Bitcoin Forum

Hello there. I'm a PayPal Fraud Prevention Specialist and I'll teach you all my tricks on how to stop getting scammed by accepting PayPal. I don't guarantee 100% but we will try for 99%! I don't charge for my services because I'd rather stop the scam then for you not to pay my fees and get scammed. But if  you feel I did a good job, feel free to donate!

Suggested Donation: 1 BTC
1Q24Cwjo2oxuBLQKzhuncJ7jWx4Wd6bo61

Thanks!

Read my PayPal Virtual FAQ!
http://virtualfaqs.com/forum/paypal/574-paypal-virtual-faq.html

Most of the answers are already there, but most people have the attention span of a typical BTC trader so feel free to ask questions here.

Disclaimer: I prefer to deal in prevention techniques not after you're scammed as there's little you can do. So if you're not sure, please post here before trading.

I have a question.

Ive been thinking of receiving payments on papal for some things and don't want any kind of reversible payments.

I looked over your very good faq, but there's one thing i kinda seemed to not see that id been wondering about.

Paying for goods as a "service"

If someone makes a payment to you, for anything, and then pays as a service, and then leaves a comment such as
"Thank you for the software consulting service"
"thanks for completing the consulting"

Would that pretty much make the payment irreversible, being that it was for a service, and they made the comment it was completed?

You'd still have problems winning an unauthorized PayPal dispute and credit card chargeback from someone who was dissastisfied with your service "after" sending payment. The only 99.99% non-reversible method is for someone to give you a Money Pak code and you enter it into your PayPal account, but someone could argue that's paying with Money Pak and not really paying with PayPal. There's tons of tricks to decrease the chance of a reversal, but no easy 100% irreversible method that's convenient for the buyer yet. (At least that I know of, but I'm always looking.  ;))

I have never trusted paypal since over 5 years ago when i sold some online gold for ultima online. I sold this guy about 20 million gold, and he ended up pulling the "take delivery and reverse" course.

I ended up losing the dispute and my money, and never felt comfortable selling game gold again.
Which is sad, i enjoyed doing that as a hobby

I have a question as well.  Would it be feasible for a scammer to create a PayPal account, conduct a couple of transactions and withdraw the money before they are able to dispute it?  Would the buyer be able to get their money back or is it gone for good?

This is exactly why I started Virtual FAQs. New MMORPG sellers don't know how to deal with PayPal scammers. I try to stop this by verifying every person before they're allowed to trade on my forums.


Nope if the buyer issues a dispute, the seller's account is frozen. Bank transfers are reversed. Even if the money reaches the seller's bank account, there used to be stories about how PayPal was able to take money back from the seller. I'm not sure if they're still allowed to do this. There's conflicting stories.

However there's always the chance, the seller gets away with it. If the funds are not recoverable, then the buyer will not get refunded. PayPal will not take the loss unless...

The buyer files a credit card chargeback. The buyer will get their credit back and PayPal will chase after the seller. If PayPal is unable to recover the funds, PayPal will take the loss.

Bumppity bump!

What if the buyer is told to pay and send money as a "gift".

How is it reversible then?

Easy you can do a gift payment by credit card or unauthorized dispute. Contrary to popular belief, just asking for a gift payment, only stops SNAD and did not receive disputes. No decent PayPal scammer uses those tactics. PayPal may also step in and say, "Looks like a hacked PayPal account. Let's reverse this illegitimate transaction." That will be 1 BTC! :D Ok next question.

bump!

read this (http://bit-coin-trading.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.0) for my way to guarantee proof of bitcoin transaction.

First there's no guaranteed proof. How does someone know the video wasn't tampered with? Credit card companies probably have no idea how bitcoin works so your screenshots or vides are going to be completely meaningless in showing delivery. There's no personal info attached to a bitcoin address. You could show a couple emails but at the end they will still be skeptical. The more you explain bitcoins to a chargeback investigation, the more it sounds like a scam. So your emphasis should be prevention and not post-sale.

Also although I'm pretty sure PayPal doesn't care about buying/selling bitcoin on a small scale, I still don't want to mention it to them as it is a competing online currency.

PayPal is not a currency, any more than Visa or Mastercard are currencies.

Ok let me issue a correction. I still don't want to mention it to them as bitcoin is an emerging online payment method that PayPal might see as competition.

