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Ask HN: PayPal dismissed my claim, saying I didn't provide evidence (yet I did)

214 points by fer 4y ago

Hi. I apologize in advance, but it looks like it's my turn for social media big tech support. I had a situation where OVH abused a PayPal authorization to charge me 1200€ for a "private cloud" credit I never asked. OVH refuses to refund me changing the reason for it every time, but well, that's another topic. I filed a PayPal dispute, I added exchanges with OVH as evidence, where they constantly insist on me having this "credit" still available for me to use, and my insisting on not wanting it for any purpose (the 12€ I added were enough for my test) and not having ordered it. Finally, PayPal ruled in favor of OVH claiming that I "never provided documentation to prove this credit". Not only I did (OVH messages), but nobody asked me for evidence at any point: I could have provided extra information/screenshots where it is shown. I am positive OVH was requested multiple times for documentation to support their claims, but that was never the case for me, not sure if that's normal. Now I'm stuck with an absurd amount of credit on a cloud service I have no use for (and worse, it expires in a year), and apparently there's no UI option for me to contest this PayPal ruling. Phoning them I found no option to talk to a person. Other than lawyering up and contacting consumer protection organisations, what else is there to do? Anyone at PayPal can give me a hint? Thanks in advance.

vorpalhex 4y ago
Bought a game service from the company. It was down/not functional. Asked the company for a refund, got death threats in return. Went to paypal. Attached death threats from company. Paypal sided with the company.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Does anyone know if there's real human review in these cases, or are they just an automated response?
  - willhinsa 4y ago
    I don't know which would be worse, you have no chance of winning because their automation sides automatically with the large customer, or a human actually read those death threats and still sided with the large customer.
- registeredcorn 4y ago
  I'm assuming you are no longer working with OVH. Care to provide the death threats via screenshot or file dump? I'd be interested to hear the specifics on this.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Sorry, this wasn't OVH, it was a different company (small minecraft host).
- Hamuko 4y ago
  I managed to get like 800€ back through PayPal after the company I bought something from went into bankruptcy, although that was probably because they never actually answered PayPal's inquiry. No idea what would've happened if they did.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  Probably some idiot who didn't realize the death threats were evidence, not your action. E-mail based support (anywhere, not just Paypal) is generally terrible for actually understanding the whole thing being presented.
emsy 4y ago
Request a chargeback at your bank and accept that PayPal will close your account.
- fer 4y ago
  Unfortunately I used straight charge to my bank account, which limits the options in my jurisdiction.
  - NavinF 4y ago
    What jurisdiction? If you’re in the US, Regulation E provides some protection from unauthorized charges. Though paying with a bank account is still silly because you’re losing out on cashback and credit cards always side with the customer in these disputes.
  - rajman187 4y ago
    Some banks are able to reverse charges as well, worth asking them
ev1 4y ago
I have never once gotten a random invalid charge from OVH and it's been years. Do you actually have a 1200EUR VAT invoice with line items from them or was it just a charge out of nowhere?
- fer 4y ago
  Yes, in the moment I ordered a GPU instance with per hour billing an invoice for about 1 month of that instance was charged as "credit". They say I did it, but at no point I filed such order, and if I did, at no point that amount was shown to me. Maybe a bug or some UX/UI shenanigans, since I also got errors to cancel such invoice and obtain a refund. But since I complained through PayPal they've been acting in bad faith (like contesting my dispute the very last day without getting back to me, or changing the reason why I I'm not eligible for a refund).
  - ev1 4y ago
    Does the invoice say 1 month? The last time I used the public cloud GPU instance there was a very explicit setting to bill hourly or to get a discount by getting a month in advance.
    - fer 4y ago
      It just says 1200€ in credit, but it's exactly the cost oof that instance if you have it hourly for a month. Ordering the month would have been lower than that.
      - ev1 4y ago
        I wonder if there are shenanigans involving whether you're paying with a credit card with credit and a bank account that they might not be able to preauth. Has OVH phone support been of any use?
  - coffeeblack 4y ago
    Even if you had ordered it, it makes no sense for OVH to act like that. It hasn’t been used, so why not refund it? It will cost them a lot more in reputation damage.
kokanator 4y ago
Open an arbitration claim. Seriously. The terms you agreed to states claims can be settled with arbitration. Opening a claim will cost a couple hundred dollars and will move them to action immediately. Here is a great thread how this worked out for another person on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31567673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31567673
- tehwebguy 4y ago
  It sounds scary but it's seriously worth doing & getting the hang of a legal (or legal-ish) process if it's new to you.
- dawnerd 4y ago
  Had to do this too. Worked out great. Considering doing it again against another company which is a year past providing payment promised.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 4364Synapse 4y ago
  Do you have any alternative suggestions for people who are opposed to legal prosecution, under religious objections? I am an Anabaptist, and we are strongly against legal proceedings outside of extreme circumstance.
  - gnuj3 4y ago
    You what
    - IshKebab 4y ago
      He's saying he's morally opposed to dispute resolution methods that Paypal can't ignore and wants a way to resolve this dispute using a method that they can ignore. Makes total sense; I don't know why you'd question it!
    - Archelaos 4y ago
denimnerd42 4y ago
this happened to me. Part of an order wasn't sent as described. The merchant wouldn't accept a return. I opened a claim with evidence and they basically submitted a blank form for me. It was rejected. I called them again and explained that the evidence I attached wasn't considered. They resubmitted with a detail writeup on paypal's side and I was sided with.
- fer 4y ago
  How did you get in touch with a human? Here it's canned or robotic responses as far as I can navigate through the menu.
  - ev1 4y ago
    At least for US paypal I logged in and clicked support and was given a (custom?) phone number to call from my registered number to the account, US based human answered within a minute and asked for the temporary code on the screen.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
  Funnily enough, if you actually just send the order back, with signature required by recipient, then file a claim saying it wasn't as described, they will automatically side with you regardless of what the merchant says.
danielfoster 4y ago
This recently happened to me on PayPal with another company. I don’t think they read anything.
psyc 4y ago
Communicating with big tech at least keeps the word kafkaesque alive.
- microtonal 4y ago
  There are exceptions. I was recently double-charged for Apple Care. I could get someone on the phone very quickly. They also set up a communications channel between me and someone from their administrative department (IIRC you could e-mail or SMS them through a form). They called me twice to check if the refund came in. We had similarly good experiences with them a few years ago. They were easy to reach and they'd call back to check if everything was handled in an satisfactory manner. (Booking.com on the other hand was terrible, we never got back the 120 Euro or so for a hotel room that we cancelled with agreement from the hotel. Only Kafka-esque support mazes.)
cyral 4y ago
OVH support is pretty terrible. In other news, they have had an outage for over 24 hours now and it took them around 10 hours to provide any update after it began. https://status.us.ovhcloud.com/pages/incident/59dd23da8827c804746f1664/62d8f8a83abc6805b6f5e402 https://status.us.ovhcloud.com/pages/incident/59dd23da8827c8...
- blfr 4y ago
  OVH's support is not so much terrible as largely non-existent. However, they have been rather generous with free credits and I've never had a billing issue with them despite having used their various services for 13 years across at least three entities.
  - cpncrunch 4y ago
    Yes, support is abysmal, but they are good at refunding and fixing billing issues.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      Based on the OP, I'd say this is false.
      - cpncrunch 4y ago
        Yes you're right, I meant in my own experience.
  - malikNF 4y ago
    I actually have had really good support from them. Used to have a few servers with them which were getting DDoSed all the time. Their free support was good, but we decided to pay for the ~60usd a month premium support and we even had some video calls with one of their engineers who worked with us to help mitigate the issues.
