PayPal question.

[x56h34]

I may have another potential dispute on my hands in regards to an Amibench purchase, so before pointing any fingers, I thought I'd better ask for some advice in here first.

On December 27, 2004, I sent money to "Mr. X".
Mr. X suddenly stops all communication after receiving the money.
Mr. X is a brand new Business Account Member / Unverified with a valid e-mail address.
It's been almost a month since my payment was sent and I still get no reply to my e-mails, as to why there's no communication.
The items that I purchased have not been received, of course.
Interestingly enough, in the History log, the payment still sits as "Unclaimed", however I cannot cancel it as the seller has a valid PayPal registered e-mail address.
After 30 days, as per PayPal rules, an unclaimed payment is refunded to the buyer.
You also have 30 days since sending payment to file a dispute claim.

Now get this...

Since the payment is unclaimed, PayPal doesn't allow you to file a dispute. Only if the payment is accepted, you may file a dispute, as a buyer.
What happens, if at the end of day 30 the seller accepts the payment and thus cancels me out of at least an option of filing a dispute claim through PayPal?
Can he do this?

There's around 6 days left until the magical 30th day, so time is running out. Any e-mails to PayPal that I've sent, describing all the possible conspiracy theories above have returned with generic answers, answered by monkeys sitting in front of a computer saying things like "You cannot cancel your payment as the seller has a PayPal registered e-mail address", and "you will get a refund if the payment is not accepted within 30 days". :-( As if no one actually bothers to read my messages and actually get the core of my problem.

Any tips?

[SilvrDrgn]

Easy.  Call PayPal and talk to a person on the phone.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_contact-phone

I had to call them a little while back due to a problem with an eBay purchase with payment via PayPal that I made.  They were very helpful!

[Skippy]

I don't understand now how this person can perform transactions, as until recently paypal has insisted you need to be a verified member.

This happened to me, coincidently today I've just become a verified member and can now use my account again.

In the past you could make transactions as unverified member.

Skippy.

[DonnyEMU]

I am not an attorney, but I do have a business seller account that I do not use anymore. I will just say this I think your payment is being held up during the verification process of the seller's business accounts.

If the money is "unclaimed" it's not even getting into the other person's account so you can't complain to Mr. X because in reality he probably hasn't got your money yet either. It's being held up by PayPal themselves.. You can't dispute with him because again he hasn't received the paypal money for one reason or another.

Paypal has a phone number that you can actually call on the phone and talk to them. I recommend that you actually call paypal on the phone and ask them where your money is...

[x56h34]

Calling PayPal right now...

It's still a mistery as to why the seller doesn't reply to my e-mails...

I'll post an update soon.

[jdiffend]

First, request contact info for the seller from ebay.  That should give you their phone number, email, whatever.
It's possible this person has an aol account or somthing and all their messages are getting filtered.  I've seen this several times.  (I hate AOL)
If the information isn't valid, complain to ebay immediately so the account can be disabled and nobody else gets stung.

Second... paypal gives you 45 days to file a complaint.  That doesn't mean your money will be recoverable... just that you have more than 30 days to complain.

I've been stung before so now I always request contact info BEFORE I pay and try to verify if it's accurate.  I only do this for accounds with under 100 positive feedbacks.

The time I got stung the seller had 40 positive feedbacks.  The problem is, there were a couple dozzen people since those that hadn't receive items that were waiting patiently and not leaving negative feedback or complaining to ebay!  Only AFTER I posted negative feedback did people start crawling out of the woodwork to leave negative feedback.

If the seller doesn't complete a transaction within 20 days and they don't say in advance it will take that long they are asking for negative feedback.  Too many people are afraid of retaliation.  You can always mutually agree to have negative feedback removed from both parties later.  You may or may not get your money back if you are ripped off.  I've gotten my money back on one occasion and didn't on another. YMMV

[jdiffend]

Since the money is unclaimed you should be able to cancel the payment.

[TheMagicM]

I dont use paypal because I've been burned twice.. and one was supposedly a "judge" in New York...so criminals work in the justice system also (but we all knew that).

[x56h34]

OK, after calling PayPal I've managed to accomplish the following.

PayPal customer service rep agrees that there's something funny going on and they've filed a buyer complaint for this transaction on my behalf.

The CSR mentioned that as of now, the seller cannot accept this payment unless providing a proof that the items have been shipped out to me (e.g. a receipt/tracking number from the post office). I guess they can do this as a lot of time has passed since I sent the money to the seller. Also, I paid for a trackable shipping (2 day shipping...lol and almost 30 days later still nothing), so there must be a tracking number available in case the items were really shipped.

So to summarize, if the seller decides to accept money from this point on (for what ever reason), they need to send a proof to PayPal first, that they actually shipped the package to me.

If the payment stays unclaimed for 6 or so more days, I get the money back regardless.

Thanks for the helpful suggestions guys. Really appreciated. :-)

[MiAmigo]

I had a somewhat similar problem with centisible.com (centsible software). I paid for my purchase, and my order sat unfulfilled for a long time. The owner would not answer the phone, or return any calls or emails, but he got my money right away. Finally, after about a month, I contacted PayPal by email. They contacted the vendor that very night; I know they did because he sent me a lameass email saying that he had been 'trying to contact me all along'. "B.S" I told him. He then continued to ignore me, and still did not fulfill my order. Finally, PayPal threatened to shutdown his account and hold up all transactions. For some reason, he couldn't fulfill the order, so they forced him to give me a full refund. Oh yeah, by the way, avoid this vendor. I went out there about 4 years ago, when centsible had a different owner, and it was nice. Huge store, huge collection of Amiga software and hardware. Now, its changed hands a few times, each owner progressively worse than the last.

[FastRobPlus]

Too late for me (the Centsible warning) - he got my money in Dec and has not replied since.

-edit- on the subject of Centsible - why are they listed in the "links" section of this web site under "companies".

I did a quick search of A.org and read about sveral negative experiences users have had with them.

Can the admins of this site remove the link?  Having Centsible listed as a dealer gives them an air of credibility they don't merit.

[TheMagicM]

Centsible's like is gone...give the site some time to update and you will no longer see it.   :-)

[FastRobPlus]

Thanks MM!