My Real PayPal Horror Story! How Paypal almost got me kicked out of university!

[moneyhustler88]

So as alot of you know. I was thinking about buying a macbook. after shopping around on my stealth account and the recent split up from my ex. I thought a new computer was in order, not only to keep me up to date with better music productions but also video.
So after shopping arounded i bought a macbook pro i5.
After winning it on ebay, i was delighted to have got it £890. Which to say it had a mouse and was in immaculate condition and only a year old, I didn't think was to bad.


Anyway, so i head off to the bank..make payment, but as it's a new card i had just recieved from my bank, I decided to checkout and just pay, with no paypal email regestration, just make the payment.
after doing this and the payment was complete i recieved a reciept from paypal and the option to create a paypal account, which i decided not to.
so there i was, happy as day that i was going to be the proud owner of a very good macbook pro.


later that night, my friend who works for the university called me. he said mate i need to speak to you and it's important. Knowing this friend a while, i knew it wouldn't be not serious. he told me that someone had complained to my university I had attempted to order a laptop and it had been posted and i hadn't returned it.


i explained that i had recieved no laptop and the only one on order was a macbook from ebay, so I showed my friend the reciept, bank statement and logged onto my email. on my email there was no payment held, no payment problems limitation or refund.issued.


I logged onto ebay..payment made. No problems.
So I'm really like, well it can't be my new macbook, plus it hasn't been delievered right?
so my friend goes off and he puts in a good word with the university for me, saying that basically ive paid for the only laptop i have/will be delievered and hes seen evidence of this.
he comes back to me a hour later after getting off the phone to the university security (who oddly are dealing with this)..he says that the security told him that when my laptops delievered tommorrow it will be held by my university due to 'payment issues'. I was pretty shocked, yet astonished. As i knew i had done nothing wrong, i scrambled my brain thinking what was going on.


i again went onto paypal, ebay. payment complete. payment fine.
no email from the seller, no contact. i presumed everything was fine then.
So my friend tells me a 'woman rang the university and said i ordered a laptop and there was payment issues' and complained to my university that i was a scam artist. i explained to him that the only item I had ordered i'd paid for. so my friend not having much power, said well they will resolve it tommorrow with you.


So this morning 9am, my hotel phone rings (i live in a hotel university accommodation)..i get a call from my uni halls manager..saying can you come downstairs now.very angry and sounded pissed off.
I come downstairs to see the head of the university halls, who i know quite well. she takes me into the office and tells me we had a complaint that you ordered a item off ebay and your card was declined.
i explained to her i have checked paypal, ebay, my email and my bank and theres no problem with the payment.


she tells me that the couple, who were selling the macbook have drivne 5 hours to middlesborough and are outside, so happily take it up with them.
i go outside and approach them, explaining to them i have no idea who they are and what laptop..they tell me 'it's the macbook you paid for' the payments been 'held' and paypal have told us 'a unauthorised credit card without permission' was used and opened in paypal dispute centre so the funds are being held and i'm -£890. i look at a print out the women and man give me. so

i call them into the reception of my accommodation, i explain to them i did pay for the item and i have no idea why or what is going on but I will find out. so i go in hand and get my laptop and telephone. i show the couple my bank statement, email, paypal and ebay where there is no indication of a payment hold or any problems. they tell me 'oh well our ebay looked like that too'..

so i decide to chat to ebay about this. i log onto ebay chat, they tell me to ring paypal. so i use the 020 extension for paypal and ring them from my mobile, quoting the paypal reciept number i had, and kept the phone on loudspeaker with the couple next to me.

as i'm saying this their parcel arrives. I say to them, you sign for it.
so they do. the next thing i'm though to paypal. after explaining to one gentlemen the situation, he put em through to the resolution centre where i speak to another man. After explaining it to him briefly, as i was on hold for 15 minutes he says 'you will have to fax in some id' basically the seller never provided the 'postage information' when requested so we have held the payment. I explained to the guy, my university had told me i'd been declined on a payment and now i was being held responsible, as if i was a scammer or had tried to scam someone. but my side ive been charged, no indication of any limiation. the paypal guy says 'no sir it's not your fault at all' the limitations actually come because straight after payment the sellers tried to withdraw £800+.


