Need input, have I been ripped off?

In addition to the known scam potential and reduced protection with payments using Friends and Family, there is also the fact that doing so violates Paypal's TOS, this is a direct quote-
"You may not use the “send money to a friend or family member” feature in your PayPal account when you are paying for goods and services."
So not only is it dumb and risky, but if Paypal finds out and chooses to enforce their rules you can be compromising your own account.
And also, if you use a credit card with Paypal instead of a linked bank account you will be charged a fee if you use F&F.

 

I can understand the desire to get your money back, of course, but I suspect that the refund you received came from PayPal, not the scammer. The charge on your card is from PayPal so the bank did a chargeback to PayPal. You might have been happy in the end but it means PayPal really got doubly screwed through no fault of theirs.

I'm surprised that PayPal don't have something in their system to raise a flag when there is a chargeback on a friends and family transaction, and for them to ask their "customer" (you) "What's going on here?"

How long ago did you do this? There is an interesting discussion here:
https://www.quora.com/I-got-scammed...mily-Is-there-any-way-I-can-get-my-money-back

One answer says this:
"You can if you used a credit card and are willing to lose the ability to use paypal. If worse comes to worse you report the fact you are a victim of fraud to your credit card company and they can get your money back. Chances are, paypal will kick you off if you do."

I have no idea if this guy knows what he is talking about but I would not be surprised if that happened.

 

Hey KT1F,

I didn't use a card for the purchase I got scammed on, I did use the Friends and Family method but my checking account is what I have attached to my PayPal account. PayPal most definitely would not refund me because of the F&F method, but they did say had I used the Good or Services method, they would have refunded me because of the proof I was able to provide and they themselves (PayPal) noticed that the Guy used (2) different names attached to his PayPal email account... A BIG red flag!

I provided my Bank with the same information and they turned it over to their Fraud Dept...10 days later I got a full refund of the $145 I got scammed for. They also issued a stop payment on the transfer between my bank and PayPal, but I am uncertain if they were able to stop the thief from getting it...I guess there's no way to tell that since it took 10 days for my Bank to do their investigation. In the end, I got my money back...and I found another deal in the QRZ classifieds on the tuner I was looking for. The Guy was super understanding and provided me with every thing I requested to prove that he was real. So it ended well but I will never use the F&F feature again!!

73,
Danny - NF4J

 

The bank has no connection to the thief. Only PayPal could try to recover their loss by chasing the thief but he has probably closed his account and disappeared by now.

Well ... It ended well for you but it probably didn't end well for PayPal.

I know you didn't mean to rip off PayPal and I'm not trying to make you feel bad but for the sake of others, I wouldn't want this method to become known as a way of getting protection even with F&F. The relationship you have with the bank is quite different to what you have with PayPal. The bank wants to keep you as a customer and PayPal terms of service are not their concern so they did what they needed to do to make you happy. But the "merchant" they were dealing with and getting money back from or not paying at all is PayPal, not the thief.

PayPal have lost $145 and maybe more if there is something equivalent to a bounced check fee. They are probably quite unhappy with you and your bank. You may have gotten away with it but if this was very recent, you may not have heard the end of it from PayPal.

 

Look, PayPal made it REAL clear that when someone uses a checking account AND the F&F feature like I did, ALL they do is become a third-party transfer, NO MONEY was paid to PayPal, they just handed the money from my bank to the Thief...it didn't cost PayPal a thing. PayPal was not harmed in anyway...in fact, they benefitted from the information on the scammer as it provided them with the information needed to boot him from their system. So, while I appreciate your advice, you are completely wrong in this incident. Thanks and 73, Its done and over with...

Danny - NF4J

 

I'm sorry if I got it wrong, that's certainly possible but you said this:

So ... just applying simple logic here, if they were not able to stop the thief from getting it, where did the refund money come from?

 

My Bank...

 

because they have coverage's for that stuff when it becomes identity theft

 

What ID theft involved in this case?

 

I was going to ask that but thought it was time to let it go.

The term "identity theft" gets used way too often here.