Paypal address doesnt match shipping address

Sheffbricks

Lawrence admin has told me to ask here about this as he doesn't know what to do about it.

A customer bought something from me and the paypal payment said 'ship to this address blah blah, blah town, UK' so i did

The buyer then came back a couple days later to say I shouldn't have shipped it to the address they had put as their confirmed shipping address in paypal but to the different one in Brickowl.

They claimed that the confirmed address they had given for shipping in paypal was one that they do not live at and that it is only used as an address for their payment card (not suspicious at all)

They demanded a refund which I refused due to me shipping it to the address they supplied in paypal as their shipping address.

They have raised a paypal claim which I'm happy to let paypal decide on as I don't see it not going my way.

Lawrence has said it is my responsibility in law to get the item bought to the buyer, to which I replied that in my opinion I have endeavored to do by shipping it to the address the buyer supplied.

I've now been told that unless I give up my paypal seller protection by shipping to buyers confirmed shipping addresses in paypal then my store on Brickowl will be closed as I would be breaking Brickowl terms and conditions.


Any opinions?

Hoddie

The problem is that three contracts exist - one between you and the buyer, one between you and PayPal, and one between you and BrickOwl. Your contract with the buyer and with BrickOwl is to supply the goods to the shipping address given by the buyer here on this site. Your contract with PayPal is to supply the goods to the shipping address they provided. As these addresses were different you were always going to break at least one of the contracts. It would have been a good idea to check which address the buyer wanted their order shipping to.

This scenario shouldn't be allowed to happen - imo if a buyer is paying with PayPal then BO should only present to you the shipping address supplied by PayPal.

Unfortunately, BO's terms state: "Orders must be shipped to the shipping address on the order unless otherwise agreed with the customer."

These terms bind both you and the buyer but PayPal will be unlikely to see it that way. They will almost certainly rule in your buyer's favour, though don't let it go without a fight, you never know. Send them the terms and let them know the shipping address given by the buyer was different to the PayPal address.

Respectfully, @Lawrence is the only one in a position to prevent this from happening again and again, by changing the integration with PayPal so that the shipping address and the PayPal address match every single time.

This particular buyer should imo be banned. They're either deliberately attempting to defraud the seller, or they've made a mistake that they expect the seller to pay for.

Mrs Swoop

SheffBricks you say that you shipped to the address they supplied but that isn't the case, you shipped to the address that Paypal supplied. If I buy anything online and enter a shipping address during checkout I expect my order to be delivered to that address.

I know there are many here who don't ship to an address that is different to Paypal but from previous discussions I think that they generally reach out to the buyer to resolve this issue before shipping. I don't know for sure how they resolve it, is it a matter of cancelling the order and setting up the address in Paypal before re-ordering? I've asked that question before and never got an answer but maybe someone can explain because maybe it's something that I should be doing.

As Hoddie said this issue isn't going away and it would be so much better if the integration between BO and Paypal could deal with it, even if that is just a break in the checkout process that tells the buyer they have to sort it out in Paypal before placing the order.

Stellar

Think of this situation as if you were the buyer, you search something online, find a website, register and fill a cart, then you enter your shipping address and then you pay with any payment method.

Most people just put the shipping address in PP when they registered and never changed it again, most people probably are still living in the same place.

But I think making the PayPal payment address the one that is send by Brick Owl should be possible too..

Vosblokjes

When shipping to the address provided by PayPal you are not breaking the contract with BrickOwl.
"Orders must be shipped to the shipping address on the order unless otherwise agreed with the customer."
Well, an address provided through PP can be seen as an agreement from the buyer to ship to that address, it is the buyer that suplied that address to PP somewhere along the line.
And who is to know if the BO address is still the correct one, on a new account it should be, but an older account could hold old info, while PP had the new and correct one. There is just no way of knowing.

Maybe if BO only wants the shipping address on BO to be used, then BO should be held responsible for seller protection, or BO should make an agreement with PP to leave the seller protection intact when using another address than the PP one.
Or BO should change the rule (and warning banner) about this.
It would even be better if PP changed there rules and in these kind of cases should disregard the address on file and go with the address the buyer provided when checking out with the store or platform, but I don't think that will happen. although I would prefer it, PP has many more rules that are not in favor of buyer nor seller.

