when I collected it, and it should have passed the MOT alright, so he wasn't prepared to refund the money (it was fairly cheap, anyway). I raised a complaint with FleaBay, they said that vehicles were not covered by their money back guarantee. I escalated it to PayPal, who said the same thing. I escalated it again with my CC provider, who said thay Section 75 does not apply if the funds are funnelled through a second system, such as payPal. I raised the issue with the Financial Ombudsman's Office, and they said that they were not able to intervene as I'd already exhausted all the necessary steps, and was out of the 3 month time limit. Eventually, I spent yet more money on getting the MOT problems solved, and the car is, indeed, a good little car now, but has cost me considerably more than the advertised price, plus a lot of aggro.
a private sale isnt going to take a credit card payment directly , and thus let yuou make use of article 75.
All you can do is look at the car first , or when you turn up to collect it and not pay if not up to scratch.
You cant always tell , but thems the risks.
Lesson learned I guess. Next time you'll buy a car with 10+ months MOT remaining - although there are still dodgy dealers with mates in MOT test centres that get dodgy cars passed.
Seems to me that if you buy a second hand car that's more than 8 years old, you should factor in a few hundred quid for the next MOT to get it back up to scratch.
Yes, dude should have taken precautions to keep his kids from buying things. However, if I understand correctly, the issue a lot of people commenting here seem to be missing is that the buyer didn't actually have the money to pay for the truck. It's not clear based on the article if PayPal gave the seller any money. One would think that PayPal would see the buyer does not have the money then simply cancel the transaction. If the situation was flipped and the seller didn't actually have the truck, would PayPal send collections after the seller demanding a monster truck?
"However, if I understand correctly, the issue a lot of people commenting here seem to be missing is that the buyer didn't actually have the money to pay for the truck."
I'm sure people here do realise that. The people who don't are PayPal and eBay and it's they who are getting slagged off.
Isn't the contract of supply & purchase between the eBay seller & purchaser? eBay is just a way for a seller & buyer to find each other and Paypal is just a means to transfer money, just like a bank, credit card, etc. Paypal don't care if the buyer doesn't have the funds. They'll just decline the transaction. The seller could try their luck in court claiming breach of contract by the buyer.
The buyer needs the seller to agree to cancel the supply contract.
"Isn't the contract of supply & purchase between the eBay seller & purchaser?"
No contract without consideration. You can only claim for out-of-pocket expenses that occurred due to breaking of a promise. This is usually called promissory estoppel. You cannot enforce the contract, but if the guy drives his truck half-way round the country to be sold and then you say no, he can claim expenses, lost time, etc. As it stands, there is no detriment, the buyer stated quickly that it was a mistake, so no estoppel.
Paypal can appoint debt collectors all they want. They can do this whether or not the debt doesn't actually exist. And you certainly cannot chase for debt before the goods have been exchanged. "It's outside my house, come and get it" doesn't cut it.
IANAL though, as you.
If the account in the article is correct, the buyer did not have the funds yet Paypal did not decline the transaction and are now pursuing him. It reads like PayPal is hounding the buyer on behalf of the seller. Perhaps there's something missing from the story though. For example, it's unclear if the seller got his money.
"If the account in the article is correct, the buyer did not have the funds yet Paypal did not decline the transaction and are now pursuing him. It reads like PayPal is hounding the buyer on behalf of the seller."
Indeed, and since PayPal is an intermediary, and not a party to the contract (their own opinion) what business do they have appointing debt collectors in the first place?
"I read it as PayPal have paid the seller making the buyer in debt to paypal."
I would like to see any contract like that. You win a bid on eBay, form a promise with the seller (explicitly not a contract) and then what? PayPal just hands over money to someone, and then tries to get it off someone else? Still no contract has been formed, as no consideration has been made. PayPal will try to come up with promissory estoppel here, if they did pay the seller assuming that the buyer would come forward. But I personally think that PayPal handing £19k to someone would not be considered 'reasonable' by any magistrate, and that's an important part of estoppel, whether the actions causing consequential loss are reasonable.
I agree, its shit and I don't see how its legal but I can believe that its how they operate because its also how PayPal do their dispute resolution.
I keep zero money in my PayPal account.
If I sell something on eBay get the money and ship the item and withdraw the funds from PayPal THEN the buyer disputes the transaction, PayPal will debit my balance making it a negative value, give the money back to the buyer and emails to me threatening me with debt collection if I don't pay them the money back.
I know this because it happened a few months ago when I sold one of the kids old phones and it "went missing" in the post.
This is true. Ebay's rules are that once winning a car auction, the buyer can walk away up until the vehicle is collected. It looks to me like the buyer rather than follow the process which would have got him out of the proverbial creek straight away, has instead put his head in the sand. The process is contact the seller and tell them you no longer want the vehicle. It's that simple. I sell cars on ebay all the time, it's frustrating when buyers decline, but it's within the rules. I suspect the buyers silence is what has escalated this. Contract law top tip, if you don't challenge within a reasonable time you are deemed in law to have accepted a contract by default. Never stay silent hoping something will go away.
I have a colleague who a month or two back was working on his tablet when one of his young children became curious about the fingerprint reader. He (the adult, of course) enrolls the child as an additional user to demonstrate fingerprint reading.
You can probably guess what's coming next.
Kid's playing one of those games that has 'in app' purchases. Parent isn't paying attention (or doing something sensible like un-enrolling kid after fingerprint demo). Its easy to get what you want, you just stab the screen. The bill was only for $700. Apple and game company were not sympathetic.
Does iPadOS allow multiple user accounts yet?