blihp 4y ago
Any chance you might have entered 1200 thinking you were entering 12? I've run into this situation more than once where there is/isn't a decimal where you think it isn't/is.
- fer 4y ago
  No, I have a separate charge for the 12.
- sp332 4y ago
  OP ordered a 1200 euro service and then cancelled before it was delivered. Instead of a refund, OVH gave him a 1200 euro "credit".
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  The inconsistency of money amount inputs in web forms is infuriating. Some will automatically enter a decimal and if you type "12" then it only enters 0.12. If you want 12.00, then you have to type 1200. Others are the opposite. You enter "12" and you get 12.00. You have to manually enter the decimal if you want 0.12.
awinter-py 4y ago
if you're EU based, may be worth treating this as a consumer right to withdrawal https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/14-days-to-withdraw.html https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/14-..., instructions at the bottom for contacting your local european consumer center to complain. (Have heard this complaint process is very good + nearly automatic for airline refunds; not sure right of refusal cases). If you're US based, you may be able to frame this as a gift certificate under the CARD act https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1693l-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1693l-1, and at least dispute the expiration date. (But I'm not sure if this section gives you power to sue; you may have to contact your state AG). (I'm not a lawyer)
cfeduke 4y ago
I had a similar problem with a criminal complaint. It's impossible to get a hold of anyone at Paypal, and if you do, they will play dumb, or transfer you to an "account specialist" where you are just left in hold limbo (I've left the phone connected for about an hour before it was forcefully disconnected). In my case I had to talk to my credit union and credit card provider and both sided with me against Paypal and blocked the charge. Paypal is now trying to collect the money through a third party, so I have to go to arbitration. Paypal is on the side of criminals - not intentionally - because they make money on the fees and don't have to pay much for customer support to handle edge cases. The FTC recently took Walmart to court over similar behavior, essentially profiting off of crime.
test1872 4y ago
OVH blocks me from accessing my account because I used a virtual credit card (they demand a picture holding the card + ID!) AND a day later they proceeded to charge the card anyways.
tinus_hn 4y ago
I’m in a situation where I have a half open account, they want me to provide ID which I won’t and they won’t allow me to close the account without providing ID. PayPal is a ridiculous company and in no way to be considered a serious partner or service in finance.
laksdjf 4y ago
Your post is confusing. It sounds like PayPal is asking you to prove you did not receive the cloud credits. But what you should do is say you did not purchase cloud credits. There is a difference between an unauthorized charge and goods not received.
- fer 4y ago
  I opened as "order not received" because I canceled the instance before it got delivered. OVH argued that the charge was a credit and not the service itself and that I still have the credit (hence, it was delivered). Then I said that the reason should be charge unauthorized, as I canceled precisely because of the unexpected amount of the bill, and I didn't perform a credit. The reason switched mid claim. PayPal finally said that I didn't prove I had credit on OVH, which is indeed confusing (meaning I didn't spend it?). If I didn't order it shouldn't matter what's on their platform.
  - conductr 4y ago
    > I opened as "order not received" because I canceled the instance before it got delivered. If the order was canceled then how can it be claimed not received? The charge occurring on a canceled order is an unauthorized charge. I'd recommend to file that type of claim. They are different and OVH is being terse. It's something you can do before you call Saul.
    - fer 4y ago
      PayPal doesn't allow to open another claim on the same charge, though.
d23 4y ago
I was a paypal customer since the 90s. I recently had an issue where a site using paypal sold me something and blatantly lied about the product. I filed a dispute with paypal. It was only for $30, was a digital item, and I had pretty conclusive evidence. I expected paypal to side with me, especially given how long I had been using them and had never once filed a dispute. Nope. Immediately sided with the scummy company. I've tried to avoid using them whenever possible ever since.
- jrs235 4y ago
  I too just recently ran into a scam seller. Classic scam where they charge you then ship something to your zip code (they won't should the full delivery address with the tracking number) and have someone else pickup/sign for the package. Figured Paypal would side with me. Nope! And they are still allowing the scammer to "sell" things and charge people's credit cards. PayPal is useless for buyer protection. Caveat emptor. Buyers beware.
  - flutas 4y ago
    > Classic scam where they charge you then ship something to your zip code More commonly, they just somehow have access to a list of packages shipped recently and provide a tracking number that shows as shipped to your zip code. I had one use a tracking number from before I even ordered as their evidence...PayPal accepted their evidence...
    - jrs235 4y ago
      They must have usernames and passwords to UPS and FedEx accounts of larger sellers/shippers.
- nxm 4y ago
  Your history with any company is a non-factor these days
  - computator 4y ago
iasay 4y ago
I run my PayPal account from a dedicated bank account. If they try and take more than authorised then they will fail because the funds are not present. They can take me to court if there’s an issue. I have been burned before. Unless it’s a bank and are heavily regulated they are not your friends.
rr888 4y ago
In general is there any reason to use PayPal? I think 15 years ago people were no used to using their credit card on the web but now its normal.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Some services demand PayPal if you want to receive money - for example BandCamp.
- jenscow 4y ago
  Because I don't like to enter my card details into a random site. Even if I trust the company in general, I still don't know how secure their infrastructure is. Having a dedicated card/account for just paypal is easier.
  - throwaway23234 4y ago
    I'm the same way I like paypal to mask this. However some credit cards now have "virtual cards" that give you a temporary online number that you can use for specific transactions. It's another great way to avoid your data getting out there. I use one from Citibank as I have a CC from them. I highly recommend that instead of Paypal too if you suspect a site will have a much higher chance you'll need to reverse a charge. Paypal has longer wait times for disputes than the CC companies. CC companies will also have your back a bit more, typically.
  - LouisSayers 4y ago
    If you set up a wise account you can create virtual cards - achieves the same outcome (minus paypal).
- Tijdreiziger 4y ago
  You can link it to your IBAN, which lets you pay using SEPA Direct Debit. This is pretty useful if you don’t have or don’t want to use a credit card.
- joveian 4y ago
  PayPal doesn't have foreign transaction fees while most credit cards (at least in the US) do.
wewxjfq 4y ago
If your country has sensible laws, you should have the right to withdraw any credit. In that case you should ignore PayPal and deal with OVH.
driverdan 4y ago
Paypal has been literally doing stuff like this for over 20 years. paypalsucks.com was registered in 2000 but is apparently down now. This isn't an excuse for their bad behavior but I don't understand why anyone continues to use them.
- mod 4y ago
  I really hate PayPal, for close to the full 20 years. I still use them mainly because of eBay. I know that's but required now, but it was until pretty recently. It's still often easier to use the PayPal checkout instead of making a one-off account at a random place. Probably not worth it as a whole, but feels worth it sometimes to delay my cancellation a while.
joshenders 4y ago
And this is why I closed my PayPal and Venmo accounts and will never do business with this awful company again. I had the same experience. Only lost $600 but lesson learned.
TekMol 4y ago
I find your description vague and don't understand what happened. How was OVH able to pull €1200 from your PayPal account? Did you go to PayPal's website (for example via a popup triggered by the OVH website) and told PayPal to let them pull €1200? Now that they got the money, how is Paypal still part of it? Do you expect Paypal to go to OVH, knock down their door and demand the money back? I would think that if you want your money back, you need to involve the authorities. The government has a monopoly on violence. If you want somebody to go and knock down OVH's door, thats a job of the authorities. Obviously, OVH would probably already give you your money back if the authorities demand that. Nobody likes to get their door knocked down.
- fer 4y ago
