Fighting paypal reversals

About to call up paypal and fight some reversals from people trying to scam me.
I sell digital items.

Yes I know its easier for people to scam on these..I don't want to hear about that. What I want to know, does anyone have tips for high success rate to get the reversal fixed. I know it can be done and i've seen it done. And obviously people selling 20k digital items a month have some sort of decent system to do so as well.

In the future i'm going to be more strict on who I sell to, but I really want these fixed.

There aren't any methods that I know of. There's no protection for intangible goods at all.

I'm asking for tips on how to get them correct on the phone call. I've seen it happen, and it is possible. I know about their protection policy.

if your business is legally registered and you can provide them invoices then maybe you can fix it. but again its very hard for intangible goods

you better focus on ways to verify the people you sell to, by collecting as much data about/from them, or build a pre questionnaire they have to fill, just to get a clear overview of your potential clients. If you have gotten scammed before, you surely know some patterns already. If not, some significant parameters could be:
1. location of the user
2. his paypal account status (confirmed, verified VS none) or whether he/she pays with a VCC (as most scammers use shady Paypal accounts and/or VCCs so they can say anonymous)
3. his email address, phone, address or any other contact info you can collect and verify against (by Googling the data etc)
4. how he/she interacts (irrelevant for auto purchases via the website)
5. If all purchases are auto, you might want to delay shipping of the product /sending it via email /download link etc (if it's digital product), So you will at least have the time to verify the seller by the parameters I have mentioned above.

You can easily compile all the above to an auto verification process.

So, if you looked for tips to avoid chargebacks/reversals, this is where you should focus, and not paypal - as you're doomed to lose your money once the products you're selling are digital/intangible.

Good Luck

Unfortunately there is no high success rate of getting such reversals fixed. Yes, you are correct in that it is possible to win a dispute with digital goods, but not with a high success rate. You'll lose way more than you'll win because in the end, proving the validity of the transactions in question is near impossible.

Paypal wants to see that:

A. The buyer's payment with legitimate (not a hacked Paypal or stolen credit card)
and
B. The buyer received his/her goods in the condition described

Even if you were to come up with a solution for "B" (which is no small feat in itself - even if you somehow could confirm delivery, then you also have to worry about the second part - the condition. They can easily say that yes the received the item, but it wasn't what they ordered. For example if you sold a $100 digital gift card they could say only $50 was on it when in reality they just spent half of it. At that point it becomes your word versus theirs and Paypal will always side with the buyer when it gets to that.), then "A" is a buyer's get out of jail free card.

In most cases you can't prove that a buyer's payment was unauthorized - that's really up to Paypal. You can have "A" covered if the buyer used the same computer with the same cookies, same IP address, same credit card as usual, etc, but if a buyer is smart enough to file a dispute, then chances are they were smart enough to do basic things to cover their tracks. There are indeed a few of these scammer buyers who are stupid enough to try and commit fraud and not cover their tracks, and well, that's when the rare success happens.

When you call Paypal you need to keep in mind that Paypal doesn't care. They barely allow digital goods in the first place. At least on the US website (of course, Paypal in different countries have different rules so this may not apply to you), digital goods are not included in their seller protection. From their User Agreement (section 11.5 - see here: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full),

11.5 Items/transactions not eligible for PayPal Seller protection. The following are examples of items/transactions not eligible for PayPal Seller protection.

Claims or Chargebacks for Significantly Not as Described.
Items that you deliver in person, including in connection with In-Store Checkout.
Intangible items, including Digital Goods, and services.
PayPal Direct Payments.
Virtual Terminal Payments.
PayPal Business Payments.

All in all, I wish you the best of luck, but do not expect to win many of those disputes.

This is where PayPal's service really lacks. It's excellent for the buyer but a nightmare for sellers who have shady clients. PayPal is their own judge and jury it takes a lot of pressure to get anything reversed from the seller's side because PayPal concentrates on pleasing buyers first. Even with a physical product it would be hard to get PayPal to fight for you, the seller, unless the sale amount was quite high or you have a lot of concrete evidence. I've fought with them twice and all I accomplished was wasting about 5 or 6 hours of my life.

bartosimpsonio said:

There aren't any methods that I know of. There's no protection for intangible goods at all.

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Depends on the case , amount of money etc , it's not that strict as stated on the agreement

Op i'm sorry to say this, you are fighting a lost battle.
You should be more careful when accepting payment for digital items. Alway request to be paid via other mode of payment like bitcoin, perfect money etc before settling for PayPal.
Its difficult for PayPal to determine whose fault it is when it comes to handling dispute concerning digital items.

Its ok I won't have many of these issues in the future as I am going to be very strict on who I allow to purchase.

BUT from what i've read here, its a profitable way to make money by purchasing a lot of digital goods via paypal then doing chargebacks.

I am also in a similar business and i win more of these then i loose because i get very few chargebacks and i keep my account in good standing, i am assuming its a Unauthorized chargeback as most always are, sometimes the really small ones paypal just pays me out of pocket instead of risking the fine the credit card company can inflict if they even attempt to do the 90day dispute, its a really messed up situation, just avoid them at all cost and if you get very few you can expect to win 50-50 approx

bmminc said:

Its ok I won't have many of these issues in the future as I am going to be very strict on who I allow to purchase.

BUT from what i've read here, its a profitable way to make money by purchasing a lot of digital goods via paypal then doing chargebacks.

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Most people who have opened disputes with me get there paypal accounts Locked so unless its a stealth account i doubt its very effective they'd ban you quick, also that's really a scum bag move

It is. I was just upset. I know in the future I won't have this issue. Its coming from ebay sales.
It is 100% clear that the people who have scammed me have done it to multiple people with their new account getting tons of negative feedback, and I have 99,9% positive feedback.

I'm just going to simply only accept orders from people with good feedback that has been around for a good while. Should cut down chargebacks enough to not really worry about it.

My ebay store is going well and I keep doubling my limits. Next month I'll be at 800 units I can sell every month and I make close to $5 profit on each sale.
I'll just document all I can, call paypal, and keep on keepin on. Live and learn and roll with the punches.

paypal is a nightmare to work with as a seller. Everything seems to favor the buyer

bmminc said:

It is. I was just upset. I know in the future I won't have this issue. Its coming from ebay sales.
It is 100% clear that the people who have scammed me have done it to multiple people with their new account getting tons of negative feedback, and I have 99,9% positive feedback.

I'm just going to simply only accept orders from people with good feedback that has been around for a good while. Should cut down chargebacks enough to not really worry about it.

My ebay store is going well and I keep doubling my limits. Next month I'll be at 800 units I can sell every month and I make close to $5 profit on each sale.
I'll just document all I can, call paypal, and keep on keepin on. Live and learn and roll with the punches.

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Oh i didn't realize it was through ebay, yeah that would be smart then to just check out the feedback of the buyer in question, at least you have some idea of who your dealing with.

There are a few cases (from selling intangible items like verified accounts) that I had people chargeback on, I've called into my local Paypal (Malaysia), and they've refunded the funds to me EVEN with the case in favor of the sender. Meaning paypal took a loss.