When Microsoft introduced a Children's Mode (limiting which apps and websites could be used) on their mobile OS, it seemed like a clearly useful feature - even if a phone doesn't have payment details stored in it, the fear of Little Johnny deleting phone contacts instead of playing Snake goes back twenty years.
EDIT: it appears iPads only offer Guided Access mode, restricting Johnny to a single app if he doesn't know your access code. More recent versions Android, Windows and Chrome OS have support for multiple user accounts.
It is simple - don't buy iPads for children to use. Buy Fire Tablets (or other cheap Android tablets) - proper user accounts and proper child management. Sure, they are less powerful, but they are also dirt cheap when they get broken (and there's a 2 year replacement policy on the kids editions).
If I had to rate customer support for these threee, I'd rate them:
Amazon 9.9/10
eBay 2/10
PayPal -1/10
PayPal are the least helpful company on this planet in my experience. They simply will not help. Unfortunately a number of small businesses use PayPal to process online payments, so either you stick with Amazon or take a risk and use the small business and PayPal.
Fortunately, in the UK the credit (not debit) card rules force the card companies to properly process chargebacks when things go wrong with a PayPal processed payment. I always think at least twice before using PayPal to process a card payment, and often just don't take the risk.
I've not had to force a chargeback very often (3 or maybe 4 times in my entire life,) but 2 of those have involved PayPal card payments.
My experience is different
I buy a bit of stuff on EBay and pay with PayPal
Occasionally I get duff stuff:
I follow the EBay process - contact the seller and describe the problem. If no satisfaction, initiate an EBay dispute - EBay sets a deadline of about a week. Mostly the refund is forthcoming. If not, EBay decides in my favour - the money comes.
Examples
- 400ml glasses that are 310ml (seller refunded almost immediately)
- UPS sold as new which was obviously not (seller tried to play hardball, sent a pre-paid mailer then claimed a 30% "restocking" fee. A complaint to EBay produced a full refund within 2 hours
- International smartwatch which was Chinese only. Seller tried to get me to accept a discount, then claimed they needed the money to feed their family [they had 300,000 Ebay sales]. Before the EBay dispute settlement deadline the money arrived
Although I have learned to be careful on eBay. If I go through'official' channels to query a late arrival, they often simply refund my money. And then the item arrives, and then I have a lot of trouble actually getting the money tot he vendor. I don't want free stuff just because Royal Mail was a little late in delivery. It hurts small vendors. So I say my query is 'other' and have a nice chat with them and it has always been resolved amicably, with me getting my stuff and them getting their money.
Fortunately, in the UK the credit (not debit) card rules force the card companies to properly process chargebacks when things go wrong with a PayPal processed payment. I always think at least twice before using PayPal to process a card payment, and often just don't take the risk.
do they? I've just read somewhere above that a credit card company wriggled out of refunding claiming the money had been "moved through a secondary" or some shit , ie paypal.
If PayPal broke the 1 to 10 scale you should check out Square's subsidiary Cash App. You literally can't get in touch with a real person for customer service. Their published phone number just plays a recording telling you to use the in app help function. The in app help function contains inaccurate information and does not provide any means to contact a real person at Cash App.
PayPal moved their office out of the UK several years back so they don't have to be regulated by the FCA. They claim to be registered so people think they're safe to do business with but their FCA registration is not as a bank or credit provider but as an e-money supplier, which offers no practical protection.
Someone will challenge the way that browsers display order forms on the screen (I'd be surprised if there haven't been any cases).
How can a company like ebay *prove* that an order form, together with its associated T's&C's looked the way it was intended to do, when presented to a user. There are all sorts of reasons why things might not appear as they should do: Cookie's set, DNS server used, Browser used, client browser settings, such as text and background colours, cacheing, anti-malware utilitiy, pop-up blockers, Javascript settings, which CDN or Cloud node was involved in delivering this content stream, etc. Ebay can infer some things by looking at the raw logs, but in a way adequate to be used as evidence? I doubt it. As the plaintiff they have to go the extra mile in their argument of proof.
Sorry, as an Aussie (if it makes any difference) and as a regular buyer of tat on fleabay, banggood, aliexpress etc etc I can't see how this happens at all.
Any time I go over my daily PayPal limit (I think mine's $200 or $500) I get email notifications straight away from PayPal to confirm it's me and then they send me an SMS when I say it is me.
I've seen stories like this before - "Five! year! old! buys! a house with dad's credit card" etc etc.
Maybe it's different where this took place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Would buy a lot of beer ----->
Ok, I don’t know if the price paid is close to the value of the item but re-listing on e-bay would offer a fair chance of recouping some money if not some profit. Many use e-bay as a commodity market re-listing stuff hours after buying. You don’t have to have the thing to hand to sell it on.
wackily modified trucks are never worth anything near what the owners think they are , and way way less than the money thats gone into them.
When they are forced to sell and take what they can get (becasue of the wife) you can pick up a chassis full of good bits, take the wheels , winches etc and scrap the rest
I just do not look at my e-mails as often as i used to.
And as for phone calls. I have had so many calls saying that "your BT internet is about to be disconected..." when I have used Virging for 20 years. or "Your amazon prime substription is about to expire". Which i can check in seconds by logging on.
Luckily I have this handy button on my house phone. "Block" and i must press it at least once a week to block a "new" phone number.
/Rant on
And why does the NHS insist of blocking their phone number when they call? I keep thinking about blocking ALL missing number calls, and i might just do it anyway
/Rant off
Oh the joys of unregulated operators in regulated domains!
Huge advantages accrue to businesses that can sidestep hard won controls that protect the customer, and they're progressively rising to dominate the market. However the free for all will eventually lead to free fall.
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