Or, maybe even better, BO should notify the buyer at the moment of (PP) payment when the addresses don't match up and there should be an option for the buyer to change the address (on BO or PP) at that moment so both are the same when the order is done.

For me it only would mather with high value orders. Lower value orders are send without Track and Trace, hence loosing PP protection anyway, so I almost always use the BO shipping address and never had any problem with it.

For the time being, as a seller, you could contact the buyer to inform about the correct address and when it is indeed different than the PP one, ask yourself if you are willing to loose seller protection, if yes, then ship to the shipping address, if not then cancel the order and tell the buyer he could try again after changing the address in PP.

Colorado Bricks

I have the issue once of different addresses, but the buyer wanted it shipped to the PP address not BO. That should not be allowed either as the S&H calculated by BO based on the BO address were much lower than for the PP address.

Lawrence

Just to clarify this issue, we would like to give the BO Address to Paypal, but Paypal attempt to validate the address.

If for example their opinion of the customers "City" is different to the customers, the Paypal setup process will error. The error will not tell the customer what the issue is, and they will just have to keep blindly making adjustments to their address until giving up and trying Stripe or leaving Brick Owl. We have confirmed this is still an issue with US addresses, but we may be able to pass the address for non-US addresses.

Regardless, if the addresses do not match, there is a warning for stores on the order to either ship to the BO address or contact the customer.

Vosblokjes

Lawrence, the warning that shows is:
"The shipping address is different to the PayPal address, please make sure to ship to the shipping address on the order." (at least on an order from 21 March)
So no option according to BO
Maybe that statement is changed now.

Is it possible to give a buyer a notification about the difference during checkout and that they have to state to which address it should be shipped? (some sort of confirmation)
This way sellers are sure which address is correct and it is then up to the seller if they want to go ahead with this different address (hence voiding PP seller protection) or not.
Maybe give the buyer a heads up about this possibility.

flipus74

Funny - I just reached out to Lawrence about the same thing (though I have no "scamming" buyer story associated with it).

What I would like is an option in BrickOwl where I, as a store owner, can indicate whether I accept shipping to a different address or not. Then the buying interface can tell the customer in advance "NOTE: If paying with Paypal, this store will send orders to the address in Paypal instead of the address used during the checkout process" or something similar.

Calibrick

I simply put in my terms that I only ship to PayPal address... and if I note that they're different (BO and PP), I reach out to the customer and sort it out first... just my humble two cents. :-) I do check those every order to be safe, there are good reasons for them to differ at times (such as sending a gift to a relative).

Mrs Swoop

@Calibrick what's involved in sorting it out? How is that done?

flipus74

@Calibrick - but given the streamlined user experience on BrickOwl, which user would ever see your Terms? When I buy through BO I never see individual storefronts, I always go via the Wanted List and directly to carts.

Calibrick

Flipus raises a fair point... though to be honest, I always read a seller's terms just in case there is something trippy I should be aware of when I buy (even with want lists, you can still view that on checkout). Old BL habit when there were fees etc. that you do not have over here...

This is where the human work comes in. I check each order's shipping address against PayPal, which I print all my USPS postage through (so I have both open anyway), and if there's a discrepancy, I pause and contact the customer. I tend to do this first right as I'm about to pull their order.

I do NOT love that, to be clear... but it is in the customer's best interest (which I respectfully explain to them) as their buyer protections only apply if the two addresses match. They rarely do not, I have found - and when it does not, its been a gift for an obvious family member (same last name), or a person on travel (shipped to a hotel) and I've made clear to them that they are forcing me to obviate their buyer protections (so that is then in writing) with PayPal (as I only take PayPal). :-)

On one occasion (since this does kill our seller protections), I paid for insurance myself to play it safe (it was a pricey order I wasn't excited about losing seller protections over). But I also could write that off my taxes, so, it was more reduced profit then out of pocket costs.

