Overstock.com and PayPal

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

I want you all to be VERY AWARE OF THIS

I purchased 3 items from Overstock.com .....I payed for them via PayPal ....2 of the items came, but the 3rd did not ....I waited over 2 weeks , and then contacted Overstock.com to please just return the portion of the money from the item they did NOT send me ...They even sent me an email stating that they returned the money to my PayPal account ...I contacted PayPal and they said that this was not true, that there was not reinverse of the money ...I wrote back to Overstock.com and they again sent me the same form letter stateing that the monies were sent ....I filed a written grievence with PayPal, and filed a claim for my money ....I automatically got a responce from PayPal saying that my case was not a valid case !!!!.....I even had the email stating that Overstock.com reinversed PayPal, and I was TALKING TO PAYPAL , and they had no record of the reinversement and yet they STILL said I have no claim ???.....This is a scam as Overstock.com is a HUGE user of PayPal ....Don't get caught up in it ...I know , you guys who never had a problem with Overstock.com or PayPal will chime in here , but this is a REAL story, and I got taken for $49.98 all because they didn't have it in stock and they took my money anyway !!....What recourse do I have ? ....I'm so upset !!...I use my bank account for PayPal payment so I can't even go to my credit card company ....Sorry for the rant, but I wanted y ou guys to know, and have a heads up on what practices there are on the internet !!....Jim

Keith Ballmer · From: Traverse City, Michigan, USA

Jim
Look back on your bank records on-line..there has to be an electronical tranfer pin number.
Also file a complian with paypal, paypal is 85% for the seller and 15% for the buyer...The seller pays there bills so they allways are for the seller.
If you sent them the money ...there is a record somewhere....if they sent you money there will be money transfer record and demand the transaction number and date!
Good luck
Keith
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James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

I couldn't believe it when I read this ....This statement came THE EXACT MINUTE I FILED THE CLAIM ....It's like it was an AUTOMATED responce to my filing a claim ....It was literally 1 minute later, not 2 or 3 days !!....This is a scam for sure !!...I went to my bank, and they could not help me ...No back up there...The only backup would have been if I used my ATM card ...Why would I use that ??...Then to add insult to injury, my bank wants to charge me $30 to have a little note put in my account that states " no more payments to PayPal " ....I wanted that in case they just wanted to take money from my account !!...Who knows anymore ???..... ...My only backup would have been a credit card ....Here is the INSTANT reply I got from PayPal ...Now you tell me this is not a scam !!....

PayPal has escalated this dispute to a claim. As part of our investigation, we reviewed any communication you may have had in the Resolution Center.

Our investigation into your claim is complete. As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund.

I'm so upset , you have no idea ...They just keep the money, and I have no recourse !!.....Jim

Stan Paxton · Posted 24 Dec 2007 1:28 pm

James, this is just terrible.. It's not the amount of $, would have been the same if big $ were involved. I'm old fashioned, is why I distrust transactions over the internet except between individuals who you pretty sure can trust, like our Forum brothers. ...For so small amount I don't know if it's worth it, but if you had an attorney friend who could write a couple of letters, it might shake something loose; it does sometimes if they think legal action might get involved.
God Bless, Good luck, and Merry Christmas
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James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Thanks Stan...I appreciate it ....It's getting to where you can't trust anybody !!....I have had great success with our forum buddies ...God Bless you too, and have a great holiday season !!....I'm not gonna let this spoil my Christmas !!...I'll deal with it afterwards ....Thanks again ...Sincerely, Jim

Keith,
You are right about PayPal being for the seller more so than the buyer ....They hang us out to dry !! .....Ebay is PayPal and Overstock is getting just as close !!.... No internet control at all , and they are the biggest abusers ....They don't protect the public at all ...They make money whether you loose money or not, and have become filthy rich doing it !!...I went online to see if there was some kind of forum to complain about Overstock.com and I found so many links on the various problems that folks have had , that I didn't know where to post there were so many !!....Live and learn !!...Jim

Mark Bocko · From: Rochester, New York, USA

Call the Attorney General's office in your state.

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Does the Attorney General handle internet cases ?...Thanks, Jim

Gary Lynch · From: Creston, California, USA

James,

It's a shame this happens at the time of year we are all supposed to be reflecting on the goodness of mankind. So much for that. I hope you eventually get reimbursed.!