  They had authorization for recurring payments, so they pulled those 1200 without my interaction. PayPal said I didn't provide evidence that I provided: that the credit is still there unused, siding with them as arbiter against the evidence.
- pteraspidomorph 4y ago
  > Do you expect Paypal to go to OVH, knock down their door and demand the money back? Normally that's what Paypal is for. They're not going to burst through any doors but if a vendor wants to keep using their services they surely have a lot of leverage.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  Their dispute process is weird. I sold a few items on ebay and one of the buyers filed a dispute under a ridiculous pretense (sending pictures of a pulverized item that was a different color than what I had in my ad and claiming I sent them that). PayPal sent an email claiming they were investigating, apparently that was my cue to send in evidence or something but I assumed it meant they were investigating this ridiculous fraud on the part of the buyer. Not so! They said since I didn't send in evidence in response to their very subtle prompt the decision defaulted to the claimant and I was out a bunch of money. It was the last time I used PayPal or ebay for anything.
acomjean 4y ago
Try your credit card dispute, if you charged it. I know we submitted evidence that a car we rented was a minorly damaged vehicle (it was marked on the sheet during the checkout) and then tried to bill us for the repair after taking the car back. We submitted pictures of the damaged car in the rental lot, the paper work indicating the damage. The car company rejected our dispute. The credit card company didn't. I even enlisted our french intern (native speaker) to call said company and ask what is going on. They got the run around ("French bureaucracy is the worst") They even blocked when said car company tried to charge again after the rejection. Good times.
tpae 4y ago
Hey there, I'm currently banned from PayPal, and I actually went through what you did. I filed an arbitration using a service called FairShake (https://fairshake.com/ https://fairshake.com/), and finally they decided to settle with me. They said they will give me my money, but I can no longer use any of their services including Venmo. I agreed and took the money. Happy to answer any questions regarding my experience, feel free to telegram me @tdpae
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  I’ve gotten around venmo bans with a new email address, new card, and staying under the KYC transaction size limit actually not necessarily even a new card if you’ve used AMEX Send thats valid in lieu of the exact same AMEX Card it was linked to
  - AinderS 4y ago
    What you're doing may be considered "structuring" [1], which under the demented laws of the US can land you in jail. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      Cute, fortunately structuring relies on avoiding regulatory thresholds for reporting and the KYC threshold that venmo sets is a completely arbitrary company policy that has nothing to do with the law and has nothing to do with reporting that a licensed financial institution needs to do or for reporting to a regulator Thanks for your concern, this is just circumventing a dark pattern of poor UX
    - from 4y ago
      The law on structuring (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324) is about evading the $10,000 reporting threshold for financial institutions taking cash deposits or businesses taking cash payments for goods/services. If they are perpetuating some kind of fraud on Venmo making multiple accounts to do so in violation of the ToS is maybe wire fraud (so is just about everything) but by itself is probably not illegal.
charles_f 4y ago
Credit card fraud protection? Try calling them and tell them how your credit card was abused by ovh?
dboreham 4y ago
This is interesting because I run a SaaS service that uses PayPal for subscription payments (we don't do recurring payments, users must initiate each payment explicitly). Anyway over the years we have had various customers who for whatever reason decided they regretted paying us after the fact. Generally we just refund them but in a few cases the situation was pretty egregious and we felt the customer was not by any reasonable viewpoint due a refund. Guess what? in no case were we able to keep the money. In every single case PayPal gave our money back to the customer. So I wonder what magical power OVH has to get the opposite treatment.
sbdmmg 4y ago
In what country are you located? In France there's a "médiateur" https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14373 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14373 It might apply in your case...
devmor 4y ago
What happened here is theft. OVH abused your connected service account to steal money from you, then claim you ordered a service that you did not order. The correct proceeding from this point is legal restitution.
ramesh31 4y ago
The classic "I got ripped off by PayPal" thread is as old as the internet itself. It's amazing what you can get away with in this country with enough money.
hattmall 4y ago
Post on BBB website, send the details and all relevant information to whatever your equivalent of the attorney general is and the one in Paypal and OVH's jurisdiction. Your best course of action is not to focus on PayPal but OVH. Send certified letters to both PayPal and OVH informing them of your contacting of the attorney general. Send to corporate offices and address of general counsel. You can open arbitration but it costs money. Be sure to clearly state what happened, why you think it is wrong, and your preferred remedy.
fxleach 4y ago
PayPal is garbage. Every interaction I have had with them has been miserable. At a previous ecommerce company we basically had to accept that 95% of our fraud claims would be denied without reason, just denied and closed and money lost, disregarding our proof.
jiggywiggy 4y ago
Whenever I can I use SEPA payment for subscriptions (which it looks like OVH accepts, most debitcards are SEPA in Europa), because it allows you to withdraw within 2 months directly from your bank application directly, no questions asked. (SEPA is EU based) Much better then credit cards and paypal, where you have to open a request for refund etc. You only have this in the EU, but it's the best option. I also had the flip side where customers would withdraw a few months in payment because the couldn't make their mortgage. Which we ended up resolving in a nice way. Maybe someone can recommend CC companies that tend to side on the Consumer side, American Express maybe?
- CharlesW 4y ago
  From a preventative POV, my thought was to use privacy.com with vendors. You can lock “cards” to a specific vendor, set monthly limits, etc.
- vel0city 4y ago
  SEPA sounds like a nice way to move cash around, don't get me wrong. But personally given the chance to use a credit card versus an even-smoother-than-US debit transaction, I'd still probably choose a credit card from a decent issuer. The biggest reason is because then its never my money getting tied up in any kind of investigation for any amount of time. While with SEPA/debit, if there's potentially a dispute its your money on the line. So for this example, I would have never lost the 1,200€, because their charge wouldn't have been trying to take my money. I would still have all my money, just a bit less of a line of credit on potentially multiple lines of credit available to me. And that's before things like extra warranties, cash back benefits, etc. which I realize are a bit more complicated. I've never used SEPA, but I'm curious how it would have played out here. The OP would have disputed the charge, what recourse would OVH have here? Would they be able to assert they did deliver the product and thus should be paid? Not saying I agree with OVH on this, but that appears that's OVH's position allegedly. In your instance, you had customers refund legitimate transactions. What recourse would you have in that? Would you be able to dispute their refund and thus tie up their funds, or are you just out those funds until lawyers get involved?
  - 4y ago
the_biot 4y ago
I'm not surprised at either OVH's or paypal's behavior. OVH has been on my shitlist (and email blocklist) for years, because of their tolerance of spammers on their network; abuse notifications are ignored. As for Paypal, there are so many stories of Paypal scamming companies out of money by closing their accounts on some pretext, and just keeping the money. Just google it, this goes back decades. Both are awful companies, avoid them like the plague. Dispute the OVH charge with your credit card company, generally not a scammy outfit.
kypro 4y ago
It's interesting because I had to integrate Stripe's dispute API for a client once and I'm sure the opposite was true - we had to prove the customer was lying, as Stripe would side with the customer by default, not the other way around. I might be wrong though, this was years ago and I had no involvement in the dispute process itself, but that was my recollection. I'd have thought PayPal would be more pro-consumer if anything because of how consumer facing it is - it's not like they're just doing anonymous CC processing on behalf of the merchant, which is largely what Stripe does.
- athrun 4y ago
  Stripe doesn’t rule disputes. The card issuer does.
datavirtue 4y ago
CFPB
e9 4y ago
