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#2246606 - 12/16/20 03:56 PM Reg E - Autistic Young Adult
Valley girl Offline
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Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 394
TX
I have a dispute from a father for 8 PayPal-Ebay transactions performed by his 20-year old autistic daughter. Its an involved story.

Daughter "steals" debit card from father on Rep Payee account (he is payee, she is beneficiary) and does several transactions with PayPal eBay. Father calls us and cancels debit card on December 8th. Daughter then steals dad's card from his personal account and performs 8 transactions with PayPal eBay. Dad calls us on December 9th and cancels card thinking this will stop the transactions - he does not tell the teller why he is cancelling his card. We manually post all the PayPal items to his account on December 14th and he files a dispute as unauthorized (approximately $150). He stated that his daughter used her PayPal account, but he fills out the dispute paperwork without this information and simply writes "there was an unauthorized transactions on eBay using my debit card (sic)." He did not file a dispute for the transactions done on the Rep Payee card.

I get the unauthorized part of this - he did not give his daughter authorization to use his card (or the Rep Payee card), so it meets the criteria of Reg E. But all of the products ordered are set up to be delivered to his address - we won't have chargeback rights because the merchant will be able to prove delivery to the cardholder's address (and I know that our ability to dispute or not is not relevant to Reg E). This is not a case where I would feel comfortable asking the dad if he is going to file a police report, or if he would prefer that we file the police report because of the circumstances involved.

But I am feeling like we can reject the dispute based on 1005.2(m) which states "receives no benefit." I highly doubt he will return the products if we pay the claim and there will be tangible benefits. Do I have a leg to stand on?

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#2246648 - 12/16/20 11:20 PM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
Inspector Offline
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Joined: Apr 2016
Posts: 283
I will let someone else get into the weeds of the regulation but did you try talking to the customer about talking to the merchant and doing a return? If he does that your final dispute might be pretty small. It does seem like a stretch to say getting charged for something you dont want is ok because you got the benefit of getting something you didn't want.
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#2246649 - 12/16/20 11:38 PM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
Valley girl Offline
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Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 394
TX
I haven't tried to talk to member - eBay is kind of a really different merchant. I don't know that there is even any hope of returning products - isn't eBay all individual sellers? Kind of a "all sales are final" shop?

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#2246653 - 12/17/20 12:44 AM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
Inspector Offline
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Joined: Apr 2016
Posts: 283
Ebay is different but it really comes down to individual sellers. Some sellers are larger businesses that do handle returns for the cost of shipping or a restock fee. Obviously others may not but the customer does have a unique situation that maybe he could get more help with.
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Opinions expressed are my own and do not reflect legal advice or the opinions of my employer.

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#2246662 - 12/17/20 02:54 PM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
Valley girl Offline
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Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 394
TX
Thank you Inspector!

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#2246665 - 12/17/20 03:20 PM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
CompliantOkie Offline
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CompliantOkie
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 425
OOOOOOklahoma
I would encourage your customer contact PayPal as they do have avenues to request refunds from Ebay sellers. Continue your investigation in the meantime by filing chargebacks etc.

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#2246686 - 12/17/20 06:57 PM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
Valley girl Offline
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Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 394
TX
I've talked to our customer. He said PayPal won't help because his daughter can't answer their questions - she has a limited understanding of the questions they are asking and she put a PIN on her account that she can't remember. Member has tried contacting the merchants. Only one has responded so far. So we are going to wait and see if any other merchants contact him over the weekend. If they don't, I'm just giving credit and calling it a day.

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#2246688 - 12/17/20 07:32 PM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
BrianC Offline
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BrianC
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,694
Illinois
Since dad obviously can't safeguard his access devices, do you plan to reissue those cards?

I wouldn't.
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#2246694 - 12/17/20 09:07 PM Re: Reg E - Autistic Young Adult Valley girl
Valley girl Offline
Gold Star
Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 394
TX
He's been a member for 23 years and this is the first time we have had any issue with his account. Also, a helpful teller put in a card reorder when the member called on December 8th, so it's already well into the works and to be honest, with his account record, I would have reordered it. His wife is an RN at the local hospital, so I'm sure this year has been very hectic for them already.

I do plan on holding him liable ($50) on the tiers since the card was stolen. We won't recover any funds - all of the transactions except one are too small to dispute, and the one that is big enough to dispute makes it by a couple of dollars - really not worth the effort, especially if it goes to pre-arb, which it would with the delivery address.

I did talk to dad about safeguarding his devices when I spoke to him. He has assured me that the cards are out of the desk drawer and back in his wallet.

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