Gary

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Thanks Gary....There are still a lot of good people in this world ...The big businesses forget the little people and put the almighty dollar first ... My mom ( may she rest in peace ) always said " Whatever you put into the lives of others, comes back into your own " .....She was a wise woman !!..Happy Holidays ....Jim

Colm Chomicky · From: Kansas, (Prairie Village)

Keep the pressure on Overstock. Tell Overstock you checked your PayPal account and their refund did not post to PayPal. Log into PayPal, check your history very carefully, double check the transactions from Overstock. Look at the combinations of debits and potential credits for the transaction. Look for the term refund. No refund, I think then lean on Overstock hard explaining you have very carefully checked the transactions and see no refund. My experience if Overstock posts a refund, then you get an automatic email from PayPal that says refund posted.

Here is an example below of a refund from a merchant. Note the amount of $21.99 There are 4 transactions - two for purchase transfers, two for refund transfers -- I guess that is how accountants do it. It can be confusing.

I used a credit card, I assume you used your bank account. There should be two transfers associated with your bank account there should debit and a credit (-$49.98 )

If you decide to wash your hands of PayPal you can go to your profile and cancel your account, but don't do that until you get your refund from Overstock.

Andy Sandoval · From: Bakersfield, California, USA

Log onto your Paypal account and double check your transaction history to make sure.

Mark Bocko · From: Rochester, New York, USA

Jim -
A few years ago I had trouble with a merchant through buy.com and I called the Attorney General's office. They did look into my situation, and although I didn't really get satisfaction they tried. (My broken item ended up being fixed under manufacturer's warranty rather than returning it.) Your case sounds like a pretty clear cut case of fraud.

Another possibility is to bring this to the attention of a media consumer advocate. This may not apply to you but when I turned 50 a year or so ago I started getting the AARP magazine, and they have a consumer advocate column where they resolve various complaints from us seniors! These shady vendors can't stand the light of day.

It's the principle. Good luck with this.

Mark

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Guys,
I have logged into my account many times to check for the refund ....Overstock.com did NOT send it to PayPal ....Now when I got the Resolution Center of PayPal they send me what I posted up above ...This was after spending over a week trying to get in touch with Overstock, thru PayPal ...>Then in the end , PayPal said that they don't handle this kind of matter....Bull_ _ _ _ !!....They should handle this kind of matter ...They were the ones who paid Overstock.com the money !!.. If I had my guess, I would say that they are in cahoots with each other, and maybe split the money they abscond from people like me ...I went to a site and filed a fraud report...These guys are not listenning to me ,and could care less what I have to say ...PayPal is just like Ebay...They talk of how they help the consumer , but in reality, they all make money and could care less about the consumer ...Just go and Google " Overstock.com problems" and see what you come up with ....Both Overstock.com and PayPal work great when they have the product, and you don't have to return anything ...Once THEY have to loose out on selling you something, and have to return money, THIS is when the trouble starts !!....and now I'm in trouble with both of them ....Jim

Here is PayPals reply after me sending letters and then finally filing a claim...Again, this is what came in my email not 1 MINUTE AFTER I FILED THE CLAIM WITH PAYPAL >>>>>>>>

Dear James Quackenbush,

PayPal has escalated this dispute to a claim. As part of our investigation, we reviewed any communication you may have had in the Resolution Center.

Our investigation into your claim is complete. As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund.

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

PayPal wanted me to send letters to Overstock.com and they would play middleman with the letters to see if they could collect the money ....Here are my letters that PayPal supposedly sent to Overstock.com....

Total Messages: 4
From PayPal: PayPal on 12/24/2007 09:15 PST
PayPal escalated this dispute to claim.

From Buyer: James Quackenbush on 12/24/2007 06:47 PST
You have had more than enough time to return my money, and you fail to even contact me to discuss this...I see no other alternative than to bring PayPal into this situation, and file a claim for the return of my $49.98 ..... I have been a customer of Overstock.com for a couple of years, and have bought numerous items from you ...I don't deserve to be treated like this at all ...Sincerely, James Quackenbush

From Buyer: James Quackenbush on 12/20/2007 05:44 PST
I am still waiting for my monies to be returned to my PayPal acount ...My refund was SUPPOSE to be given to me on 12/11/07 according to your email to me ...It was NOT posted on my account ...Please return the $49.98 to my PayPal account ...Jim

