scriptlance, PayPal & lazyweb

[raja4]

I know it's a pain but what Scriptlance is doing is the perfectly right thing to do. Problem is so many times those credit cards are stolen and sellers has to take extra steps to avoid those frauds and innocent people like you suffer. Around 3 months ago we shipped 4 orders worth around $4500 and all of them were fraud. Person who did the fraud, sent us a fake Govt issued DL, copy of the fake utility statement and fake copy of the American Express credit card. We took the extra steps what we could but those fraudsters are a big challenge for the whole eCommerce business.

[DigiDog]

I've never dealt with Scriptlance but I certainly feel for you on the PayPal end of the ballsup.

I'm in New Zealand and sell a few CDs for a mate of mine who's old jazz muso. He was big in the 60s
and his main audience is 50+ in the UK. People order via the website, pay via PayPal and the CDs are
posted from NZ. Nice and straightforward.

Or at least we thought so. We had one order a couple of years ago where the buyer claimed the CD
had been lost in the mail. So we sent a replacement. Then he claimed that hadn't arrived either. We
weren't inclined to send a third CD so I did some digging and found that the buyer's business had
collapsed and he was in danger of losing his house. At that point the buyer claimed that his credit
card had been stolen and used fraudulently for the original transaction. He requested a refund from
PayPal.

We replied to the PayPal query pointing out that if the transaction (for a single jazz CD - not the
typical scammer's fare) had been fraudulent, why would the buyer claim non-delivery?

Dealing with PayPal was a nightmare. You can only respond via web forms, there don't seem to be
any humans involved at their end and the procedure was slow and remote. In the end PayPal took
the buyer's side, issued him a refund and stung us with a "chargeback" fee. This also sullied our
(until then) perfect trader record. Our further emails to PayPal were ignored. God had spoken.

While we never received any satisfaction from PayPal (they're a horrible company) I built a web
page called "We've been ripped off by (buyer's name) from Essex", SEOed it for the man's name and
stuck it on the muso's site with a link from the front page. Once Google had found it I notified the
"buyer" that if he Googled his name, he now had a permanent legacy for his grandchildren to find.

After a few meaningless defamation threats, the man repaid us for both CDs and the PayPal charges.
This took about a year in total and while we weren't out of pocket any more, our history was sullied
permanently with PayPal.

When you're now in the US at least, dealing with PayPal can be a nightmare.

[Tubby]

I know it's a pain but what Scriptlance is doing is the perfectly right thing to do.

I do not think so raja4. I sent them money for a specific purpose (put it into escrow) . . If they can not do this or do not want to do this they could simply send the money back.

It is not the "prefectly right thing" to simply ignore the situation and lock away the money.

It is the Pefectly Wrong thing, It is theft, or fraud. . .

[Tubby]

What the programmers on WPW aren't good enough? And they probably wouldn't have put you through such a hassle. of course, maybe too expensive. I guess the only useful thing I can say is next time see if your friends are for hire and or course get yourself verified.

cd :O)

mate. I am verified! I am so damned verified it scares me.

I will try to remember next time.

[Tubby]

. They probably suspended your account because you went back to paypal and filed a claim, bypassing their security.

I notified PayPal AFTER I became Obsolete as a site user.
None delivery of goods.


I have no emails or messages here from scriptlance saying "sorry we are having a problem there will be a delay"

[quickregister]

I would be patient and simply comply with all their requirements to confirm your identity. I have done over 80 jobs with Scriptlance and I have found it to be an excellent resource. They need to verify who is sending money to avoid fraud and make it safer to do business for it's members. I know it is a pain to deal with faxes etc but in the end it will be worth it. Not sure where you are but check out local mailbox services even just ask a local business if you can use their copy machine and fax. I pay about $3 per month for a faxage account which I rarely use just for situations like this. Good luck.

[Tubby]

I would be patient and simply comply with all their requirements to confirm your identity.

Quickregister. . I have paid money into Scriptlance for a specific purpose. scriptlance is merely not confident that I am a genuine buyer and has constructed some ad hock extraneous internal rules that I am not capable of complying with, and locked me out.

This is no reason to lock my money away.

It is a perfectly good reason to return it as quickly as possible with a message saying "Sorry we can not accept your paypal money because we have internal problems and no longer accept paypal payments unless we personally know you"

If I bought a pair of shoes and they could not supply them, they would return the money . . Not lock the money away and ignore my protestations. then tell me ' go see PayPal '. . .

[Tubby]

I have to wait

You can close a dispute if you and the seller reach an agreement.

A closed dispute cannot be reopened or escalated to a claim. We automatically close disputes after 20 days unless they have been escalated to a PayPal claim. a dispute if you and the seller reach an agreement.

Otherwise, you can escalate the dispute to a PayPal claim within 20 days of opening the dispute. You must wait seven days to allow for postage before escalating a dispute to a PayPal claim for an item not received. We automatically close disputes after 20 days.

So I have to wait seven days.

[deepsand]

I was going to convey some of my less than satisfactory experiences with PayPal, along with its parent, eBay, and sibling, StubHub. However, I came to my senses, realizing that none were worth the inordinate amount of time required of me for the task.

So, I'll simply summarize by saying the following.

Never do business with eBay, PayPal or StubHub unless absolutely necessary.

[ramorius]

You've only explored options to verify your id via fax. Have you considered taking an picture of your ID and emailing it to them? It would probably have better resolution than the fax anyway...

And, if they insist on fax (why?), there are ways to send a fax via internet websites. (I used to run a site that could convert any document into a tiff or pdf and send it as a fax. Never got it to pay.)

Just a thought.

Rob