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Dear All,
I'm in a difficult and very frustrating situation. This issue happened in the UK. A third party (my ex-husband) received several payments from a friend of his in my paypal account because his own paypal account was new and therefore limited, these were all genuine friend and family payments (I mean, he and I wasn't using the friends and family payment function to receive payments for goods and services, they were real personal payments). The payments were received with my knowledge, I forwarded them to my ex immediately. I asked him to find another way to receive payments because I didn't need the hassle, but I didn't push it too much because of two reasons: before our divorce he and I were married for more than 7 years, we had a good friendly relationship and we have a young child together; therefore I was fine with assisting him this way and I didn't think any problems could occur. I wanted to preserve our amicable relationship especially for the sake of our child. Also, I had serious problems at the time because my dad was dying of brain cancer, he was in the last months of his life, we were home nursing him with my mum and it was mentally very difficult, so I didn't think very clearly about helping my ex to receive payments (in other words, I had much bigger problems to worry about than forwarding him a few payments).
After some weeks or months the sender of the payments initiated chargeback claims through his bank or credit card company claiming "unauthorised transactions" and "items not received". I had to respond through paypal, I asked my ex-husband what was going on and he said that these payments were intended for his other friend's sister, who was the sender's girlfriend and he told me that they broke up and this is why the guy (the sender) is trying to get his money back. I know that it's confusing and sounds suspicious, however I didn't know about this at the time, as far as I knew I was only forwarding payments from a friend to my ex.
After the chargeback cases were opened, my ex sent me several screenshots of whatsapp messages between the sender and his girlfriend (the actual recipient of the transferred amounts) as an evidence that he sent the amounts voluntarily and knowingly as personal payments, I sent these to paypal and explained them the situation, they accepted my responses and forwarded them to the bank. The bank ruled 2 cases in my favour and the rest in the sender's favour (no explanation was given, so I have no idea what difference did anything make). I have tried to dispute the debt with paypal several times, but they only kept repeating that I wasn't eligible for seller's protection but these were never business transactions and I explained it to them many times with evidence. I would like to add that my paypal account was more than 10 years old, I mainly used it for online shopping as a buyer and for sending and receiving a very few friend and family payments until the point when my ex-husband's payments were causing trouble. I also sold a few items years ago on ebay but only as a private seller (not a business), I always had 100% positive feedback, no chargebacks or any type of complaint before. So I never experienced any problem with paypal before but then I found that they are simply not accepting anything I have to say about the chargeback problems.
I do understand that these cases were decided by the sender's bank, but isn't it paypal's responsibility not to accept credit cards then to fund friend and family payments? I forwarded the payments to my ex-husband, then why can't I reverse them through paypal just like the sender reversed his payments to me? It would be great, then my ex would be the one who owes paypal, not me. Now I know it was stupid of me to do these transactions for him, but as I said I didn't think anything would be wrong with it and my mind was completely elsewhere (with my dad).
Anyway, the current state of this problem is that paypal closed my account and has given the debt to a DCA (Wescot). I don't mind my account being closed, after this mishap I decided never to use paypal anyway. I also don't mind being chased for the debt. However what I would really like to avoid is for this matter to go to court and have a CCJ in my name. I don't live in the UK at the moment, I don't have any property, asset or valuable item anywhere in the world, I don't receive any type of income from the UK therefore any judgement could not be enforced. But the problem is that I was planning to return to the UK eventually, I would like to stay there permanently and buy a house in the future with mortgage. I may also have a problem if any future job I apply for checks my credit score. So a CCJ would be a big problem for me and I want to avoid it.
I can't pay paypal, even if I agreed that I owe (which I really do not). My income is low due to the pandemic, I raise my daughter alone with very little financial help from my ex, I am paying 3 credit cards back plus 4 more for my mum. I am unable to take on another debt that I didn't create.
When I asked legal advice, I was told that I should take the sender or the actual recipient (the girlfriend of the sender) or my ex to court. I can't do any of these, the sender and the girlfriend both live in two different countries (none of them are in my country or the UK). I don't want to sue my ex, it wouldn't save me from getting a CCJ on my own and I know they couldn't enforce any judgement on him either (no regular income, no valuables).