From Buyer: James Quackenbush on 12/18/2007 08:27 PST
You did not send PayPal the money that you owe me for the 2 battery and charger setups in the amount of $49.98 ....I wrote you numerous letters and you sent me an email indicating that you reinversed PayPal in the amount of $49.98 ...PayPal has NO record of your return of money , nor do I ...Please do the honorable thing, and return my money....James Quackenbush

After these letters I filed a claim as you can see on the top of the page ....ONE MINUTE after I filed the claim , I got the message that I posted earlier ...I did everything the way PayPal told me to do it , and then they turned their back on me when I finalized the problem and filed a claim with them !!.....This is justice ??...PayPal is good ? ...They are a self serving business , and make tons of money from other businesses like Overstock.com, and they will always side with them, and screw the consumer ....BE VERY AWARE !!....Jim

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

Not wanting to divert your discussion, but I had the same problem with Amazon.com. There's no telephone number listed for them anywhere. Their website is intentionally designed to prevent feedback from customers.

Colm Chomicky · From: Kansas, (Prairie Village)

I have experienced quite a bit of incompetence with merchants, with doctors offices, etc. I can only surmise they don't really give a sh-- and the low paid people working for them in some cube farm have no incentive to stick their necks out. You have to do their job for them -- especially doctor's and dentists offices who constantly make errors in their favor generally through incompetence. Eventually with dogged persistent (and hiding my true feelings), I can usually get things resolved.

For example I just had a doctors office discover they had not billed me for $295 from last year. They said I had to pay it because they filed with the wrong insurance company. And told me it was too late to file with my insurance company due to lack of timely filing. I told them they should have let me known last year, I could have helped them getting paid. They acted like the problem was between me an my insurance and they didn't want to get involved in insurance disputes. Hello? Excuse me! I don't have a dispute with my insurace company, I have a dispute with you Mr. Doctor's office accounting service! You filed with the wrong insurance company, and it ain't my fault. It's just too easy for them to send me nasty letters threatening legal action because I am a soft target. So I end up doing their work for them telling them exactly what and how they have to file with the correct insurance company and they bitch and moan like they are doing a big favor (but hey I am doing your dang job you lazy arses, you ought to thank me for figuring out how you can get paid). So eventually, after 2 or 3 rejections from the insurance company (due to incomplete paperwork submitted by the doctor's bookkeeper), and periodic phone calls to get one person at the insurance company to call the bookkeeper and walk that person throught the process, the doctor eventually gets paid by my insurance company and the bookkeeper acts all huffy like I screwed them around because it took 4 more months to get their money, but they forget they sat on the bill for 1 year and so whats the big deal.

I could not tell the bookkeeper I was secretly angry, I had to play her like a fiddle and very nicely explain to her want to do, and ignore her huffing and puffing and ignore her snide comments that she was getting feed up with the whole process.

Now the dentist office was something else, every bill they would not give me the rightdown they were obligated to give under the dental insurance contract. After about two years of correcting them, the bookkeeper has ceased to make this "mistake" anymore. But, I bet all those other folks just pay their bills, figuring the balance due is correct, and its kind of funny that the bookkeeper comes to work in a BMW 700's series luxury car -- wonder if she is skimming. Well it ain't my problem so long as I have got her trained not to pad her bills with me. And I am the nicest guy as I point out the overbillings and she is the nicest person just acting so innocent when she corrects the bill. Statistically if she has a 95% overbilling with me, it ain't just me.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Jim,
Don't give up--Paypal will go to bat for you if you follow the right steps.

Go to your account. At the bottom of the page click on Contact Us. Follow the links to get them by phone to find out the next step. I think you would be filing an INR or Item Not Receive Claim, which would then be escalated to a dispute. Be aware, it will take approx 30 days for Paypal to recover your funds.

I just won a SNAD (Significantly Not As Described) dispute and got a full refund plus my shipping from an ebay seller (almost $900). Just got to follow the steps and try to keep your head.

Mike
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Stephen Gambrell · From: Over there

What Mike said. There is a phone number for PayPal, and usually, no long wait. They DO work for the buyer, since the buyer pays 'em.

Tom Keller · From: Greeneville, TN, USA

1-800-201-7575 This is suppose to be the working number for Amazon's customer service. Please inform if this is no longer a valid number.

George Redmon · From: Muskegon & Detroit Michigan.

Don Poland · From: Hanover, PA.

