I'm starting to notice a trend in PayPal fraud cases: a user has an issue with fraud. User contacts PP. PP's fraud department won't discuss the matter. PP does something oafish to lose a customer.
The critical point seems to be that fraud won't talk to customers.
It makes sense that PP moves quickly when fraud is suspected. What doesn't make sense is that they're so secretive about the events that take place on a user's account. For all we know, user's could be facing legitimate fraud issues that can be addressed with cooperation between PP and user. However, a user cannot cooperate when they have no idea what's going on.
If you can't discuss cases of fraud with your customers out of fear of revealing information to the defrauding party, you may need to do more in vetting the identity of users. I don't mean the intricacies of fraud with customers like patterns and markers for fraud. I mean getting to the bottom of the disputed transaction. You're shooting yourself in the shoot in any other case. PayPal is concerned more with user count and transaction volume than individual account retention. You would think that you want your customers to be proactive in cases of potential fraud.
It seems like they never learned from their every-user-is-a-credit-card-holder days.
OP here. The fact that I am actively engaging in conversation with them, to resolve this, should bump me up a notch on their trust level (of course I could be playing an "iocane trick" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_eZmEiyTo0] but there is no way to honestly prove this).
Also the fact that they reply to my initial question about the refund, with an absolutist "After investigating, YOU have logged in and YOU have initiated the refund", when I know I have done not such thing, immediately makes me think that I've been hacked or somehow have fallen a victim of fraud.
Further inquiries to clarify the issue, only leads me to get my account blocked/locked. I have no idea how this can be considered fraud protection from their side! And all this means that all in all I agree with you about the lack of competence of the fraud protection team...
I had an ebay transaction where I sold a piece of equipment, and the buyer was shopping around and didn't want to keep my product despite listing it as "no refunds." The buyer claimed the product was defective and they allowed him to ship it back at my expense. I told ebay that I tried to help the buyer resolve any issues and they didn't even bother dealing with it and just closer the dispute. I called them and they claimed I agreed with and initiated the refund. I didn't. I called PayPal and they bluntly said that this is an ebay issue and that they're not involved. This is despite the fact that they froze the funds in my account. They straight up said they aren't involved. Both eBay and PayPal are complete shit and shouldn't be trusted. The fact that they cornered the market allows them to do this kind of crooked shit. It's absolutely ridiculous and I'm not paying the balance. They can close my accounts at this point. I don't give a shit.
The critical point seems to be that fraud won't talk to customers.
It makes sense that PP moves quickly when fraud is suspected. What doesn't make sense is that they're so secretive about the events that take place on a user's account. For all we know, user's could be facing legitimate fraud issues that can be addressed with cooperation between PP and user. However, a user cannot cooperate when they have no idea what's going on.
If you can't discuss cases of fraud with your customers out of fear of revealing information to the defrauding party, you may need to do more in vetting the identity of users. I don't mean the intricacies of fraud with customers like patterns and markers for fraud. I mean getting to the bottom of the disputed transaction. You're shooting yourself in the shoot in any other case. PayPal is concerned more with user count and transaction volume than individual account retention. You would think that you want your customers to be proactive in cases of potential fraud.
It seems like they never learned from their every-user-is-a-credit-card-holder days.