Trying to chargeback with PayPal - a nightmare

I bought some things from PayPal and they didn’t send them. So I try to do it with PayPal, but they say there’s nothing they can do with friends payment, so I contact Monzo. They’re sending me in circles and this is not what I expect from my bank

It’s not Monzo’s problem unfortunately. If you selected the ‘Friend’ payment, this is not covered by PayPal buyer protection, so they are entirely within their right to decline.

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As above. See:

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Just to emphasise upon what Charlie said, this is not an issue monzo should be dealing with. Its an issue to raise with the seller of the items

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Have you had this issue before and another bank did sort it to your satisfaction?

If so, which one, as that seems somewhat above and beyond on their part and not great for their accounts?

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Sounds like you were scammed, as mentioned above you should never send it as a friend payment especially when they’re not your friend!

Sadly you’re going to have to learn your lesson the hard way :slightly_frowning_face:

Hopefully it wasn’t much? and out of interest how did they manage to convince you to send money this way?

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anything your paying for with PayPal never use the friends option if you don’t know the person that’s a red flag there because they know PayPal won’t do anything if you didn’t get the item

Hi, yes, you cant blame Monzo for effectively your own knowledge of making payments via Paypal.

Why wouldn’t this be covered my MasterCard chargeback?

Depends how it worked.

If you used your credit or debit card to deposit money into PayPal then paid the the third party via PayPal transfer you can’t chargeback.

This is because you received the service from PayPal you ‘paid’ for and PayPal can prove it was received etc as they are contractually obligated.

This dispute sounds like it is between the OP, PayPal and the seller.

If PayPal was the processor of the payment rather then the transferor you can indeed chargeback. The way to think of it is a bank transfer rather then a payment. I’m surprised PayPal can’t just reclaim it. Even if the customer did successfully chargeback, PayPal would likely hold the funds and close the account.

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I’ve always understood that using PayPal effectively insulates you from your normal banking rights because your bank transaction is effectively with PayPal rather than any third party. That means the bank isn’t involved with the PayPal -> Third party transaction at all so you can’t do chargeback in the normal way.

From the above, it sounds like I may not be entirely correct in all circumstances but I’m always nervous of using PayPal unless I really have to as a direct result of this.

I think the key question here is ‘Did the third party get paid with a PayPal transaction or a Monzo card transaction?’ (A ‘friend’ payment sounds like a PayPal transaction to me, I’m, afraid.)

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I deleted my PayPal account because of this.

I’ve kept mine but only for the odd eBay type thing once every three years or so.

Been caught out by PayPal one to many times, will only ever use it to recive money never use it to buy anything anymore, the account is still open but used maybe once or twice a year.

PayPal and Ebay are effectivley dead to me :wink:

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Do you haev to have an account to pay for ebay purchases? Whenever I run across something which only has paypal as an option, I just use the option to pay without registering. They’ve made it harder over the years, you get offered multiple times before, during and after payment to register with them but i’ve avoided it.

Come to think of it I bought a discontinued hair product on ebay a few months ago and am pretty sure I didn’t have to log in to paypal to make the payment.

I haven’t tried recently so probably don’t know for sure. Does it break selling in some way? I can’t remember as I’ve only done it about twice.

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I think you are covered by chargeback if you paid straight with a card as opposed to PayPal balance.

My brother did a chargeback on a PayPal transaction when they ruled against him, using a MasterCard

PayPal buyer protection doesn’t apply for the pay a friend feature. :frowning: normally you can try and do a chargeback if you have used a credit card to fund the transaction through PayPal , but it won’t work if you have paid using your PayPal balance .
You should always ask the seller to provide you with an invoice , and you should never use the pay a friend feature unless that person is actually your friend . :disappointed:
I’m very sorry that this happened to you.

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I had a problem like this where PayPal wouldnt act on my behalf, the paypal advisor told me to go to my bank. I went to my bank Halifax at the time, provided them with the evidence and they clawed back the money.

Amy, while it’s good that you got your money back, I’m a little surprised they did that. When you hook uo your debit or credit card or bank to PayPal, all you are doing is providing a method to top up your balance. Any transactions on PayPal are nothing to do with the bank and they cannot see them either. It’s not a direct transaction, so I can’t see how chargeback would be valid here.

I am sorry for the original poster, it’s not pleasant being scammed.

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