The latest credit card drama!
I know, my life is SO exciting! I wish I made my living dealing with white collar crimes so that this wouldn't seem like a drain of several of my precious free hours each day. Anyway...I made a sale on Ebay a couple months ago, and the $97 was credited to my PayPal account. I didn't think I had to go in there to extract it. I thought it just went directly to your credit card. I mean, when you BUY something it comes off your credit card, why shouldn't it work the same way when you SELL something? I guess I was wrong. It's been sitting in there for 6 weeks. So when the thief bought $476 worth of watches from Zappo's using PayPal, PayPal gave them the $97 that was already in there, and then took another $379 from my credit card. Following so far? Okay, here's where the annoying part happens. My credit card people were WONDERFUL to deal with, as they always are when theft happens. They gladly refund the $379 that was given to Zappos. But PayPal does not relinquish the $97 that was CLEARLY in there from a previous transaction. I submitted a Fraud Report claim to them online, and got an email response today:
"We have completed our investigation of your claim and have determined that
this is not an instance of unauthorized account activity. At this time,
your claim has been denied.
...
If you would like a copy of the documentation that was used in the course
of our investigation, please send a letter via mail to:
PayPal, Inc.
Attn: Unauthorized account Access Appeal
P.O. Box 45950
Omaha, NE 68145"
WTF? Okay, first of all, the "investigation" happened within a matter of hours. Second of all, they did not contact me and ask for any information. I called someone at PayPal and they explained that the investigative team did research through "100s of documents" (my ass) and determined that there was no evidence of fraudulent activity. Therefore, they did not have to give me my $97 back. But the funny thing is, even though they see no evidence of fraudulent activity, they DO NOT ALLOW YOU TO SUBMIT EVIDENCE. So of course they're not going to find evidence! The address they give is for OBTAINING THE INFORMATION THEY USED ("what good is that to me?" I asked the representative) and not actually for sending them any of your information, such as police report, receipts from Zappos, reports from my credit card stating that it was a fraudulent transaction, etc. It's all a scam! PayPal, a huge multi-billion dollar corporation is SO fucking cheap, that they would deny me my claim of $97 for no good reason.
Let this be a lesson to all! PayPal may say that your transactions are insured but it's a lie! They can just outright say "no" and claim they see no evidence of fraud, even though the fraud is staring them in the face, just because they want to hold onto your money.
"We have completed our investigation of your claim and have determined that
this is not an instance of unauthorized account activity. At this time,
your claim has been denied.
...
If you would like a copy of the documentation that was used in the course
of our investigation, please send a letter via mail to:
PayPal, Inc.
Attn: Unauthorized account Access Appeal
P.O. Box 45950
Omaha, NE 68145"
WTF? Okay, first of all, the "investigation" happened within a matter of hours. Second of all, they did not contact me and ask for any information. I called someone at PayPal and they explained that the investigative team did research through "100s of documents" (my ass) and determined that there was no evidence of fraudulent activity. Therefore, they did not have to give me my $97 back. But the funny thing is, even though they see no evidence of fraudulent activity, they DO NOT ALLOW YOU TO SUBMIT EVIDENCE. So of course they're not going to find evidence! The address they give is for OBTAINING THE INFORMATION THEY USED ("what good is that to me?" I asked the representative) and not actually for sending them any of your information, such as police report, receipts from Zappos, reports from my credit card stating that it was a fraudulent transaction, etc. It's all a scam! PayPal, a huge multi-billion dollar corporation is SO fucking cheap, that they would deny me my claim of $97 for no good reason.
Let this be a lesson to all! PayPal may say that your transactions are insured but it's a lie! They can just outright say "no" and claim they see no evidence of fraud, even though the fraud is staring them in the face, just because they want to hold onto your money.