Paypal Scam: Friends and Family Payment for a goods transaction

[kcflanders]

Has Paypal ever assisted anyone who was scammed by being asked for Friends and Family Payment for a goods transaction?

Paypal is very aware of this scam, for the average user the first time they've even heard of this time of transaction is when another member asks for them to send them money in that form. Usually something like "hey, can you send the money as friends and family? I can drop the price a couple bucks since I won't be charged the fee." 

Paypal can easily eliminate this problem by requiring a person to check a box acknowledging, 

1. This payment is not for a good transaction. 
2. I am aware I have no ability to dispute this transaction once sent.

So why has Paypal made this so easy for scammers?

What actions will Paypal take if there is a problem?

What are the chances a State Attorney General might take some action to make the two bullet points above happen?

[Emm3rs]

They did say personal payments are not eligible up there in the fine print you quoted. However I do agree that it's not made very clear because f+f payments are not labeled as 'personal payments ' anywhere else. I agree with you that there should be a warning or a notice of some sort, even a check box to ensure everyone sees it and knows . It would prevent people from being duped' and save PayPal from having to argue with anyone about whether they'd been made aware of this policy if there was a check box next to every friends and family payment.

[Addwire]

I was scammed today, and I was thinking since I have a business account that I would be protected no matter what! I was even charged a fee. Who do we contact to initiate a class action lawsuit to either Get refunded from being scammed. I didn't even know what friend and family option even was! I clicked on a paypal.me link and just paid, Just like I do on all of my other paypal invoices i receive. I TRUSTED PAYPAL and feel that I was wronged, and deceived not only by this scammer, but paypal into thinking that i was protected. 

Why is there a friend and family option anyway? Paypal fees are low, I think they should just get rid of it and protect everyone who trusts in the Paypal Name that sends money.

[kernowlass]

@Addwire 

If you pay a friends / family paypal.me then just above where you click to pay is a tick box to mark the transaction as 'for goods / services'.

[Saraaugust540]

After giving PayPal not only documented proof of the scam but also proof that my scammer impersonated PayPal and tried to get my card info which is highly illegal they told me and I quote “ Thank you for contacting PayPal with your concern. Your request has been DULY NOTED and necessary action has been taken but you cant dispute a personal payment as Personal payments are not intended for the purchase of goods or services from sellers and therefore cannot be disputed. An example of a personal payment would be sending money to a family member or splitting a bill with friends at a restaurant after one person has paid.“ they say action has been taken but there has been no action whatsoever. Don’t trust PayPal anymore even my bank couldn’t do anything because they have no “jurisdiction” over PayPal and cannot refund PayPal payments. If you’ve been scammed go to the police they will be able to atleast file a report for you

[Simon53612]

I really can’t think of a reason why they’ve chosen not to improve customer service by making a change to warn people. This thread alone shows that a lot of people would benefit from it. It’s not difficult to code it or time consuming. That being the case, I’d be interest to hear people’s speculations as to why PayPal haven’t done it. There must be a reason.

[Tsoilihoi]

Totally agree... today a friend paid me back for his part of a Thanksgiving dinner.  After the amount dialog is filled and you click on continue, the protection plan box appears ALREADY checked... below it is a box that says Trusted Person.  Now the protection plan is free to the buyer and charges the seller... but there is nothing about it being business transaction.  AND to show the direction of this ... instead of the family and friends designation... now the lower box is TRUSTED PERSON...  which may go well with the protection idea but both  boxes are named and have little to do with business and personal!!!!

In addition the protection plan box is pre-checked by default.  So those not experienced with Paypal are railroaded in.  Let me correct that... when I called a representation, she got off the phone to check for nearly 10 minutes.  So it was not intuitive to her.  I so I had to converse to help her figure out what just happened.  This just plain deceitful!!!  On the $135, they ripped off $4.22  or .3125 percent!  But I got his shipping address and a packing label.

What BS.  Seeing as how many are complaining... Paypal need to address this and call a spade a spade.

[Tsoilihoi]

After writing the above, I went to report the problem on Paypal and of course the re-direct doesn't work!  And the suggested fix for security is of course...

the protection plan... which is at the heart of the misleading issue.

[matt1987]

i will tell you the problem pay pal dose not want you to use friends and family option for goods if you do you are brakeing there rules so no they wont tell you and never will and shouldnt your stealing from them they make money on goods dip @#$% so they want u to get riped off its funny for stealing from them when they are nice enuff to have a friends and family option for free they dont have to do that

[kcflanders]

Your logic is flawed. The person making the payment is not doing the stealing. It is the person asking for and receiving the payment in this way. The person making the payment does not pay one cent less.