chargeback, disputing credit card decision against me

[wally546]

What is the name of your state? massachusetts

Hello All;
I was scammed on Ebay and went through the dispute process with Ebay and PayPal and lost. The seller had not sent me what I agreed to purchase from him, he scammed me by sending me something other than what I purchased. The next step was to do a chargeback with my credit card company. After the initial phone call to them they got in touch with PayPal who in turn sent them the tracking number showing that the seller had sent me something. I was then told to send to them a written letter explaining what had happened, and to send back to the seller what he had sent me. I sent them an indepth letter explaining all. I told them that the seller had refused to accept delivery after I shipped back to him at my own expense what he had shipped to me. Within thirty days I got back a response from the credit card company that they agreed with me and were removing the charge, I would not be responsible for paying it. They also mentioned that they considered the case closed but to hold onto my documentation for twelve months because if the merchant sent new information to them they might re-open my case and then I may be required to send in more information.
Ok, I was happy with that. Over a month later I get a new letter from my credit card company saying that they are putting the charge back onto my account and I would have to pay it. According to them, seeing that the seller refused to accept delivery of his stuff back to him, and the post office having no choice but to send it back to the shipper, me, I was now in possession of his merchandise and I would have to pay for it.
My question is, do I have a case against the credit card company? They did not receive any new information from the merchant, they had no reason to and should not have re-opened my case. I have sent them a new letter disputing their decision but after thirty days have not gotten a response from them. Thanks guys for any advice.

[debtcollector`]

ftc.gov

search fair credit billing

[wally546]

In reply to debtcollector "ftc.gov, search fair credit billing"

I did as you mentioned, thanks for the reply by the way. I did not find a clear answer to my question. After a credit card company makes a decision can they arbitrarily reverse their decision. Like I said in my original post they went over all the information sent in to them by me and the merchant and agreed with me. Then not following their own conditions for reopening my case they did infact reopen it and rule against me over a month later. Is there a law I can point them to, to get them to hold to their original decision? Or should I just suck it up and as much as it burns me to see the crook win, and pay the money to save my credit.

[Debt Guy]

In my opinion, you do not have a beef with the credit card company. It is a lousy deal but what did they do to harm you?

They only facilitate the transaction. They are not responsible for the fact that you got screwed by the seller.

Clearly you have a beef with the seller. You probably have a beef with ebay and paypal. Don't they guarantee no fraud?

I just don't think the credit card company is the culpable party.

[wally546]

Thanks for the reply Debt Guy. My beef was with the seller and PayPal. PayPal should have stuck up for me but they were able to weasel out through a loophole in their protection policy, a scam that they, from the reading I have done on other forums, know all about and refuse to fix. I found out the hard way about PayPal and their protection guarantee. I also read that the credit card is your only real protection when it comes to online purchases. It is not like they would be out any money, they would just reverse the charge back to PayPal, who should have protected me in the first place. But I gather that there is little I can do to fight their decision and I may as well cut my loss and eat the charge.

[Debt Guy]

The ability of the credit card company to reverse back a charge is contingent on the contract between the cc company and the merchant.

The bank tries really hard to stay out of the middle of disputes between cardholders and merchants. They have a process they follow. Ultimately most such disputes get resolved in the favor of the merchant unless fraud is blatantly evident. When they have a "he said - she said" situation they will take the position that the merchant is correct.

In fairness to the cc bank, they get a lot of these complaints against Paypal where the real problem is buyer's remorse.

Sorry you had this problem. Go give the ebay seller a nasty on their history.

[justsomeguy]

Re-dispute it. Claim that you were not sent what you ordered. That's it. That should have been your claim to begin with, if instead you claimed it wasn't exactly what you wanted, or you didn't want it any more, that would be a different case.

The credit card companies don't lose a dime off charge backs, they actually profit from them. Every time you file a charge back , the CC companies bill the merchant for their time. $10-$25. The person who would be putting the money back in your account would be PayPal in this case, becaues it is their merchnat account. They may or may not try to reclaim the money from the person that holds an account with them.

If you were going directly through an online store it would come directly out of their checking account and you would not have had this headache.

[wally546]

Hi;
Ebay has a forum that deals exclusively with PayPal and the problems between it and buyers/sellers. The people that take it upon themselves to answer posted questions are of the firm opinion that a credit card has the final say in chargebacks, I didn't read anything about contracts between merchants and the cc bank. Most of these people believe that it is practically guaranteed that if you file a chargeback you will win. I felt that I must be the exception to this from my own personal experience. I'd like to know a bit more about the contract thing if you would be kind enough to point me in the right direction.
My thought too, there is no real proof, it is his word against mine. PayPal was only able to send to the cc bank the tracking number, thats it. I was able to send in so much more to show my side of it. That was my dispute, the seller absolutely, in no way, shape, or form sent me what I agreed to purchase from him. And they agreed with me but because the crook won't take back what he sent to me he gets to walk away with my money, just refuse to accept delivery and you get to keep the money. Yup, explained it all to them, no ambiguity. I called them yesterday to find out how my second letter of dispute was going and found out that they had not even looked at it at all in over a month, slipped through the cracks i guess . So there is still some hope it could all work out .

[debtcollector`]

Caveat emptor

'nough said.

[stalin73]

Are credit card companies obligated to inform clients of action that will be taken with an account, such as that its going to be sent to collection or charged off? My CC company did NOT send my statements for 3 months due to a 'system's error', which they acknowledged in a letter. I did receive the '4th statement' which made no reference to actions or charge off. I made the payment before the due date on that 4th statement. However, in the interim they charged-off my account and it is being reported to Credit Bureaus. I'm willing to pay my balance, but disputing the charge off. What are my options? I've received several letters apologizing for the system error and inconvenience, but they do not want to reverse the charge-off. I read somewhere that they are supposed to inform the cardholder of actions, either as a note on the statement or in a letter. Because they did NOT send the statements, obviosly they failed to notify me prior to the action.

[SimpleMind]

Could I ask how much was this transaction? and is it REALLY worth your time fighting it? I had a simular situation with a bad $32.00 deal. After a few days of ranting and complaining it was better to grit my teeth and consider it a loss.


If it is a high monetary value, you may want to consider something like small claims court. or possible fraud charges.