So i explain in more detail to to the guy that the sellers have now driven to my university 5 hours and want the macbook back and told my university i'd ordered a item and my card had been declined.
after hearing this, the gentlemen said 'you know what i'll release the funds for you' and i asked him to repeat this. He didn't like that, I've already told you sir!! so i suggest to the couple log onto ebay/paypal..have a look. and magic..theres no dispute..no limitation..and the payments complete not held..so i ask the couple, why did you not just contact me or ebay/paypal first? instead of going to my university and making me look like a dodgy scammer or some broke person! they were speechless and just said 'well we thought we'd been scammed and we'd tell you but obviously when we are here we can see your a genuine nice guy'. i explained to them that paypal was rubbish and they needed to be careful. and told them, you've given me a bad reputation at university not alone the embarrassment of the whole incident! they left me the macbook pro happily..and after explaining to my halls manager that they had misunderstood and this was all a misunderstanding, my halls manager said 'we know rs, he's a good guy anyway know he wouldn't do that.' - i'm thinking yeah right!!!!!


If i hadn't been decisive enough to make the judgment to investigate or do anything, I'd probably have been in prison right now for something i didn't do!! Or kicked out of university. the couple said they'd also call my halls manager head, but when i called her to explain she's recieved no phonecall.

paypal..you disgust me! but to the sellers too poor call..

[Thankful]

Oh wow , firstly i can't believe i just read all that - had to have 2 coffee breaks in between reading.

Nice ending though, you obviously had luck finding someone kind enough to help you with the PayPal releasing money issue for the mac.

I think the morale of the story is don't buy mac's hahaha!

PCs and Laptops all the way baby!



But in all seriousness, I can't believe they'd travel that far aswell jeeez - Wouldn't be surprised if they come back to pay you a visit when they see them paypal fees for the mac, what clowns!

The sellers were stupid in not contacting P/P straight away - and P/P were just born stupid.

[ets]

I think they were trying to scam you... I've had a number of buyers trying something similar on me because I entered incorrect tracking like AI instead of AG when using RM and they claimed they've never received item. when physically checking receipts and noticing the error they are found out and paypal refunds the payment holds. Be careful, keep receipts and tracking information and any communication.. there are alot of scammers out there

[moneyhustler88]

believe it..i think i was genuinely lucky. but what annonyed me was i was the buyer..and made to do all the work.

not a good seller. not a good experience, so I left them negative feedback! But I think in all fairness, i should after this day.

I always thought paypal customer service in the UK couldnt do anything to your account, and now i know they can.

they just are tight people who like to limit and keep your account.

amen god knew i did nothing wrong and i luckily got some one who understood the situation from paypal, although he did try and fob me off into faxing the information at first!

[moneyhustler88]

now its just time to learn mac! im getting use to garageband..my manager says cubase is crap lol

[Burning]

The moral of the story is to AVOID using your real address. Some idiots will do anything to run a smear campaign. I've received a few threats in the past - simply put, use a PO box or an address far away from you.

[moneyhustler88]

Originally Posted by Burning

The moral of the story is to AVOID using your real address. Some idiots will do anything to run a smear campaign. I've received a few threats in the past - simply put, use a PO box or an address far away from you.

I was using a stealth, even stealthed the billing address. But i obviously has the item posted to my real address.

But i thought about it afterwards and perhaps that was a blessing in disguise, as if i'd given an address they couldn't have got hold off, they may have just rang the police and reported me for fraud.

even though it wasn't that and that wasn't the case. Knowing the stupid mentality of these sellers!!

[rsot]

Burning makes a good point - I dont let any service besides utilities have my real address on file - po box is solid for privacy @ 10-12 a month.

[Burning]

Originally Posted by Schrib

I was using a stealth, even stealthed the billing address. But i obviously has the item posted to my real address.
But i thought about it afterwards and perhaps that was a blessing in disguise, as if i'd given an address they couldn't have got hold off, they may have just rang the police and reported me for fraud. even though it wasn't that and that wasn't the case. Knowing the stupid mentality of these sellers!!

Police do not get involved in civil matters. They can report you to the police all they like, but they'll treat it with a grain of salt. They don't take action based on a single complaint. You have to understand police force get hundreds, if not thousands of complaints per month.

[SUVE]

Information is very hard to read, it could have done with a bit of editing.

If i hadn't been decisive enough to make the judgment to investigate or do anything, I'd probably have been in prison right now for something i didn't do!! ----the Police don't work like this as Burning's explained.

It worked out for you in the end.

