Sunday 6 September 2009

The set up

I've been online for years and I'm very careful in what I buy online. But once in a while anyone can be caught out and it seems that I have been.

Thankfully, I've been alerted to this before I can see the parcel so while I know there is a very strong likely I have a problem I can start discussing it before I can start dealing with it.

Firstly here is the outline of the scam:-

  1. somewhere online a scam artist offers something for sale at a plausible price.
  2. the scam artist offers to use Paypal as a payment method.
    Now paypal once had a dire reputation but supposedly has in later years improved its anti-fraud support. I think we will find out more about this down the line but at the moment I'll leave that here.
  3. Now Paypal allows you to use credit cards for payments. So I'll add Barclaycard to the list. Supposedly in the UK credit card companies are jointly liable for credit card transactions over £100 (lets see shall we) or can initiate a chargeback to ensure you get your money back.
  4. Once paid the scammer now sends you something recorded delivery (or any method that result in a signature to confirm delivery).
  5. Having opened the parcel you try and initiate a refund from Paypal. However as the scam artist has proof of delivery Paypal refuse to do anything (because after all you as the customer may be lying).


1 comment:

  1. Re: Credit card liable when using PayPal...

    Unfortunately not true. PayPal are almost as bad as the scammers; in many way's you're less safe when using PayPal than just using a CC directly. See http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=11319343&postcount=8

    ReplyDelete