I had similar issue with Venmo. Venmo told me it's my fault. I went directly to my credit card and after 2 month and a lot of evidence, credit card company sided with me. Venmo said I can't use their products ever again. Fine by me, I use ApplePay now (until they screw me over I guess)
glitchc 4y ago
Same thing happened to me over an eBay item many years ago. I bought a used SLR. The seller said two batteries would be included but the package contained none. It was an expensive camera with special batteries. I contacted the seller but they refused to ship batteries and refused to issue a partial refund. I opened a dispute with Paypal to obtain a partial refund. They denied my claim citing lack of evidence. How can I provide evidence for an item I never received? All I had was the listing and the contemts of the package, yet Paypal sided with the seller. I quit using Paypal then and there, and won't touch them with a ten foot pole. A very consumer-hostile company.
- esotericsean 4y ago
  Something similar happened to me. I bought something on eBay for about $50 and then the seller never shipped it at all. I messaged multiple times and finally got a response saying something weird like "I didn't think you still wanted it." Of course I did... Eventually he sent me a $7 partial refund and then I was locked out of doing anything at all. I even tried contacting eBay and because it had taken so long they were no longer liable. Frustrating, but I just let it go.
- jxramos 4y ago
  Probably videotape the unboxing of the item and document that whole inspection process. I’ve heard about people doing that on used clothing websites like poshmark and eBay. The sellers document the condition of items before shipping to have evidence to dispute with. These sort of online deals became hostile in the past so now there’s like inventory documentation overhead to deal with.
  - flutas 4y ago
    I've been on both sides of this table, and somehow I've lost both sides. At this point I've given up using eBay due to it. The scammers on both sides know exactly what to say and do to somehow win even if you can prove you shipped the item / the item could never have been shipped to you (ah yes, a 13oz package somehow contained this heavy equipment).
- 4y ago
Joel_Mckay 4y ago
Unfortunately, a 1200€ loss is nowhere near the threshold to get legal involved (usually around $50k is the cutoff). OVH may however, become more attentive to your complaint if the lawyer asks nicely with a letter on your behalf. One thing I did notice with PayPal... is one often has little success if you are international account and deal with a rare crooked American seller. We literally had sand shipped to us before, and still ate the loss. lol... In my country, Slamming or unsolicited services are illegal, and people are not obligated to pay the invoice. It is one reason a credit card payment through a merchant is superior to paypal in some situations, as they tend to play by rules set by the local account laws. ;)
sandworm101 4y ago
Take to social media. Plead your case to the masses. If you are cute enough (I suggest a puppy in the screenshot) it may go viral and get noticed by PayPal's marketing people. They have actual decision powers. That is how consumer service works these days. These guys did eventually get they money after the morning news shows featured thier song. https://youtu.be/5YGc4zOqozo https://youtu.be/5YGc4zOqozo
Phil_Latio 4y ago
wtf is this on the fairshakes.com website? > DO I HAVE TO ARBITRATE? > Many companies require you to resolve disputes with them through individual arbitration. The companies listed on FairShake’s website all include a clause in their contracts that prohibit you from filing a traditional lawsuit or joining a class action against them. What? How is that valid/legal?
- aeyes 4y ago
  By accepting their terms and conditions the user accepts the arbitrage clause.
  - Phil_Latio 4y ago
    Why not restrict arbitage too in the terms, so users can do nothing after they accept the terms? I can write anything in my terms, doesn't mean it's valid.
reeddavid 4y ago
Based on some of the follow-ups you've posted here, it sounds like the crucial factor is the 1200€ authorization and capture from PayPal. With your initial dispute of "order not received", they pointed to the 1200€ credit and said, "here's what you ordered". This credit does indeed disprove any claim of "I didn't get anything for the 1200€ I was charged". The problem is you don't want to receive any order; you want there to be no order at all, and no exchange of 1200€. Which version of PayPal checkout did they use? I think there's a standard PayPal checkout, where you complete the transaction at a PayPal-hosted page. And there's an "express" PayPal checkout, where you login to a PayPal-hosted popup to complete some initial authorization, then complete the checkout process on the merchant-hosted site. I think there would have been some point where you authorized a 1200€ payment on a PayPal-hosted site, do you recall that step? I think that step is critical to your claim here that they should return your money. You mentioned "They had authorization for recurring payments, so they pulled those 1200 without my interaction." And also, "at no point that amount was shown to me" How did they get that authorization? Could you reproduce the checkout flow up to the point of PayPal authorization to see if the 1200 amount is shown in the PayPal-hosted part of the checkout flow, and whether it's hidden in the merchant-hosted portion of the flow?
markvdb 4y ago
Oh dear. Both Paypal and OVH, in one claim! If there is a small claims court in your jurisdiction, you might try that one...
altdataseller 4y ago
I use OVH. Any interest in selling me that credit for a fair discount (if you cant get your $$$ money)
jjluoma 4y ago
I'm assuming you are a consumer since consumer protection organisations were mentioned. I would start by sending a GDPR subject data request for any personal data they have. There is a definite time limit for the response time. In case of inaccurate data, then there is right to rectification. If there is no appropriate receipt for the 1200 EUR charge showing value added taxes charged I would ask for the receipt. Some tax agency might be interested if there is no such receipt.
snthd 4y ago
https://us.ovhcloud.com/legal/terms-of-service https://us.ovhcloud.com/legal/terms-of-service "EU Consumer Policy" OVH have a 14 day cooling off period for EU customers as required by EU consumer law. If you meet the criteria that might be a more fruitful avenue to approach OVH with, and to pursue enforcement.
antishatter 4y ago
PayPal also refused to help me out when i was defrauded. I went to my bank and reversed the PayPal charge and then PayPal sent me to collections. I had previously spoken to them multiple times including the day of the fraud, when they could have stopped the transaction and refused. Fuck PayPal.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  What ended up happening with the collections?
  - antishatter 4y ago
    I paid the $200 to not have to fucking deal with it
gaws 4y ago
Stop. Using. PayPal.
Genbox 4y ago
I recently got in a fight with GitLab of all places. I setup SSO on my self-hosted instance so people could sign-up and report bugs in my applications. I never even noticed that a bunch of accounts was created until GitLab wrote "we noticed you are X licenses over your limit. Will will charge your credit card on <todays date>". I didn't know it worked that way, and I honestly didn't think users with no permissions to do anything would count as a full license. I nearly shit my pants. It was a lot of money. I contacted support and asked them to remove my payment details. They declined and forwarded me to a sales person. I told the sales person about my issue, but she said I accepted their terms and conditions, so now I had to pay. But hey, if we had a quick call with some sales executives, then maybe we could resolve the matter... Suffice to say, now I use one-time credit-cards for all online services. It is not the first time I've been hogtied by an online service with no recourse.
homeland221 4y ago
The moral of the story is 1. Use credit cards that has limits based on your top ups. COMPANY CANNOT CHARGE MORE THAN WHAT CASH AVAILABLE IN THAT CARD. Card app can also temporary disable the card at any time as you like. 2. As public, dont give advice about seeking arbitration help. Do like BLM, boycott and viral spread the issue. Dox if possible. Bombard their c-suite with hate mails. Now I've seen this way more helpful and powerful than ANY legal means. Company these days are way more powerful than individual in legal arena. They have the advantage of corporate lawyers and cash to burn you out. The only way is exactly what BLM did effectively.
bArray 4y ago
You will get nowhere with PayPal, sorry. If you try to arbitrate your claim, they will spend obscene amounts on lawyers to make a point. PayPal is literally one of the very worst payment processors out there. I really wish people would stop using them. > Now I'm stuck with an absurd amount of credit on a cloud service I have no use for (and worse, it expires in a year), and apparently there's no UI option for me to contest this PayPal ruling. Phoning them I found no option to talk to a person. Your best bet is getting OVH to refund your money. If the credit amount is in dollars, you should be able to withdraw it.
s1gs3gv 4y ago
Many of us have had similar experiences. My best advice is to move on and avoid using PayPal in the future.