[they_screwed_me_too]

i think we should all club together and buy schrib a large box of paragraph implementers

[moneyhustler88]

im sorry guys hahaha i had to vent my anger somewhere and it ended up in a big typing essay. Now i've got 5 fiverr rap gigs to deal with, 2 university assignments and a dieing eager to understand garageband and how to record on it!
Yeah, you guys say the police won't have got it involved, but i think the contrary!

i think they'd come bust my door down. beacuse at the end of the day if they have a complaint or investigation to be done, they have to arrest someone to deal with it. well thats what nottingham cops always say.

so if they did report it, they would have to speak to me, and if it turned out my address is some ⊗⊗⊗⊗ PO box, it'd just look suspicious to them.

the fact that i actually came out, spoke to this couple, provided them evidence of payment and rang PayPal along with used my true address to them, shows i was genuine and not a scammer at all.
and ebay/paypal didn't have my address listed at all, they had a different one, as per the ebay stealth guide 'i asked the seller' if he'd ship to my home address and they did, even though it wasn't the regestered one on ebay.

(they claim this got them more worried it could be a scam) so technically already had a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ address. Technically if i wanted to really f them over, they never delievered to the ebay address listed or provided so I could dispute and get money back. But i'm not like that..way too honest.

[SUVE]

Yeah, you guys say the police won't have got it involved, but i think the contrary! i think they'd come bust my door down. beacuse at the end of the day if they have a complaint or investigation to be done, they have to arrest someone to deal with it. well thats what nottingham cops always say. so if they did report it, they would have to speak to me, and if it turned out my address is some ⊗⊗⊗⊗ PO box, it'd just look suspicious to them.
the fact that i actually came out, spoke to this couple, provided them evidence of payment and rang PayPal along with used my true address to them, shows i was genuine and not a scammer at all.

No,no, nope. The Police definitely do NOT work like this in the UK.

I have had encounters with the Police & I have studied a bit of Law at A Level as well as reading around the subject & I know this is not the way they operate.

[moneyhustler88]

lol suve believe if it was me they would probs investigate it..i've beaten more guys up than ****ing jackie chan aha

[Thankful]

Bruce Lee > Jackie Chan

[moneyhustler88]

not on a idiot thing..have i had alot of fights and trouble with the police. Its been because where im from in nottingham..you either fight..or your classed as a 'pussy'.
It's stupid because you can't be friends with someone from a different postcode to you or your a 'snake'. Plus to be fair the police in nottingham are corrupt anyway, do a google search or bbc it and you'll see they've been investigated by the ipcc so many times.
Obviously now am at university I keep my cool and fighting for me was a long time ago, but obv feds dont see that. They just see your skin colour and the board..trust

[SUVE]

Nottingham does have a bad rep in terms of the numerous gangs operating in that area & the rampant crime levels. I'll give you that.

[GreenBean]

shhhh. None of that please.

Very very quickly, you were lucky you managed to come thro' this OK. I am glad you could be proactive in resolving the trouble.

But you contributed to it in several ways:

not having a correctly operating paypal account.
Messing about with the payment 'just to get the macbook'
asking for delivery to a different address.

Bear all that in mind for the future.

There are many sides to most stories. Be careful for the future in case you come up against some nasty who does not understand you

[moneyhustler88]

Aha *shuts up now greenbean walks in and acts innocent* :P

and i get what your saying greenbean, but the thing was i didnt sign up for a paypal account and just completed the checkout..because i didnt want this card attached to any pp.


And i never messed around with payment..it was done straight through ebay. it was the couple who tried to withdraw it straight away..and bang it got held. Then they decided to blame me, even though paypal and ebay said it wasn't my fault.


I accept i asked for a different delievery address to the one on my eBay Stealth, but thats in the ebay stealth guide anyway.

But true, I know what you mean greenbean..but still it was a genuine payment and paypal genuine messed up! If it was my fault doubt paypal would have released the funds

[GreenBean]

I'm going to split hairs with you Schrib just so you can learn further.

It's documented here that using ebay as a guest is risky.

The guide was published quite some time ago. Practices have changed. There is MORE of a risk these days to use an address other than the one with paypal.
Such a transaction may not have buyers' protection IF the seller was super smart.

That's the shady side you must know.

[moneyhustler88]

Oh right i didnt know that! thanks gb

[baloch]

wow man you got through that pretty well. Yea I still have my original ebay with selling restricted which I use to buy things on as it is the only one that has my real address. The rest of my 7 stealth accounts are all stealth. But the couple should have called paypal and ebay.