My question is, has anybody got any personal experience with this? Does paypal take people to court in the UK over a negative balance due to unpaid chargeback? I really don't know what to do
I'm in a difficult and very frustrating situation. This issue happened in the UK. A third party (my ex-husband) received several payments from a friend of his in my paypal account because his own paypal account was new and therefore limited, these were all genuine friend and family payments (I mean, he and I wasn't using the friends and family payment function to receive payments for goods and services, they were real personal payments). The payments were received with my knowledge, I forwarded them to my ex immediately. I asked him to find another way to receive payments because I didn't need the hassle, but I didn't push it too much because of two reasons: before our divorce he and I were married for more than 7 years, we had a good friendly relationship and we have a young child together; therefore I was fine with assisting him this way and I didn't think any problems could occur. I wanted to preserve our amicable relationship especially for the sake of our child. Also, I had serious problems at the time because my dad was dying of brain cancer, he was in the last months of his life, we were home nursing him with my mum and it was mentally very difficult, so I didn't think very clearly about helping my ex to receive payments (in other words, I had much bigger problems to worry about than forwarding him a few payments).
After some weeks or months the sender of the payments initiated chargeback claims through his bank or credit card company claiming "unauthorised transactions" and "items not received". I had to respond through paypal, I asked my ex-husband what was going on and he said that these payments were intended for his other friend's sister, who was the sender's girlfriend and he told me that they broke up and this is why the guy (the sender) is trying to get his money back. I know that it's confusing and sounds suspicious, however I didn't know about this at the time, as far as I knew I was only forwarding payments from a friend to my ex.
After the chargeback cases were opened, my ex sent me several screenshots of whatsapp messages between the sender and his girlfriend (the actual recipient of the transferred amounts) as an evidence that he sent the amounts voluntarily and knowingly as personal payments, I sent these to paypal and explained them the situation, they accepted my responses and forwarded them to the bank. The bank ruled 2 cases in my favour and the rest in the sender's favour (no explanation was given, so I have no idea what difference did anything make). I have tried to dispute the debt with paypal several times, but they only kept repeating that I wasn't eligible for seller's protection but these were never business transactions and I explained it to them many times with evidence. I would like to add that my paypal account was more than 10 years old, I mainly used it for online shopping as a buyer and for sending and receiving a very few friend and family payments until the point when my ex-husband's payments were causing trouble. I also sold a few items years ago on ebay but only as a private seller (not a business), I always had 100% positive feedback, no chargebacks or any type of complaint before. So I never experienced any problem with paypal before but then I found that they are simply not accepting anything I have to say about the chargeback problems.
I do understand that these cases were decided by the sender's bank, but isn't it paypal's responsibility not to accept credit cards then to fund friend and family payments? I forwarded the payments to my ex-husband, then why can't I reverse them through paypal just like the sender reversed his payments to me? It would be great, then my ex would be the one who owes paypal, not me. Now I know it was stupid of me to do these transactions for him, but as I said I didn't think anything would be wrong with it and my mind was completely elsewhere (with my dad).
Anyway, the current state of this problem is that paypal closed my account and has given the debt to a DCA (Wescot). I don't mind my account being closed, after this mishap I decided never to use paypal anyway. I also don't mind being chased for the debt. However what I would really like to avoid is for this matter to go to court and have a CCJ in my name. I don't live in the UK at the moment, I don't have any property, asset or valuable item anywhere in the world, I don't receive any type of income from the UK therefore any judgement could not be enforced. But the problem is that I was planning to return to the UK eventually, I would like to stay there permanently and buy a house in the future with mortgage. I may also have a problem if any future job I apply for checks my credit score. So a CCJ would be a big problem for me and I want to avoid it.
I can't pay paypal, even if I agreed that I owe (which I really do not). My income is low due to the pandemic, I raise my daughter alone with very little financial help from my ex, I am paying 3 credit cards back plus 4 more for my mum. I am unable to take on another debt that I didn't create.
When I asked legal advice, I was told that I should take the sender or the actual recipient (the girlfriend of the sender) or my ex to court. I can't do any of these, the sender and the girlfriend both live in two different countries (none of them are in my country or the UK). I don't want to sue my ex, it wouldn't save me from getting a CCJ on my own and I know they couldn't enforce any judgement on him either (no regular income, no valuables).
My question is, has anybody got any personal experience with this? Does paypal take people to court in the UK over a negative balance due to unpaid chargeback? I really don't know what to do
