posted on January 21, 2001 11:45:47 PM
I need some advice on where to turn now. I was defrauded a few months ago out of $300. I decided the best way to go would be to file with Lloyd's Insurance. I sent in my claim and was denied the first time because they said I would have to take it up with Paypal, I sent them a copy of the Paypal denial and the case was reopened. I was denied again because the claims aduster said I had been offered a refund by the seller, I sent the adjuster a copy of the final email from the seller, it said that I could do whatever I wanted to him because he was not paying me a dime. I was ignored by Lloyd's. I sent other emails asking the status and all I get back from them is one word emails with denied in capital letters.
I have emailed Safe Harbor several times, and although they say they "understand my frustration" they will do nothing because it is "something to take up with my adjuster." The adjuster won't consider anything I have sent him. I intend to appeal this as far as I can go with it, but no one will help me. I had a little faith in ebay, and I think I let this go on long enough with ebay that I can't do a dispute on the debit card portion of my payment since it happened in October.
posted on January 22, 2001 05:05:53 AM
"I think I let this go on long enough with ebay that I can't do a dispute on the debit card portion of my payment since it happened in October."
Are you SURE? Ask the bank that issued the card to do a chargeback against PayPal and see what happens.
Also, file a complaint against eBay, Lloyds, AND PayPal with the online BBB and the online Fraud reporting center. They are NOT doing what they led you to believe they did. PayPal, especially, is racking up the complaints with their local BBB.
Check with your state to see if the Attorney General's ofice handles consumer fraud complaints ... if so, file a complaint with them and see what can shake loose.
And if your local TV has a "investigative reporter", call the stationh and ask them to do a story on it. They can often shake things loose with the bad publicity.
posted on January 22, 2001 05:13:19 AM
Thanks for the info, but when I received the last email from ebay at around midnight I replied to it asking to appeal again, an hour and a half later my auctions were pulled and I was suspended.
[ edited by hcross on Jan 22, 2001 05:16 AM ]
posted on January 22, 2001 05:28:58 AM
I did call the police and was told it was a civil matter. Now, since I have been suspended, I cannot even access the fraud claim to get any of the information off of it.
[ edited by hcross on Jan 22, 2001 05:29 AM ]
posted on January 22, 2001 05:34:13 AM
Yep, they are dragging up something from 3 years ago that was supposed to have been settled long ago. I have another ebay id with 275 feedback, I asked to merge that account with my other and was told not to use it for 6 months, the email I received said that I registered another account while I was previously suspended on another. The account with 275 feedback was never suspended, I quit using it because they were supposed to be merged. There was another matter that was supposed to have been taken care of 3 years ago, so that gave them two reasons to suspend me.
posted on January 22, 2001 05:49:17 AM
And I have a lot of auctions I have won in the last 10 days, what about them? What about the $30 I just paid to Square Trade to have 2 negatives removed? And the $140 I have in Billpoint. Been up all night worrying about all of this, and of course I have not received any replies to emails yet.
posted on January 22, 2001 05:55:51 AM
hcross ...
It's time to bring out the "Rules for Radicals" and see what can be done to publically humiliate a large corporation ...
Do you have the correspondence with eBay about that earlier account? And the merging? Dig them out of your eBay files if possible. (Hint for all readers. NEVER throw away mail from anyone you do business with ... archive it, but KEEP IT because it can bite you in the butt if you don't have it)
Start with your local TV's investigative reporter AND your state Attorney General's consumer fraud department. SUSPENDING your account to avoid having to deal with a botched fraud claim is an odd way of dealing with it.
Continue with the online BBB ... complain that they suspencded you rather than deal with a valid complaint about their insurance not doing what it was supposed to, and dredged up a 3-year old infraction as grounds for doing it.
And send eBay Legal a REGISTERED LETTER, Return reciept requested, asking for a PRINTOUT or Electronic copy in TEXT or HTML on diskette of the following records:
all of your account information
all email correspondence with you about BOTH accounts,
all of the information you submitted on the fraud investigation
All of the information THEY collected on the fraud investigation
your request to merge the accounts
AND the records of the supposed suspension of the older account and all related correspiondence and internal records.
Formally notify them that any willful or negligent destruction of your data may impede your ability to seek legal redress from the seller and/or eBay and their insurance company.
posted on January 22, 2001 06:00:24 AM
You don't understand, I have been fighting this seller for 3 months, along with Paypal, Lloyd's and Ebay. I am tired of it. What did they do, get tired of my emails demanding they do something, and look for some way of getting rid of me?
posted on January 22, 2001 06:13:55 AM
This is disgusting.
Heather, I know you're frustrated and tired of fighting; I would feel the same way. But please, listen to abacaxi. Great advice there.
All of the involved parties WANT you to give up. That's how they get out of doing what's right. They wear you down until you give up. They know it works in most cases. Don't let them do this to you.
