Warning Regarding Current PayPal Reversals

X

xenTheory

Active member
I made a post about a reversal earlier, which was removed for reasons I understand. However I thought it worth mentioning that whilst on the phone to PayPal they are claiming that random transactions are being flagged and coming up as reversals at the moment - they don't know why and are investigating. Unfortunately the 2 reversals on my account were not that.

I think this is important for add on developers to know for obvious reasons.
 
I average about 2 reversals a day this month... lose them all. And paypal charges a $20 fee to dispute chargebacks.
 
Jaxel said:
I average about 2 reversals a day this month... lose them all. And paypal charges a $20 fee to dispute chargebacks.
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There seems to be no point in continuing to sell styles. I've got another eight nearly completed and, quite frankly, need the money to help with medical care. If pri*ks are going to do that many reversals then I give up.

On a different note: can xF admins/developers maybe provide an easy way for 3rd party developers to add license verification to sites? I know it can be done but a guide would be nice.

1) Only licensed xF customers could buy
2) Having the customers' xF username connected to a purchase would help cut back on fraud, massively. Knowing that you'll revoke access to paid support if a person does a reversal is key.

Also a private forum for members only would really be helpful. Even a way to report certain forums where I've seen work from the top developers on here, including every single nulled version of xF. Why don't you do something about it?

/rage over
 
I've been toying with an idea of setting up a marketplace for all developers, similar to themeforest - except no commission is taken. At least it would be less fragmented for people who wanted to sell work in one place.
 
digitalpoint said:
Are the reversals/chargebacks coming from users in certain countries or anything?
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France and Bulgaria. Although one moron who used a clever exploit (which pixeledit is aware of) used a real name, address and phone number... or it could be fake.

I know xF refuse to have email addresses and names mentioned publicly, however I'm tempted to open a website purely for that purpose... or maybe a private forum area could be made on here, but I think will hell will freeze over first.
 
No "Name and Shame" will be permitted on XenForo. There was talk about a site starting up, but it will neither be in association with or endorsed by XenForo.
 
2Checkout is the closest you can get to having a merchant account, without actually having a merchant account.

Unlike Paypal who allows these people to keep doing these kind of games, where they basically can order & charge back again and again, forever....

2Checkout keeps tabs on such behaviour and will simply deny such individuals and they do pre-screen sales before even charging.

https://www.2checkout.com

When it comes to digital goods.... Paypal doesn't care & you're likely to get walked all over.
 
Well... there's a couple things you could do... Not sure how you are selling stuff (like through what store), but PayPal's API has a mechanism where you can only allow the user to pay with a certain funding source. For example in certain problematic countries, you can force them to pay via their PayPal balance, and never with a credit card. You can't "chargeback" something you bought against your PayPal balance.

If your shopping cart supports PayPal's adaptive payments API, you can utilize the fundingConstraint option and set the funding type to only be "BALANCE".

You can find documentation on it here:

https://cms.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_api_APPayAPI

It might be available in some of their simpler APIs, but I'm not sure off the top of my head since I don't use them myself.
 
digitalpoint said:
Well... there's a couple things you could do... Not sure how you are selling stuff (like through what store), but PayPal's API has a mechanism where you can only allow the user to pay with a certain funding source. For example in certain problematic countries, you can force them to pay via their PayPal balance, and never with a credit card. You can't "chargeback" something you bought against your PayPal balance.

If your shopping cart supports PayPal's adaptive payments API, you can utilize the fundingConstraint option and set the funding type to only be "BALANCE".

You can find documentation on it here:

https://cms.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_api_APPayAPI

It might be available in some of their simpler APIs, but I'm not sure off the top of my head since I don't use them myself.
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That does not prevent these type of scammers from simply filing a paypal dispute and because it is a digital item and not a physical item which can be shipped, paypal will refund.

The solution is not to use paypal.
 
Adam Howard said:
That does not prevent these type of scammers from simply filing a paypal dispute and because it is a digital item and not a physical item which can be shipped, paypal will refund.