Jude Reinhardt · From: Weaverville, NC

I've been with ebay and paypal for about five years with no problems until this last month, and the problem was caused the first time by the seller when I was the buyer and the second time by me when I was the seller. Here's what happened the first time. I bought a Sierra lap steel on ebay from a seller with zero feedback. There were only five bidders on this nice guitar because of bidder reluctance due to the zero feedback. I sent my payment through paypal and the auction page showed that I had sent a payment to username@hisemailaddress. OK so far however when he looked a his auction page it showed that the payment was pending. I got an email from him asking how and when I was going to pay and he included his phone number. When I checked my paypal account page it showed that a payment was sent to him but that it was "unclaimed". I talked to him on the phone and his paypal account page had nothing about a payment from me. We got to talking and being inexperienced with ebay and paypal he had his daughter help him get set up. It seems that two email addresses were used, one for ebay and the other for paypal. The one for ebay was no longer used by him so it went unchecked. If he had checked it he would have seen an email from paypal stating that they had money for him. By just checking his paypal account which was set up with a different email address he assumed that he hadn't been paid. While he was on the phone, I cancelled my payment, saw that the money was back in my account and resubmitted the payment to his email address that paypal had for his account. Within twenty minutes he called my back, said "Ive got the money, apologized for the mixup and sent the Sierra out the next morning via UPS.
The second mixup was my fault. I moved in July and went with a new internet service provider. I found that I only had to change my outgoing mail from adelphia.net to zoominternet.net but could keep the incoming mail at adelphia.net and retain my email address. Or so I thought. However last week the incoming mail stopped. I could still send but could no longer receive email. No problem, I changed my incoming mail to from adelphia.net to zoominternet.net and informed everyone I could think of, of my new address. Went to paypal, ebay, the bank, friends, etc. and gave them the new address. However I neglected to "delete" the old address in my paypal and ebay accounts and the old address was still listed as the "primary address". Yep, the seller paid me but the payment was sent to the adelphia.net address and didn't show up on my paypal account. I emailed him and explained the problem, asked him to cancel his paypal payment and resubmit to the zoominternet.net address. It came through ok I made sure to delete my old email address from ebay and paypal.
A simple mixup, but fingers could have been pointed. Sometimes a little pull instead of a push is better.

Jude
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James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Mike Neer,
I DID go thru all the steps like you said ...and what I am writing about is what I was informed !!...I went thru EVERY STEP THEY TOLD ME !! and I still got screwed !!....PayPal dropped the ball and wrote to me what I stated in my emails ...I first went to Overstock.com, and then to PayPal ...I got NOTHING from either one of them except a big time wasteing run around !!....Jim

Happy Holidays ... Very Happy

Steven Black · From: Gahanna, Ohio, USA

That is why I do not use online merchants and Pay-pal, I only buy from companies I know or I have dealt with before, on-line activities are not safe, deal only with trusted businesses, I had a friend who got took by pay-pal and it messed up his credit history but it finally got cleared up after two years.

Ben Turner · From: Myrtle Beach, SC, USA (deceased)

I found a site a while back while searching for a customer service number that is clearly not even on the actual website (amazon.com) - it seems a lot of internet companies have now decided to take their numbers completely off so nobody can contact them only through email which most of the time seems like a waste of time and effort with all of the automated email responses and having to wait up to a week for a reply or more. I guess they don't really care about the actual buyer anymore just as long as they're getting paid. Anyway the website is http://inter800.com/ just type in the business you're looking for and it usually works, I was able to find eBay.com, Amazon.com, Overstock.com, Buy.com just to see if the site really worked and all of the toll free numbers came up. It all depends on how you search too I found out, I searched for "Buy.com" and got nothing, I just searched for "Buy" and it produced a listing "Buy Com" with a brief description of the company. And of course if you ultimately can't find what you're looking for on this site there is always Google! Forums all over the internet explain how people have gotten ripped off and people trying to search for and not being able to find the customer service numbers for numerous websites and usually someone finally breaks the code and posts the number.

Anyway, I just figured this may be useful info to somebody! I hope they make it right James, I know how it feels, I've had to deal with several incidents from different sites similar to this. I've been lucky I guess and have always gotten reimbursed.

Most importantly though, don't let this ruin the celebration at hand here! Merry Christmas to you and your family & a Happy New Year to come.
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Benjamin Turner

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