Commerce, can ability of adding alternative contacts be blocked? Buyers abuse the system

[PatrickRQ]

Hello,

We found that alternative contacts are being abused, at least with use of PayPal.

Scenario, Buyer A assigns alternative contact to his account to manage a product. Renewals of the product are being paid by alternative contact. Continues to use subscription based product until decides to get his money back.

Opens charge-back in PayPal and at the moment such junk buyer is won because payer details do not match customer details on our end/customer card/acp. PayPal resolves such in favor of such junk buyer already second time where all other disputes filled on buyer's name are won by us.

Any way to disable alternative contacts now?

Edited March 6, 2023 by PatrickRQ

[Marc Stridgen]

Unfortunately there is no way in which to block the use of alternative contacts at present. Feel free to add this as a suggestion in our feedback forum. I would say however, its likely you are not sending the correct information to paypal if you are not winning disputes like this, as all the detail is present linking them to the purchase. I would ask paypal what else they need you to provide in these scenarios. Maybe open a ticket with them

[Adriano Faria]

17 minutes ago, PatrickRQ said:

Any way to disable alternative contacts now?

You mean this https://invisioncommunity.com/clients/alternative-contacts/?

[PatrickRQ]

@Marc Stridgen, Unfortunately, PayPal in Europe is very strict if comes to this type of cases. Here is your proof for that: https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/PAYPAL_HELP_GUIDE/what-documents-to-provide-for-a-case-in-your-resolution-center-icf32

 

Unfortunately, I cannot find that article in English: it says the following:

"Service/Virtual Item:

Evidence must be associated with the buyer (i.e. name, address, email address, PayPal Transaction ID or other identifier we may find in the transaction information, such as invoice ID)."

Following the above, we noticed PayPal is ignoring member's history too because it is displayed for member display name instead customer's name. Tiny things but may vary in PayPal resolution.

Edited March 6, 2023 by PatrickRQ

[Marc Stridgen]

They have paid for a renewal, which has an invoice ID and has a name/address etc. Im a little lost as to what you would not be able to provide there. Forget the original purchase there. They paid for a renewal for someone elses product, however they have their own details and transaction IDs

[PatrickRQ]

All actions like downloading the files etc are done from account A, where payments are done from account B - alternative contact. When I provide evidence to PayPal to prove that files were downloaded etc, they ignore it because name of payer and downloader do not match.

I win all cases where junk buyer is involved except those where alternative contacts present. For now I think I will simply redirect the alternative contact page, however you could consider better design of the ACP details in this area, so we can somehow connect the information together and make it clear to third party person (e.g. PayPal) that all these are associated. I also talk about fact you display only nickname for specific area and not include customer name too.

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by PatrickRQ

[Marc Stridgen]

52 minutes ago, PatrickRQ said:

When I provide evidence to PayPal to prove that files were downloaded etc, they ignore it because name of payer and downloader do not match.

You sold a renewal. They indeed do that have access to that as they paid for an item on behalf of another party. Im sure there are millions of cases where this is done using paypal, which is why I suggest contacting to ask what you do in that scenario. 

54 minutes ago, PatrickRQ said:

For now I think I will simply redirect the alternative contact page, however you could consider better design of the ACP details in this area, so we can somehow connect the information together and make it clear to third party person (e.g. PayPal) that all these are associated. I also talk about fact you display only nickname for specific area and not include customer name too.

If you have suggestions for change in that area, please feel free to post up within the feedback area

[PatrickRQ]

Quote

You sold a renewal. They indeed do that have access to that as they paid for an item on behalf of another party. Im sure there are millions of cases where this is done using paypal, which is why I suggest contacting to ask what you do in that scenario. 

Case is that PayPal changes and becomes more strict, especially in Europe, mostly because law changes and becomes more strict in this area, therefore from seller's aspect it is best all data matches, or it is more clear from outside view. otherwise it is always a risk PayPal guy will have a good day or not, good understanding of provided evidence or will resolve in favor of Buyer because of having such a will.

[Marc Stridgen]

4 minutes ago, PatrickRQ said:

Case is that PayPal changes and becomes more strict, especially in Europe, mostly because law changes and becomes more strict in this area, therefore from seller's aspect it is best all data matches, or it is more clear from outside view. otherwise it is always a risk PayPal guy will have a good day or not, good understanding of provided evidence or will resolve in favor of Buyer because of having such a will.

I understand what you are saying there. However as mentioned, you would need to contact paypal on this. From the perspective of the software, there is little assistance I am able to provide at this point. The only suggestion I can make in terms of the software would be to post up a suggestion on what you would like to see changed, if there are improvements you would like to see in this area