The solution is not to use paypal.
Click to expand...
Actually, PayPal will side with the seller on non-physical goods. I have yet to lose a dispute related to digital goods or services.

Check PayPal Buyer Protection policies here:

https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/buyer-protection

Claims can only be made for physical goods
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If the seller has accurately described an item, but you’re just not happy with it, that doesn’t qualify for Purchase Protection
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Basically if they file an unwarranted dispute, the buyer has to make false claims to even start the dispute since it's only allowed for physical goods... like they say they bought it on eBay or has missing parts or whatever else...

I just have a copy/paste response that more or less always ends the dispute in our favor...

This payment was for virtual goods (specifically [insert what it was here]), not a physical good, and is not covered by the buyer protection policy.
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PayPal reads that, and the dispute is over.

We *have* given refunds when it was warranted for whatever reason, but for the ones trying to scam us with disputes, they always fail.

It *DOESN'T* help with credit card chargebacks though, that's out of PayPal's control... so if you want to do away with those, just don't allow credit cards as a funding source.
 
What is quoted above was true like 3 years ago, but hasn't been valid for at least the last year.

I had about 10 paypal disputes files earlier this year over a few days from what I believe was 1 person trying to get hands on my premium mods for free.

Every one of them I lost. PayPal says on their site they will only accept a physical tracking number as proof of delivery. If there is no tracking number from FedEx/UPS/Post Office/etc they don't even want to hear from you. I wrote in anyway that it was a digital good and proof it was downloaded, but they didn't care. Every one I lost on the grounds I could not prove delivery.

It is unfortunate but it is the "cost of dong business" on PayPal. For the time being it is still worth it to me to use them because I am sure I get more sales than I would using a less popular method.

What they did was claim their account was hacked (and they very well may have been hacked accounts) If someone claims their account was used without their authorization and you can't prove you delivered a physical item, paypal takes the money back, you lose, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
 
BirdOPrey5 said:
What is quoted above was true like 3 years ago, but hasn't been valid for at least the last year.

I had about 10 paypal disputes files earlier this year over a few days from what I believe was 1 person trying to get hands on my premium mods for free.

Every one of them I lost. PayPal says on their site they will only accept a physical tracking number as proof of delivery. If there is no tracking number from FedEx/UPS/Post Office/etc they don't even want to hear from you. I wrote in anyway that it was a digital good and proof it was downloaded, but they didn't care. Every one I lost on the grounds I could not prove delivery.

It is unfortunate but it is the "cost of dong business" on PayPal. For the time being it is still worth it to me to use them because I am sure I get more sales than I would using a less popular method.

What they did was claim their account was hacked (and they very well may have been hacked accounts) If someone claims their account was used without their authorization and you can't prove you delivered a physical item, paypal takes the money back, you lose, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
Click to expand...

<----- AGREE. This is the case, that's how the last 3 customers have done it. All claimed their accounts were stolen/hacked. I really think xF needs to have a private forum where developers and add on makers can discuss matters like this privately. Is that an unreasonable request?
 
Oh yeah... Forgot to mention about the unauthorized claims. Those are definitely tougher to win, but we run across then so rarely. The last one I recall was from 6 months ago and we just banned the user who did it for using a "stolen" PayPal account. Long story short is they realized they might actually need our site for things they do, so we unbanned their account once they paid what they "stole", plus an extra "processing" fee.

I guess in our case we are lucky in that many users actually *need* our site for something, so they don't typically try to mess with us.
 
I use MaxMind with my online store to help cut down on fraud. Had a couple of fraudulent orders a few years back, and haven't had any since setting up MaxMind

maxmind.webp


You set the minimum risk score to automatically approve the order, and anything above that goes to manual approval and you choose to approve the payment or not.
 
The MaxMind API is incredibly useful. Though any checkout still needs some customizing to see past a false IP address. I don't use PayPal and cancelled all accounts I had with the company. PayPal to me is a fraudulent company. They simply make too many mistakes (Not related to this) to be considered a trustful company.
 

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