214 points by fer 4y ago

vorpalhex 4y ago

Bought a game service from the company. It was down/not functional. Asked the company for a refund, got death threats in return. Went to paypal. Attached death threats from company. Paypal sided with the company.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Does anyone know if there's real human review in these cases, or are they just an automated response?
- willhinsa 4y ago
  I don't know which would be worse, you have no chance of winning because their automation sides automatically with the large customer, or a human actually read those death threats and still sided with the large customer.
registeredcorn 4y ago
I'm assuming you are no longer working with OVH. Care to provide the death threats via screenshot or file dump? I'd be interested to hear the specifics on this.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Sorry, this wasn't OVH, it was a different company (small minecraft host).
Hamuko 4y ago
I managed to get like 800€ back through PayPal after the company I bought something from went into bankruptcy, although that was probably because they never actually answered PayPal's inquiry. No idea what would've happened if they did.
LorenPechtel 4y ago
Probably some idiot who didn't realize the death threats were evidence, not your action. E-mail based support (anywhere, not just Paypal) is generally terrible for actually understanding the whole thing being presented.

emsy 4y ago

Request a chargeback at your bank and accept that PayPal will close your account.

fer 4y ago
Unfortunately I used straight charge to my bank account, which limits the options in my jurisdiction.
- NavinF 4y ago
  What jurisdiction? If you’re in the US, Regulation E provides some protection from unauthorized charges. Though paying with a bank account is still silly because you’re losing out on cashback and credit cards always side with the customer in these disputes.
- rajman187 4y ago
  Some banks are able to reverse charges as well, worth asking them

ev1 4y ago

I have never once gotten a random invalid charge from OVH and it's been years. Do you actually have a 1200EUR VAT invoice with line items from them or was it just a charge out of nowhere?

fer 4y ago
Yes, in the moment I ordered a GPU instance with per hour billing an invoice for about 1 month of that instance was charged as "credit". They say I did it, but at no point I filed such order, and if I did, at no point that amount was shown to me. Maybe a bug or some UX/UI shenanigans, since I also got errors to cancel such invoice and obtain a refund. But since I complained through PayPal they've been acting in bad faith (like contesting my dispute the very last day without getting back to me, or changing the reason why I I'm not eligible for a refund).
- ev1 4y ago
  Does the invoice say 1 month? The last time I used the public cloud GPU instance there was a very explicit setting to bill hourly or to get a discount by getting a month in advance.
  - fer 4y ago
    It just says 1200€ in credit, but it's exactly the cost oof that instance if you have it hourly for a month. Ordering the month would have been lower than that.
    - ev1 4y ago
      I wonder if there are shenanigans involving whether you're paying with a credit card with credit and a bank account that they might not be able to preauth. Has OVH phone support been of any use?
- coffeeblack 4y ago
  Even if you had ordered it, it makes no sense for OVH to act like that. It hasn’t been used, so why not refund it? It will cost them a lot more in reputation damage.

kokanator 4y ago

Open an arbitration claim. Seriously. The terms you agreed to states claims can be settled with arbitration. Opening a claim will cost a couple hundred dollars and will move them to action immediately. Here is a great thread how this worked out for another person on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31567673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31567673

tehwebguy 4y ago
It sounds scary but it's seriously worth doing & getting the hang of a legal (or legal-ish) process if it's new to you.
dawnerd 4y ago
Had to do this too. Worked out great. Considering doing it again against another company which is a year past providing payment promised.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
4364Synapse 4y ago
Do you have any alternative suggestions for people who are opposed to legal prosecution, under religious objections? I am an Anabaptist, and we are strongly against legal proceedings outside of extreme circumstance.
- gnuj3 4y ago
  You what
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    He's saying he's morally opposed to dispute resolution methods that Paypal can't ignore and wants a way to resolve this dispute using a method that they can ignore. Makes total sense; I don't know why you'd question it!
  - Archelaos 4y ago

denimnerd42 4y ago

this happened to me. Part of an order wasn't sent as described. The merchant wouldn't accept a return. I opened a claim with evidence and they basically submitted a blank form for me. It was rejected. I called them again and explained that the evidence I attached wasn't considered. They resubmitted with a detail writeup on paypal's side and I was sided with.

fer 4y ago
How did you get in touch with a human? Here it's canned or robotic responses as far as I can navigate through the menu.
- ev1 4y ago
  At least for US paypal I logged in and clicked support and was given a (custom?) phone number to call from my registered number to the account, US based human answered within a minute and asked for the temporary code on the screen.
ceeplusplus 4y ago
Funnily enough, if you actually just send the order back, with signature required by recipient, then file a claim saying it wasn't as described, they will automatically side with you regardless of what the merchant says.

danielfoster 4y ago

This recently happened to me on PayPal with another company. I don’t think they read anything.

psyc 4y ago

Communicating with big tech at least keeps the word kafkaesque alive.

microtonal 4y ago
There are exceptions. I was recently double-charged for Apple Care. I could get someone on the phone very quickly. They also set up a communications channel between me and someone from their administrative department (IIRC you could e-mail or SMS them through a form). They called me twice to check if the refund came in. We had similarly good experiences with them a few years ago. They were easy to reach and they'd call back to check if everything was handled in an satisfactory manner. (Booking.com on the other hand was terrible, we never got back the 120 Euro or so for a hotel room that we cancelled with agreement from the hotel. Only Kafka-esque support mazes.)

cyral 4y ago

OVH support is pretty terrible. In other news, they have had an outage for over 24 hours now and it took them around 10 hours to provide any update after it began. https://status.us.ovhcloud.com/pages/incident/59dd23da8827c804746f1664/62d8f8a83abc6805b6f5e402 https://status.us.ovhcloud.com/pages/incident/59dd23da8827c8...

blfr 4y ago
OVH's support is not so much terrible as largely non-existent. However, they have been rather generous with free credits and I've never had a billing issue with them despite having used their various services for 13 years across at least three entities.
- cpncrunch 4y ago
  Yes, support is abysmal, but they are good at refunding and fixing billing issues.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    Based on the OP, I'd say this is false.
    - cpncrunch 4y ago
      Yes you're right, I meant in my own experience.
- malikNF 4y ago
  I actually have had really good support from them. Used to have a few servers with them which were getting DDoSed all the time. Their free support was good, but we decided to pay for the ~60usd a month premium support and we even had some video calls with one of their engineers who worked with us to help mitigate the issues.

blihp 4y ago

Any chance you might have entered 1200 thinking you were entering 12? I've run into this situation more than once where there is/isn't a decimal where you think it isn't/is.

fer 4y ago
No, I have a separate charge for the 12.
sp332 4y ago
OP ordered a 1200 euro service and then cancelled before it was delivered. Instead of a refund, OVH gave him a 1200 euro "credit".
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
The inconsistency of money amount inputs in web forms is infuriating. Some will automatically enter a decimal and if you type "12" then it only enters 0.12. If you want 12.00, then you have to type 1200. Others are the opposite. You enter "12" and you get 12.00. You have to manually enter the decimal if you want 0.12.

