"Collin Brendemuehl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Gleaned from a newsgroup this a.m.: > >"Here's the most common Paypal scam: > >You sell somebody something and you're paid with a credit card. >You withdraw the funds and ship the item. >The buyer receives the item and then calls the credit card company and claims >it's defective. >The credit card company immediately issues a chargeback, without any kind of >investigation.
This where this "scam" becomes an urban legend, I think. Pay Pal isn't a "merchant" at all, they're basically a cash transfer service. Technically, you don't pay for any physical product with a credit card via Pay Pal, you pay Pay Pal for a SERVICE: Sending money to someone. As long as Pay Pal can prove that they have indeed sent the correct amount of money to the correct person, they've fulfilled their obligations and the credit card company has no grounds for a chargeback. In fact, Pay Pal has been subject to a lot of outrage from people who got ripped off by eBay sellers and discovered they *couldn't* get a chargeback for defective or undelivered merchandise. Using your credit card on Pay Pal is exactly like taking a cash advance on your credit card and wiring the money to someone: You can't get your money back from the credit card company (or the wire service) if the person you sent it to reneges on their end of the deal. The recent buyer protection plan offered by Pay Pal and eBay is an attempt to address this problem. I believe that it's still an option left up to the seller, though. -- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
