How To Protect Yourself Against Paypal?

kidinquisitivekidinquisitive 1,627 Posts
edited August 2005 in Strut Central
I'm sure I'm not the only one this has happened to. I recently had an overseas buyer claim after a couple weeks that they had not received an LP I had sent out 24 hours after they paid for it. He filed a chargeback claim with paypal. When I found this out I went to my post office and got a copy of the customs form showing I had sent it to him when I said I did. Then I found out the only way Paypal will let sellers contest a chargeback is if they can provide a tracking number. But who gets tracking numbers for international packages? Is that my only option to protect against chargeback scams now? Anyone have any luck fighting one of these claims without a tracking number? Should I just give up on paypal or should I make my bidders pay for tracking, which I'm betting would double the cost for shipping overseas. Any guidance would be much appreciated.

  Comments


  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    (profit from all completed sales)
    - (loss from one chargeback)
    -----------------------------
    (did you make money? #1)


    versus


    (potential sales with no tracking fee)
    - (potential lost sales from instituting tracking fee)
    ----------------------------
    (did you make money? #2)



    Which is larger, #1 or #2? Then you know what you need to do.

  • Of course there's no real way to evaluate my potential sales vs. potential lost sales because I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know which figure is higher. The fact is, every single time I send something out without a tracking number, the buyer can claim they didn't receive it and do a chargeback and there isn't shit you can do about it (unless someone knows something I don't)

  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    Of course there's no real way to evaluate my potential sales vs. potential lost sales because I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know which figure is higher. The fact is, every single time I send something out without a tracking number, the buyer can claim they didn't receive it and do a chargeback and there isn't shit you can do about it (unless someone knows something I don't)

    Ok, look. My girlfriend was dumping some VHS movies online a while back and she kept buying the extra 50 cent tracking number thing from the post office, right? Nobody had even made a claim against her. I mean, she's selling these movies for like, $1.50, $2. Plus she was doing it on Half/Amazon where they automatically give you a shipping allowance that's usually a little above the actual cost of shipping.

    But my point was, what was the big deal if some had to refund someone their money on one VHS movie? She's refunding $1.50.
    But if she's spending 50 cents each time she's mailing one out, and she's not having any do give any refunds, there's no reason to do that. 50 cents * 3 = $1.50. So unless she's refunding 1 in 3 transactions or more, there's no reason to tack on the tracking # - it's just wasting money.

    You have to think of the big picture. You're thinking of the little picture. Chances are, if you double your shipping costs it's going to cost you either A.) sales or B.) bids, resulting in lower sale prices. If you do a decent volume and have to refund one every now and then, that's the cost of doing business. But refunding one record is probably a lot cheaper than losing sales or bids.

    And there's no reason why you can't come up with an estimate of what double shipping costs will do to your sales - business do it all the time. It's called forecasting. How do you think a store like Sears knows how much inventory to have on hand?

  • Yeah, if I was selling $1.50 records I really wouldn't be sweating it. But I have a bunch of triple figure records I'm going to be selling in the next couple months and I don't really feel like getting ripped off because of some arbitrary bullshit. As for the Sears analogy, that's a little weird. Sears can spend hundreds of thousands doing that kind of research whereas I feel any projections I make would more or less be guesswork.

  • Some lady wouldn't let me buy something recently cuz I wasn't confirmed. Supposedly she called or emailed PAYPAL and asked them what if the buyer e-mailed me guaranteeing me he wont reverse the charges. Supposedly they told her if she has it coming from my e-mail saying that I won't there is no way to reverse it. Kinda scary for me but fuck it. I don't know.

  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    Yeah, if I was selling $1.50 records I really wouldn't be sweating it. But I have a bunch of triple figure records I'm going to be selling in the next couple months and I don't really feel like getting ripped off because of some arbitrary bullshit. As for the Sears analogy, that's a little weird. Sears can spend hundreds of thousands doing that kind of research whereas I feel any projections I make would more or less be guesswork.



    You're missing the point. They might be only double digit if you end up doubling the shipping. Or not. It doesn't matter if you have $1.50 records and 50 cent shipping or $150 records and $50 shipping, it's the same.



    You gotta think bottom line, you're doing business and that's how you gotta think. People doing business get ripped off all the time. Retail stores factor in a certain level of loss - just because you're (or anybody) an individual selling mail order doesn't exempt you. Not that I'm trying to say that you shouldn't try to minimize your loss.



    As far as Paypal goes, they own you. I'm pretty sure they require tracking #s, so going to back to thing about doubling your shipping and sales...



    For projections, just compare a some reasonably popular records in the same price range with different shipping requirements and see if it affected their prices any. It might not have, so you might not have to worry about it. But it's worth checking.

  • coffinjoecoffinjoe 1,743 Posts

    As far as Paypal goes, they own you. I'm pretty sure


  • hcrinkhcrink 8,729 Posts
    this happened to me a couple times a while ago. One dude had just gotten kicked off eBay & was just fucking over all the people he'd bought things from. International - so I had no tracking, right? So, I did this: Instead of sending him a refund, I just sent him a normal payment. You can go into resolutions & say "this is the transaction # of my payment to him" - case closed. A month later I filed a comlaint againts him for the refund - which I could do since it was a normal payment. Paypal decided in my favor, but the guy had emptied his account & since he did not sell on eBay, they could not take it from his bank. Anyhow, if the guy ever uses his account again, they will take the money from him, so I pretty much fucked up that paypal account for him. I feel better.


  • When I found this out I went to my post office and got a copy of the customs form showing I had sent it to him when I said I did. Then I found out the only way Paypal will let sellers contest a chargeback is if they can provide a tracking number.

    That doesn't seem right at all. A postmarked customs form is proof that the package was sent, is it not? What more does a tracking number prove other than the status of the package after it is sent? This equates to a policy that a transaction is the seller's responsibility until the item arrives at the buyer's door or there is a mistake on the part of the post office. However, of the very few times that I have purchased tracking numbers for international buyers, only one of them showed that the package was received, although in all cases, the buyers have confirmed that they received the packages either through feedback or email. Backwards. Every day I learn or experience something new that pushes me towards getting out of PayPal/eBay selling altogether.

  • chrischris 287 Posts
    can just anyone request a paypal "chargeback"?
    i was under the impression that you could only try to pull that if you had purchased paypal's "protection package" (or whatever it's called).
    as far as i've noticed, very few people that pay me actually seem to be protected under that, so i haven't given it much thought.
    i guess my policy would be that if you are paying me via paypal with their protection package, then it's mandatory that it's shipped registered.

  • hcrinkhcrink 8,729 Posts
    can just anyone request a paypal "chargeback"?

    yes. Based on what they told me at paypal, they have to refund any complaint due to credit card companies going over their heads - just like paypal goes over sellers heads.


  • DjArcadianDjArcadian 3,632 Posts
    (profit from all completed sales)
    - (loss from one chargeback)
    -----------------------------
    (did you make money? #1)


    versus


    (potential sales with no tracking fee)
    - (potential lost sales from instituting tracking fee)
    ----------------------------
    (did you make money? #2)



    Which is larger, #1 or #2? Then you know what you need to do.

    Another good solution is to require buyers to pay for tracking if they have a low Ebay rating or if the item in question is sold over a certain value.

  • sniffinsniffin 18 Posts
    send it Global Express Mail to get a verfiable tracking #, or ask overseas/unconfirmed buyers to pay via Bidpay instead (no chargebacks)
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