awinter-py 4y ago

if you're EU based, may be worth treating this as a consumer right to withdrawal https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/14-days-to-withdraw.html https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/14-..., instructions at the bottom for contacting your local european consumer center to complain. (Have heard this complaint process is very good + nearly automatic for airline refunds; not sure right of refusal cases). If you're US based, you may be able to frame this as a gift certificate under the CARD act https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1693l-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1693l-1, and at least dispute the expiration date. (But I'm not sure if this section gives you power to sue; you may have to contact your state AG). (I'm not a lawyer)

cfeduke 4y ago

I had a similar problem with a criminal complaint. It's impossible to get a hold of anyone at Paypal, and if you do, they will play dumb, or transfer you to an "account specialist" where you are just left in hold limbo (I've left the phone connected for about an hour before it was forcefully disconnected). In my case I had to talk to my credit union and credit card provider and both sided with me against Paypal and blocked the charge. Paypal is now trying to collect the money through a third party, so I have to go to arbitration. Paypal is on the side of criminals - not intentionally - because they make money on the fees and don't have to pay much for customer support to handle edge cases. The FTC recently took Walmart to court over similar behavior, essentially profiting off of crime.

test1872 4y ago

OVH blocks me from accessing my account because I used a virtual credit card (they demand a picture holding the card + ID!) AND a day later they proceeded to charge the card anyways.

tinus_hn 4y ago

I’m in a situation where I have a half open account, they want me to provide ID which I won’t and they won’t allow me to close the account without providing ID. PayPal is a ridiculous company and in no way to be considered a serious partner or service in finance.

laksdjf 4y ago

Your post is confusing. It sounds like PayPal is asking you to prove you did not receive the cloud credits. But what you should do is say you did not purchase cloud credits. There is a difference between an unauthorized charge and goods not received.

fer 4y ago
I opened as "order not received" because I canceled the instance before it got delivered. OVH argued that the charge was a credit and not the service itself and that I still have the credit (hence, it was delivered). Then I said that the reason should be charge unauthorized, as I canceled precisely because of the unexpected amount of the bill, and I didn't perform a credit. The reason switched mid claim. PayPal finally said that I didn't prove I had credit on OVH, which is indeed confusing (meaning I didn't spend it?). If I didn't order it shouldn't matter what's on their platform.
- conductr 4y ago
  > I opened as "order not received" because I canceled the instance before it got delivered. If the order was canceled then how can it be claimed not received? The charge occurring on a canceled order is an unauthorized charge. I'd recommend to file that type of claim. They are different and OVH is being terse. It's something you can do before you call Saul.
  - fer 4y ago
    PayPal doesn't allow to open another claim on the same charge, though.

d23 4y ago

I was a paypal customer since the 90s. I recently had an issue where a site using paypal sold me something and blatantly lied about the product. I filed a dispute with paypal. It was only for $30, was a digital item, and I had pretty conclusive evidence. I expected paypal to side with me, especially given how long I had been using them and had never once filed a dispute. Nope. Immediately sided with the scummy company. I've tried to avoid using them whenever possible ever since.

jrs235 4y ago
I too just recently ran into a scam seller. Classic scam where they charge you then ship something to your zip code (they won't should the full delivery address with the tracking number) and have someone else pickup/sign for the package. Figured Paypal would side with me. Nope! And they are still allowing the scammer to "sell" things and charge people's credit cards. PayPal is useless for buyer protection. Caveat emptor. Buyers beware.
- flutas 4y ago
  > Classic scam where they charge you then ship something to your zip code More commonly, they just somehow have access to a list of packages shipped recently and provide a tracking number that shows as shipped to your zip code. I had one use a tracking number from before I even ordered as their evidence...PayPal accepted their evidence...
  - jrs235 4y ago
    They must have usernames and passwords to UPS and FedEx accounts of larger sellers/shippers.
nxm 4y ago
Your history with any company is a non-factor these days
- computator 4y ago

iasay 4y ago

I run my PayPal account from a dedicated bank account. If they try and take more than authorised then they will fail because the funds are not present. They can take me to court if there’s an issue. I have been burned before. Unless it’s a bank and are heavily regulated they are not your friends.

rr888 4y ago

In general is there any reason to use PayPal? I think 15 years ago people were no used to using their credit card on the web but now its normal.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
Some services demand PayPal if you want to receive money - for example BandCamp.
jenscow 4y ago
Because I don't like to enter my card details into a random site. Even if I trust the company in general, I still don't know how secure their infrastructure is. Having a dedicated card/account for just paypal is easier.
- throwaway23234 4y ago
  I'm the same way I like paypal to mask this. However some credit cards now have "virtual cards" that give you a temporary online number that you can use for specific transactions. It's another great way to avoid your data getting out there. I use one from Citibank as I have a CC from them. I highly recommend that instead of Paypal too if you suspect a site will have a much higher chance you'll need to reverse a charge. Paypal has longer wait times for disputes than the CC companies. CC companies will also have your back a bit more, typically.
- LouisSayers 4y ago
  If you set up a wise account you can create virtual cards - achieves the same outcome (minus paypal).
Tijdreiziger 4y ago
You can link it to your IBAN, which lets you pay using SEPA Direct Debit. This is pretty useful if you don’t have or don’t want to use a credit card.
joveian 4y ago
PayPal doesn't have foreign transaction fees while most credit cards (at least in the US) do.

wewxjfq 4y ago

If your country has sensible laws, you should have the right to withdraw any credit. In that case you should ignore PayPal and deal with OVH.

driverdan 4y ago

Paypal has been literally doing stuff like this for over 20 years. paypalsucks.com was registered in 2000 but is apparently down now. This isn't an excuse for their bad behavior but I don't understand why anyone continues to use them.

mod 4y ago
I really hate PayPal, for close to the full 20 years. I still use them mainly because of eBay. I know that's but required now, but it was until pretty recently. It's still often easier to use the PayPal checkout instead of making a one-off account at a random place. Probably not worth it as a whole, but feels worth it sometimes to delay my cancellation a while.

joshenders 4y ago

And this is why I closed my PayPal and Venmo accounts and will never do business with this awful company again. I had the same experience. Only lost $600 but lesson learned.

