Lost a Paypal Dispute. Am I SOL?

KyouguKyougu Registered User regular
I run a free local Meetup group, but every so often I'll do events that require paying a venue, usually classes and I always used Paypal to collect the fee from any members who signed up since I have to book places in advance.

For most of these events there's a no refund policy because I'm paying in advance and the price is generally determined by people who signed up. It's stated when you're getting to pay, though I do refund if someone signs up and covers that spot. So if we book a venue for 10 people, someone drops out, but then someone else signs up again and brings up back to 10, that previous person get's their money back.

Never had issues until this month.

I was surprised someone had opened a dispute for a Silks class we did back in June. She marked it as services not rendered. This person didn't show up, never reached out to me to tell me she wasn't coming, and never reached out about a possible refund.

I was even more surprised when Paypal just took the money out of the Paypal account. And since I never keep money there, it shows a negative now.

I answered the dispute, explained the situation, provided the screen that shows no refunds and this morning I got an email saying I lost because I didn't show shipping proof of product. To add insult to injury they're charging a 20 dollar chargeback.

So, anything I can do?

And if not, is there any danger to just never using paypal again and keeping the balance at a negative?

Posts

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    All of this is pretty common.

    At this point in the game you will never be able to use paypal again in any capacity if you're going to keep it negative. Any money that comes in will immediately be used to settle that balance. They can technically come after you for that money, but they'd likely lose that court case and so they won't and just impede your use of their platform instead hoping it's more of a burden for you than them. If a bank account is linked to it, they've been known to bully banks to pull funds out and lock your account. So make sure the account you use isn't used to pay rent and such either.

    You're essentially running a business here, I'd use something like Square or Intuit-GoPayment instead of paypal. Something that has a tiny bit more business protection than paypal which is running what's essentially a money wiring service that operates outside of banking laws. Look into maybe filing an LLC or something to protect you from shit like this too.

    You can maybe appeal the paypal stuff but I've never heard it working out for anybody and it's why I avoid them like the plague if I can.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Yeah, just settle it up, blacklist the person forever, and switch to a business banking method like Bowen suggests.

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    I'm willing to bet that your dispute was settled via algorithm. You *may* have luck if you call PayPal and explain the situation. https://gethuman.com/phone-number/PayPal

    It's a bit odd that it was marked as "services not rendered," but your response was declined because you didn't show proof of shipping a physical item. Which leads me to believe the algorithm saw "silks" and immediately assumed the customer paid you to ship her silk and it never arrived.

    I agree with the other info here, as well.

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