On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 23:11:22 +0200, Friedrich Ostertag wrote:

Ron Natalie wrote:

sfb wrote:

Paypal lacks law enforcement authority and the protection plan does
not apply to all transactions.

They don't need law enforcement. Law enforcement is lousy on getting
retribution. Credit cards are your best bet on the Internet, and
backing your paypal payment with a credit card will get your money back
even if PayPal won't honor the buyer protection plan.

Can you explain how you get your credit card company to refund your
money, if you officially authorized Paypal to draw from your CC account?


It's called a "charge back". Anytime you purchase something with your
credit card and do not receive either the services or goods you expected
and the merchant refuses to refund your money, you can do a charge back.
If merchants experience a high number of charge backs, the percent they
pay per transaction goes up. They don't like that. Likewise, if they
continue to get many charge backs, processing banks tend to drop the
merchant. Merchants don't like that either.

It's basically in the Merchant's best interest to refund your money;
especially if you tell them you'll be starting charge back procedures. If
that still doesn't get them to move, call the card issuing bank that you
did your transaction with. The number is on the back of your card. Tell
them the merchant has been unwilling to resolve the complaint and you want
to start a charge back procedure. A large number of disputes are resolved
with the help of the issuing bank without actually having to do a charge
back. Once the bank gets involved, the merchants tend to get a lot more
friendly. Also, charge backs almost alway go in favor of the card holder,
especially for Amex members. Amex is very friendly to its card holders
and unless the merchant can show really good cause to prevent a charge
back, Amex almost always supports their card members versus the merchant.

In case you can't tell, I used to work in the credit card industry.
Using your credit card for online purchases is, by far, the most powerful
protection you have...just make sure you're not giving out your credit
card information to the wrong people! And never give it out over
the phone unless *you* initate the call!

Greg