TekMol 4y ago

I find your description vague and don't understand what happened. How was OVH able to pull €1200 from your PayPal account? Did you go to PayPal's website (for example via a popup triggered by the OVH website) and told PayPal to let them pull €1200? Now that they got the money, how is Paypal still part of it? Do you expect Paypal to go to OVH, knock down their door and demand the money back? I would think that if you want your money back, you need to involve the authorities. The government has a monopoly on violence. If you want somebody to go and knock down OVH's door, thats a job of the authorities. Obviously, OVH would probably already give you your money back if the authorities demand that. Nobody likes to get their door knocked down.

fer 4y ago
They had authorization for recurring payments, so they pulled those 1200 without my interaction. PayPal said I didn't provide evidence that I provided: that the credit is still there unused, siding with them as arbiter against the evidence.
pteraspidomorph 4y ago
> Do you expect Paypal to go to OVH, knock down their door and demand the money back? Normally that's what Paypal is for. They're not going to burst through any doors but if a vendor wants to keep using their services they surely have a lot of leverage.
jrumbut 4y ago
Their dispute process is weird. I sold a few items on ebay and one of the buyers filed a dispute under a ridiculous pretense (sending pictures of a pulverized item that was a different color than what I had in my ad and claiming I sent them that). PayPal sent an email claiming they were investigating, apparently that was my cue to send in evidence or something but I assumed it meant they were investigating this ridiculous fraud on the part of the buyer. Not so! They said since I didn't send in evidence in response to their very subtle prompt the decision defaulted to the claimant and I was out a bunch of money. It was the last time I used PayPal or ebay for anything.

acomjean 4y ago

Try your credit card dispute, if you charged it. I know we submitted evidence that a car we rented was a minorly damaged vehicle (it was marked on the sheet during the checkout) and then tried to bill us for the repair after taking the car back. We submitted pictures of the damaged car in the rental lot, the paper work indicating the damage. The car company rejected our dispute. The credit card company didn't. I even enlisted our french intern (native speaker) to call said company and ask what is going on. They got the run around ("French bureaucracy is the worst") They even blocked when said car company tried to charge again after the rejection. Good times.

tpae 4y ago

Hey there, I'm currently banned from PayPal, and I actually went through what you did. I filed an arbitration using a service called FairShake (https://fairshake.com/ https://fairshake.com/), and finally they decided to settle with me. They said they will give me my money, but I can no longer use any of their services including Venmo. I agreed and took the money. Happy to answer any questions regarding my experience, feel free to telegram me @tdpae

yieldcrv 4y ago
I’ve gotten around venmo bans with a new email address, new card, and staying under the KYC transaction size limit actually not necessarily even a new card if you’ve used AMEX Send thats valid in lieu of the exact same AMEX Card it was linked to
- AinderS 4y ago
  What you're doing may be considered "structuring" [1], which under the demented laws of the US can land you in jail. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    Cute, fortunately structuring relies on avoiding regulatory thresholds for reporting and the KYC threshold that venmo sets is a completely arbitrary company policy that has nothing to do with the law and has nothing to do with reporting that a licensed financial institution needs to do or for reporting to a regulator Thanks for your concern, this is just circumventing a dark pattern of poor UX
  - from 4y ago
    The law on structuring (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324) is about evading the $10,000 reporting threshold for financial institutions taking cash deposits or businesses taking cash payments for goods/services. If they are perpetuating some kind of fraud on Venmo making multiple accounts to do so in violation of the ToS is maybe wire fraud (so is just about everything) but by itself is probably not illegal.

charles_f 4y ago

Credit card fraud protection? Try calling them and tell them how your credit card was abused by ovh?

dboreham 4y ago

This is interesting because I run a SaaS service that uses PayPal for subscription payments (we don't do recurring payments, users must initiate each payment explicitly). Anyway over the years we have had various customers who for whatever reason decided they regretted paying us after the fact. Generally we just refund them but in a few cases the situation was pretty egregious and we felt the customer was not by any reasonable viewpoint due a refund. Guess what? in no case were we able to keep the money. In every single case PayPal gave our money back to the customer. So I wonder what magical power OVH has to get the opposite treatment.

sbdmmg 4y ago

In what country are you located? In France there's a "médiateur" https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14373 https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14373 It might apply in your case...

devmor 4y ago

What happened here is theft. OVH abused your connected service account to steal money from you, then claim you ordered a service that you did not order. The correct proceeding from this point is legal restitution.

ramesh31 4y ago

The classic "I got ripped off by PayPal" thread is as old as the internet itself. It's amazing what you can get away with in this country with enough money.

hattmall 4y ago

Post on BBB website, send the details and all relevant information to whatever your equivalent of the attorney general is and the one in Paypal and OVH's jurisdiction. Your best course of action is not to focus on PayPal but OVH. Send certified letters to both PayPal and OVH informing them of your contacting of the attorney general. Send to corporate offices and address of general counsel. You can open arbitration but it costs money. Be sure to clearly state what happened, why you think it is wrong, and your preferred remedy.

fxleach 4y ago

PayPal is garbage. Every interaction I have had with them has been miserable. At a previous ecommerce company we basically had to accept that 95% of our fraud claims would be denied without reason, just denied and closed and money lost, disregarding our proof.

jiggywiggy 4y ago

Whenever I can I use SEPA payment for subscriptions (which it looks like OVH accepts, most debitcards are SEPA in Europa), because it allows you to withdraw within 2 months directly from your bank application directly, no questions asked. (SEPA is EU based) Much better then credit cards and paypal, where you have to open a request for refund etc. You only have this in the EU, but it's the best option. I also had the flip side where customers would withdraw a few months in payment because the couldn't make their mortgage. Which we ended up resolving in a nice way. Maybe someone can recommend CC companies that tend to side on the Consumer side, American Express maybe?

CharlesW 4y ago
From a preventative POV, my thought was to use privacy.com with vendors. You can lock “cards” to a specific vendor, set monthly limits, etc.
vel0city 4y ago
SEPA sounds like a nice way to move cash around, don't get me wrong. But personally given the chance to use a credit card versus an even-smoother-than-US debit transaction, I'd still probably choose a credit card from a decent issuer. The biggest reason is because then its never my money getting tied up in any kind of investigation for any amount of time. While with SEPA/debit, if there's potentially a dispute its your money on the line. So for this example, I would have never lost the 1,200€, because their charge wouldn't have been trying to take my money. I would still have all my money, just a bit less of a line of credit on potentially multiple lines of credit available to me. And that's before things like extra warranties, cash back benefits, etc. which I realize are a bit more complicated. I've never used SEPA, but I'm curious how it would have played out here. The OP would have disputed the charge, what recourse would OVH have here? Would they be able to assert they did deliver the product and thus should be paid? Not saying I agree with OVH on this, but that appears that's OVH's position allegedly. In your instance, you had customers refund legitimate transactions. What recourse would you have in that? Would you be able to dispute their refund and thus tie up their funds, or are you just out those funds until lawyers get involved?
- 4y ago

the_biot 4y ago

I'm not surprised at either OVH's or paypal's behavior. OVH has been on my shitlist (and email blocklist) for years, because of their tolerance of spammers on their network; abuse notifications are ignored. As for Paypal, there are so many stories of Paypal scamming companies out of money by closing their accounts on some pretext, and just keeping the money. Just google it, this goes back decades. Both are awful companies, avoid them like the plague. Dispute the OVH charge with your credit card company, generally not a scammy outfit.

kypro 4y ago

It's interesting because I had to integrate Stripe's dispute API for a client once and I'm sure the opposite was true - we had to prove the customer was lying, as Stripe would side with the customer by default, not the other way around. I might be wrong though, this was years ago and I had no involvement in the dispute process itself, but that was my recollection. I'd have thought PayPal would be more pro-consumer if anything because of how consumer facing it is - it's not like they're just doing anonymous CC processing on behalf of the merchant, which is largely what Stripe does.

athrun 4y ago
Stripe doesn’t rule disputes. The card issuer does.

datavirtue 4y ago

CFPB

e9 4y ago

I had similar issue with Venmo. Venmo told me it's my fault. I went directly to my credit card and after 2 month and a lot of evidence, credit card company sided with me. Venmo said I can't use their products ever again. Fine by me, I use ApplePay now (until they screw me over I guess)

glitchc 4y ago

Same thing happened to me over an eBay item many years ago. I bought a used SLR. The seller said two batteries would be included but the package contained none. It was an expensive camera with special batteries. I contacted the seller but they refused to ship batteries and refused to issue a partial refund. I opened a dispute with Paypal to obtain a partial refund. They denied my claim citing lack of evidence. How can I provide evidence for an item I never received? All I had was the listing and the contemts of the package, yet Paypal sided with the seller. I quit using Paypal then and there, and won't touch them with a ten foot pole. A very consumer-hostile company.