If someone sold Bitbills (http://bitbills.com/) via PayPal and used some kind of certified mail service, would that allow them to accept PayPal payments for Bitcoins without getting scammed?

That reduces the chance of getting scammed, but it wouldn't stop all scams. Certified mail service would show it was received, but it's very difficult to prove what was actually received. Then on top of that you have to explain to investigators what Bit Bills are. Most likely they're not going to care and just rule for the buyer.

I sold some bitcoins on bitmarket.eu via paypal. Now paypal has put the funds on hold because

It lists reason as Inquiry by PayPal.

Paypal wants me to provide a tracking number. I'm not too sure how to handle this. The options I have to dispute it are.

Should I just tell paypal its for digital goods? or should I ship something to the buyer and give them that tracking info?

There's a couple strategies for this.
1. You can put "Virtual Goods" in the shipping number. This about 70% success.
2. Ship something to the buyer. This about 90% success.
These will help you win against PayPal, but
Most likely this is moot because this guy scammed with credit card and going to chargeback.

So PayPal payments are sent directly to the seller on bitcoinmarket.eu huh? That must be the only exchange that still functions like that. Next time send your buyer over to virtualfaqs.com for free verification. I may be able to prevent this from happening. Good luck.

hmm I have another user also putting in a dispute with paypal, claiming unauthorized account access. Anyway to tell paypal its for virtual goods? I'm trying to get my dwolla account working so I can just use mtgox lol. Thanks for the help.

Sure. In the dispute, you can issue a statement and say it was for virtual goods. Against unauthorized account access, you're most likely going to lose. You need to prove you delivered your intangible goods to the real account owner.

Unfortunately, your chances of winning are 1% if not less.

b\Being safe with bitcoins is hard so far I've tried to buy something off this forum but the seller ended up being a scammer but I used escrow so I managed to save the coins and another seller has shipped the items to the wrong address it appears  >:(. Then I've been scammed twice on bitmarket for 200$. It wears on my patience. I should hire some bitcoin vigilantes.

If you sell on my site, I verify every single person for free to make sure they're not scammers. Link is in my sig. Even if you don't sell on Virtual FAQs, feel free to send people over for free verification.

Even when I sell with PayPal, I limit it to 1-4 BTC per week. I'm lucky that I don't need to sell a huge quantity by PayPal at once.

Oh and your gamerchicks website is down? Was curious about it. haha

This was really useful, thanks FAQs.  I am wondering if I join a mining pool that automatically pays my shares through paypal would be a danger.  Could they send me whatever my proportions are and then later pull that back to their name?

What can I do to receive payment from pools like this, and then make sure I can not have the money taken later?

Is there a max time on how long someone can give money and then take it back, or can it be done any time?

oh crap the server just went down like yesterday. I hope its not broke! Anyways I'm having the NOC reboot it to see if it comes back online.

OK, its back up but still in developement (I'm a one man team) but I got time and it works lol.

It depends how they're paying you by PayPal.

PayPal disputes can be opened up to 45 days.
Bank transfers up to 60 days.
If credit card, it's 1 month to a year.

I'd ask for Mass Pay + a followup email from the sender about the service and how he was happy and won't dispute.... if that's one of the options. That's the safest legit way to receive money.

If you're worried about a mining pool not paying you, then get some information about who's running it. Names, addresses, phone numbers, reputation, background check. The more info you have, the more comfortable you will be. Do not blindly accept PayPal from strangers.

Bump! Still saving ignorant sellers!

Still helping!

I got burned using pp a few weeks back never using them again for sales of btc

What if a 100% trustworthy person wanted to buy? Then you would sell. You need to gauge the trust of who you sell to when using PayPal. If you don't, you will get scammed.

The link does not seem to work anymore. Can you please update it or point me towards the active location? Thank you

Also one question for me. Is there any way how to recognize credit card payment instead of payment from Paypal balance? I have been using pp for a little bit now and luckily for me I have only encountered alright buyers. My false believe that gift payments are safe vanished now so would like to stay on the safe side. Also is there a monthly limit of accepting payments on pp?

i want to buy a small amount through paypal and i understand the risk of scammers on the buying end but if i send as a gift then im not covered by buyer protection and im worried that the seller could just not send the bitcoins and just be like "oh thanks for the donation, bye" how can i avoid the risk of scammers on the selling end?

Any recommendations for the paypal mycash activity? Got a buddy thats been doing great trading and got over $2k locked up. If theres a way to possibly prevent that.... :)