I have no idea if this is a good approach or not, but it's been the best I could do since 4/2018. This is likely my only real nitnoid with BO (a site that I absolutely ADORE!) - shipping should go to the **payment method's** shipping address, not one posted in the site, IMHO. It kills buyer and seller protections otherwise. I've no doubt there are all kinds of rules in the EU as to why it's setup this way, which is why I've just rolled with it. :-)

flipus74

In the case of my order .. the buyer is a fresh account, first experience with BrickOwl. I don't want to give them a lot of hassle after they placed an order which they were allowed to place by the site - even just reaching out and saying "sorry, but I cannot ship to your cousin/grandchild/brother/you name it" will turn them away from BrickOwl.

Yes, technically I can play the "losing Buyer Protection" card, but to be fair, it is not about the buyer protection, it is about the seller protection. Hence my proposal to have BrickOwl implement an option where a seller can enforce the "ships only to payment address" rule, and where such a rule would become visible to the buyer once they select a store in their order which enforces this rule. A simple notification saying ("One or more stores in your order will only ship to your address in Paypal") with a visual indication as to which stores are affected would help. It could even be a checkbox flag in the Wishlist fulfillment screen where you can include/exclude stores that ship to payment address only.

This would allow me to enforce this flag for my store, but others might feel that they are comfortable without Seller Protection (or use Stripe or another payment processor that does not have this restriction) and will not set the flag.

Malnaborg

I have read this post on the sidelines, and wanted to give my view on the case.

We actually had a similar talk back at christmas when the same issue was happening. People ordering but wanted a different shipping address.

Now for me personally i dont understand the problem with just sending to the shipping address!!!
I have now had 66 orders, and never was i in doubt about sending to the address the buyer wanted.

And only 1 package until now have been lost, but mostly because of the usps. Anyway. But if you are so "scared" as to lose your seller protection and money lost, i really think you should ease up.

As rules state, yes we from brickowl are ruled to send to the shipping address. No matter what.
I my self had gotten a few orders where the paypal and shipping was not the same, but i really dont understand the fuss about this.

If you are so scared about losing your money for any reason, i actually think you should consider your business here. I am not angry or anything, i am just always thinking of the buyer, and given them the best experience.

Just send to the shipping address provided. Again i have had 66 orders, never had any problems at all getting my money, and the buyer getting the Lego.

Calibrick

In fairness, I'm not worried about orders less than $100... in aggregate, I can cover those if the worst happens, so there won't ever be a negative issue for a customer. But I do want those protections in place for both of us for the larger orders though - protections are very useful for a $2000 order, for sure, at least in my respectful opinion (yes, I can insure it etc., but that's not really the point of the sales point protections - it's to ensure customer doesn't pull back $$ from me for some wild reason, or for them, to ensure I'm on the level and actually ship what they asked for).

I personally would love if the shipping address provided by the payment service was the BO-enforced shipping address, but again, I suspect there is a UK and/or EU regulation reason for why this differs.

Emporiosa

I would really love to see address enforcement where at checkout, it does not let them checkout when the addresses do not match (perhaps it can throw them an error advising them to update their PayPal address prior to proceeding).

Calibrick

Oh, I would love that Emporiosa... I feel like Lawrence explained this on another thread somewhere as to why, I need to take a look when I get some time!

It would need to also be able to "ignore" common non-problems, e.g., I have customers who put their street address twice into PayPal (once in the real street address line, a second time in a secondary/overflow address line), some who use the 5+4 zip vs. the 5-digit zip only (that is VERY common), and some who layout their apartment number differently between the two, e.g., in one as part of their street address, and the other placing the apartment # on the secondary/overflow line.

So some kind of check needs to allow some of that thru automatically, or we'll have unhappy customers...

Calibrick

BTW, I 100% support the idea of a nag if the addresses do not match... even if we can't force them to have the same address, @Lawrence, could BO consider throwing up a "nag" popup to a customer asking them to update their payment processor (e.g., PayPal) if BO sees their payment shipping address and their BO shipping address do not match?

flipus74

Or maybe just eliminate the Paypal payment option if the customer wants the order shipped somewhere else ..... This assumes other processors don't void their protections in this case (e.g. Stripe).

Vosblokjes

Don't block such orders (mostly there will be no other payment option left when eliminating PP so a buyer won't be able to buy at all). For me there is no need to.
I'm happy to ship orders (to a certain amount) to the BO shipping address when it is different then the PP one.