Also, I don't think it's too late to do a chargeback. From what I understand, you may have up to a year to dispute a charge. Ask yisgood, a poster here. He has a web site about payment services and charge cards. He has stated that chargebacks ARE allowed beyond 90 days. Get ahold of your card issuer right away and start the process.
posted on January 22, 2001 06:30:17 AM
Busybiddy: Aren't you sweet as always? I have been trying to get a hold of my bank this morning and see if I can do anything about the debit card part of the payment. I did call Capital One also and just got off the phone with them. I was transferred to their fraud department and they did a provisional credit to my card for the very small part that was paid on that card. The lady said that she gets calls every single day regarding Paypal, and that she knew Paypal's Insurance was a joke. She also said that right now, there has been so many complaints against Paypal that in most cases they are crediting back the funds right then. I did not want to have to do the chargeback because Paypal said that they would freeze/suspend my account if I did.
Now, does anyone know of a quicker way of contacting ebay to get someone to speak to me regarding my suspension?
posted on January 22, 2001 09:01:22 AM
Heather
You really are not clear on why eBay suspended you.
You say
"There was another matter that was supposed to have been taken care of 3 years ago, so that gave them two reasons to suspend me."
In your posts to this thread, you associated the demand for an appeal to your fraud case as the reason they suspended you, but you are vague about the reasons they suspended you.
You talk about negatives that you want removed:
"What about the $30 I just paid to Square Trade to have 2 negatives removed?"
(were the negatives for NON-PAYMENT for auction wins) In that case, eBay is clear on their 3 strikes you are out...
And of the account that was merged
"I asked to merge that account with my other and was told not to use it for 6 months, the email I received said that I registered another account while I was previously suspended on another."
And the other matter from 3 years ago.
"There was another matter that was supposed to have been taken care of 3 years ago"
And:
"That gave them two reasons to suspend me"
although you are not concise and clear, I understand you to say that there were other issues with more than one account, and by contacting eBay about the fraud, they realized that you were using other accounts, which may (or may not, according to you) have been suspended.
I can't help but think that there is more to the story which you don't want to talk about. You admit to non-payment (due to email glitches) And issues with other accounts.. and with merging accounts...
What are you leaving out? Although some people would like to believe that eBay randomly suspends folks for NO REASON, I believe that there is background information that is left out that may account for the suspension. (even though you think it is unfair, or that you are unduly picked on)
posted on January 22, 2001 10:00:58 AM
As far as charge backs go, different companies have different policies. Some draw the line at 90 days. But if you show that you have in good faith dealt with the vendor who placed the charge (Paypal in this case) and the vendor basically blew you off, they usually overlook the 90 days and the clock starts running from when the vendor stopped trying to work it out. I once had emails going back and forth with ecost over a charge on my card that they had promised to remove. After 3 months, I gave up and made a charge back. My CC company first said I was past the deadline. When I sent them copies of the emails showing that ecost had been pretending to work with me, they allowed the charge back.
For general info about your rights with CC cards and online services (note: I am not a lawyer or a banker. I got this info by talking to officers in banks and a credit card company) visit What the payment services dont want you to know
posted on January 22, 2001 11:26:01 AM
When you deal with the insurance company- mention BAD FAITH. A legal term that has meaning to insurance companies, and might apply here.
posted on January 22, 2001 11:40:35 AM
Can the OAUA (Online Auction Users Association) help out at all? Don't they have a mediators, and contacts within ebay, so some of the red tape can be cut through quickly?
posted on January 22, 2001 11:58:22 AM
There is nothing that I am hiding about anything that has happened in the past, I have talked about all of this for a long time on here. Three years ago we lost our ISP and were offline for almost a month, our emails starting boucing and ebay suspended us, got 4 negatives in that timeframe. We showed ebay everything that we had to prove that we were not lying, they reinstated our account. Square Trade lets you have negatives removed, no matter how old, if the seller and buyer both agree that it should be. Even those these 4 negatives were that old, all the sellers agreed to have them removed if I paid the fee. We went through mediation, the sellers came out happy and I did also. I had two removed a few months ago, and just recently had time to work on the other two. They have been through mediation and I have paid, it just has not gone through ebay's system yet.
There were actually two account back then that were affected when we lost our ISP, ebay knew of both accounts, they are now saying that I registered again when I had previously been suspended, not true, they were the ones who turned my account back on and cleared me of any bidding offenses, so I have no idea where this is coming from.
As for the merging of the two accounts, I was told in June to stop using the account and not use it for 6 months if I wanted them merged. I did, and thought everything was fine. They are claiming that account was also naru'd. If it were naru'd then why did they email last month asking if I still wanted to merge accounts?
Why suspend me now, after knowing all this time that all of these accounts were linked? I used the same credit card and everyone from SH knew it was me.