esotericsean 4y ago
Something similar happened to me. I bought something on eBay for about $50 and then the seller never shipped it at all. I messaged multiple times and finally got a response saying something weird like "I didn't think you still wanted it." Of course I did... Eventually he sent me a $7 partial refund and then I was locked out of doing anything at all. I even tried contacting eBay and because it had taken so long they were no longer liable. Frustrating, but I just let it go.
jxramos 4y ago
Probably videotape the unboxing of the item and document that whole inspection process. I’ve heard about people doing that on used clothing websites like poshmark and eBay. The sellers document the condition of items before shipping to have evidence to dispute with. These sort of online deals became hostile in the past so now there’s like inventory documentation overhead to deal with.
- flutas 4y ago
  I've been on both sides of this table, and somehow I've lost both sides. At this point I've given up using eBay due to it. The scammers on both sides know exactly what to say and do to somehow win even if you can prove you shipped the item / the item could never have been shipped to you (ah yes, a 13oz package somehow contained this heavy equipment).
4y ago

Joel_Mckay 4y ago

Unfortunately, a 1200€ loss is nowhere near the threshold to get legal involved (usually around $50k is the cutoff). OVH may however, become more attentive to your complaint if the lawyer asks nicely with a letter on your behalf. One thing I did notice with PayPal... is one often has little success if you are international account and deal with a rare crooked American seller. We literally had sand shipped to us before, and still ate the loss. lol... In my country, Slamming or unsolicited services are illegal, and people are not obligated to pay the invoice. It is one reason a credit card payment through a merchant is superior to paypal in some situations, as they tend to play by rules set by the local account laws. ;)

sandworm101 4y ago

Take to social media. Plead your case to the masses. If you are cute enough (I suggest a puppy in the screenshot) it may go viral and get noticed by PayPal's marketing people. They have actual decision powers. That is how consumer service works these days. These guys did eventually get they money after the morning news shows featured thier song. https://youtu.be/5YGc4zOqozo https://youtu.be/5YGc4zOqozo

Phil_Latio 4y ago

wtf is this on the fairshakes.com website? > DO I HAVE TO ARBITRATE? > Many companies require you to resolve disputes with them through individual arbitration. The companies listed on FairShake’s website all include a clause in their contracts that prohibit you from filing a traditional lawsuit or joining a class action against them. What? How is that valid/legal?

aeyes 4y ago
By accepting their terms and conditions the user accepts the arbitrage clause.
- Phil_Latio 4y ago
  Why not restrict arbitage too in the terms, so users can do nothing after they accept the terms? I can write anything in my terms, doesn't mean it's valid.

reeddavid 4y ago

Based on some of the follow-ups you've posted here, it sounds like the crucial factor is the 1200€ authorization and capture from PayPal. With your initial dispute of "order not received", they pointed to the 1200€ credit and said, "here's what you ordered". This credit does indeed disprove any claim of "I didn't get anything for the 1200€ I was charged". The problem is you don't want to receive any order; you want there to be no order at all, and no exchange of 1200€. Which version of PayPal checkout did they use? I think there's a standard PayPal checkout, where you complete the transaction at a PayPal-hosted page. And there's an "express" PayPal checkout, where you login to a PayPal-hosted popup to complete some initial authorization, then complete the checkout process on the merchant-hosted site. I think there would have been some point where you authorized a 1200€ payment on a PayPal-hosted site, do you recall that step? I think that step is critical to your claim here that they should return your money. You mentioned "They had authorization for recurring payments, so they pulled those 1200 without my interaction." And also, "at no point that amount was shown to me" How did they get that authorization? Could you reproduce the checkout flow up to the point of PayPal authorization to see if the 1200 amount is shown in the PayPal-hosted part of the checkout flow, and whether it's hidden in the merchant-hosted portion of the flow?

markvdb 4y ago

Oh dear. Both Paypal and OVH, in one claim! If there is a small claims court in your jurisdiction, you might try that one...

altdataseller 4y ago

I use OVH. Any interest in selling me that credit for a fair discount (if you cant get your $$$ money)

jjluoma 4y ago

I'm assuming you are a consumer since consumer protection organisations were mentioned. I would start by sending a GDPR subject data request for any personal data they have. There is a definite time limit for the response time. In case of inaccurate data, then there is right to rectification. If there is no appropriate receipt for the 1200 EUR charge showing value added taxes charged I would ask for the receipt. Some tax agency might be interested if there is no such receipt.

snthd 4y ago

https://us.ovhcloud.com/legal/terms-of-service https://us.ovhcloud.com/legal/terms-of-service "EU Consumer Policy" OVH have a 14 day cooling off period for EU customers as required by EU consumer law. If you meet the criteria that might be a more fruitful avenue to approach OVH with, and to pursue enforcement.

antishatter 4y ago

PayPal also refused to help me out when i was defrauded. I went to my bank and reversed the PayPal charge and then PayPal sent me to collections. I had previously spoken to them multiple times including the day of the fraud, when they could have stopped the transaction and refused. Fuck PayPal.

skinnymuch 4y ago
What ended up happening with the collections?
- antishatter 4y ago
  I paid the $200 to not have to fucking deal with it

gaws 4y ago

Stop. Using. PayPal.

Genbox 4y ago

I recently got in a fight with GitLab of all places. I setup SSO on my self-hosted instance so people could sign-up and report bugs in my applications. I never even noticed that a bunch of accounts was created until GitLab wrote "we noticed you are X licenses over your limit. Will will charge your credit card on <todays date>". I didn't know it worked that way, and I honestly didn't think users with no permissions to do anything would count as a full license. I nearly shit my pants. It was a lot of money. I contacted support and asked them to remove my payment details. They declined and forwarded me to a sales person. I told the sales person about my issue, but she said I accepted their terms and conditions, so now I had to pay. But hey, if we had a quick call with some sales executives, then maybe we could resolve the matter... Suffice to say, now I use one-time credit-cards for all online services. It is not the first time I've been hogtied by an online service with no recourse.

homeland221 4y ago

The moral of the story is 1. Use credit cards that has limits based on your top ups. COMPANY CANNOT CHARGE MORE THAN WHAT CASH AVAILABLE IN THAT CARD. Card app can also temporary disable the card at any time as you like. 2. As public, dont give advice about seeking arbitration help. Do like BLM, boycott and viral spread the issue. Dox if possible. Bombard their c-suite with hate mails. Now I've seen this way more helpful and powerful than ANY legal means. Company these days are way more powerful than individual in legal arena. They have the advantage of corporate lawyers and cash to burn you out. The only way is exactly what BLM did effectively.

bArray 4y ago

You will get nowhere with PayPal, sorry. If you try to arbitrate your claim, they will spend obscene amounts on lawyers to make a point. PayPal is literally one of the very worst payment processors out there. I really wish people would stop using them. > Now I'm stuck with an absurd amount of credit on a cloud service I have no use for (and worse, it expires in a year), and apparently there's no UI option for me to contest this PayPal ruling. Phoning them I found no option to talk to a person. Your best bet is getting OVH to refund your money. If the credit amount is in dollars, you should be able to withdraw it.

s1gs3gv 4y ago

Many of us have had similar experiences. My best advice is to move on and avoid using PayPal in the future.