Where does Brick Owl get the Billing Address from ?

An order just arrived. The buyer is brand new. They purchased an expensive Star Wars set (like aren't they all expensive these days ?). The "Shipping address" on PayPal is different from the "Shipping Address" on Brick Owl, but matches to the "PayPal Address" on Brick Owl. The Brick Owl "Billing Address" and "Shipping address" match tho.

Under the circumstances, I am reluctant to process this order, because the customer wants it shipped to one address and PayPal is telling me to ship it elsewhere. Any opinions ?

Comments

  • 36 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • edited January 2022 Vote Up0Vote Down
    The Shipping address on Pay-Palis the one that the Pay-Pal account is under. The "Shipping Address' on Brickowl is the address that the customer entered manually at checkout in your store. If they are different, you should send it to the 'Shipping Address' on Brickowl since they may be sending the package as a gift or something, therefore they would pay, but someone else will receive it.
  • @CodeSoka The problem with that approach, is that PayPal will not provide any protection on the transaction unless I use the PayPal shipping address. Should the customer file an "unauthorized use" dispute, I'm out the entire payment + the set + the postage.

    But I do understand about the gift theory, PayPal does not work that way tho.
  • hmm.. good point. let me think about that one.
  • What shipping method are you using?
  • > What shipping method are you using?

    USPS Priority Mail, but I don't see any way that would change this.
  • edited January 2022 Vote Up0Vote Down
    You might want to contact @Lawrence about it directly:
  • I personally think that you should send it to the BO shipping address unless it looks like the difference could have been a typo.
  • Send them a message to confirm the address first. You can change the shipping address in Paypal. Use the Edit button. But always ask first.
  • @Papa Pearson Duh! I should have thought of that! :smiley: LOL
  • @nita_rae

    If only you knew how many times this came up in the forum.

    BrickOwl terms are in conflict with PayPal terms. If you ship to the address provided by BrickOwl and the buyer files a not received claim with PayPal. You loose. PayPal will refund the buyer.

    I would suggest contacting customer and get confirmation of which address at the very least.

    99.9% of buyers are honest... but there's always that 1. Being new to the site would suggest they aren't familiar with things.
  • @Graham I get what this is about ... keeping the customer happy. But the problem is not Brick Owl specific, it exists on any site that accepts PayPal.

    I will reach out to the buyer, but if they insist on using the BO shipping address, then what ? I will not ship to an address other than the PayPal address. At a minimum I refund the payment, and eat the PP fee. What happens to the order on BO at that point ?

    If I had 100 of these sets, I might be willing to take a chance. But I have one, and only one.
  • @Papa Pearson There's an edit address button on PayPal ? Where precisely is it ?

    If you are talking about the button to edit the address for the shipping label, that's no longer there. And using that button voided any PayPal seller protection on the transaction.
  • @CodeSoka The two addresses are in the same state, otherwise they are different.
  • @nita_rae

    The only "safe" option would be contact customer, inform them you only ship to address provided by PayPal, if that isn't what they want. You could cancel the order, refund them, then ask them to place the order again BUT with them entering the correct address with PayPal.

    I never run into this on BL - I have a regular customer who drop ships minifigures to a different name and address with each purchase. Addresses always match.
  • @Graham

    > You could cancel the order

    How do you do that on BO ? I am well familiar with how I do the refund over at PP, but I've not seen a way to cancel the order.
  • @nita_rae : When you go into the order, the Cancel option is second on the list under the "More Actions" drop-down menu. You'll be given the option of adding the quantity in the order back into your store's inventory (I believe this is defaulted to "yes"), along with refunding the customer's payment back to their PayPal account. You'll also need to provide a brief reason for cancelling the order.

    Hope that helps!!
  • The main issue with different addresses is that the people does not update their addresses. They have moved, buy now at Brick Owl, see the address is wrong, change it, but forget the change at paypal. We see this so often (40%) at Ebay that the first address we receive with the information that we have sold an item is different to the shipping address we receive with the inforomation that it was paid for.

    We always ship to the address we receive from Brick Owl and Paypal. If someone openes a disupte at Paypal (happende 2 times in 5 years) we just confirm paypal that we have shipped to the correct address. Yes, just confirmed, shipped to the correct address - we do not repeat any address in the communication with Paypal. And than it was safe for us.
    We ship also everything above 20€ with a tracking - this makes it more difficult for someone who has so criminal energy.

    We import all addresses automatically into our system - therefor we do not have the time to cross check all addresses.
  • @HeartlandBrix Thank you, I see that now.

    Something needs to be clarified here concerning who carries the risk in the transaction. When eBay is involved, eBay carries the risk, not PayPal. Pretty much everywhere else the risk is between PayPal and the seller. You will note that Amazon does not allow you to pay via PayPal, because they want to do all their own risk management.

    At this point, I am waiting for the customer to respond. If they have not responded by later today, I will refund/cancel. Had this been a buyer with an established track record, I might have viewed the situation thru different eyes. That is part of risk management. Had the customer been ordering something I have a great desire to move out the door, I may have looked at it a bit differently. That is also part of risk management.

    At the end of the day, and will all due respect to Bricks-Shop, the PayPal seller protection is very clear ... Ship only to the address on the transaction.
  • @nita_rae

    When you ship to the address provided by PayPal, as long as it shows "eligible" you are covered BUT ONLY for "item not received" claim by buyer, as long as you have a tracking number and that tracking number shows as delivered to the address provided by PayPal.

    If you edit the address on PayPal and ship to the one provided by BrickOwl you DO NOT have any protection whatsoever (AFAIK even if you have proof - tracking and receipt etc).

    BrickOwl do NOT carry the/any risk if the buyer chooses to file an "item not received" or anything else.

    This is why myself and others have asked @Lawrence to "fix it" many times, his last response was that it can't be fixed due to PayPal's API - which I don't understand the reason - every other venue I either sell on or buy from doesn't have this issue.

    @Lawrence couldn't you at least include a message in the check out flow for the customer to "make sure your shipping address is correct on PayPal"

    As it stands BrickOwl's terms are in conflict with PayPal's terms

    If the customer has moved and not changed their permanent address with PayPal they are in default with PayPal's t&c

    If the customer wants to ship a gift THEY need to enter that address on PayPal during check out.
  • edited January 2022 Vote Up0Vote Down
    @Graham Agree with all your points. I think that BL's interface to PayPal is somewhat different than BO's. I can (at a minimum) point that the transaction page (over on PP) are different. The transaction page for a BL payment is layed out so that I can copy the Ship-To address in one motion. The BO payment transaction page (which may be generic) forces me to copy each line individually.

    Part of this issue revolves around customer perception. If the customer perceives they are going to get what they want, they may place the order there (even if the seller isn't going to do it). And then we end up where we are today.

    ETA: no one has answered my question posed in the title ... where is BO getting the billing address from ? If not PayPal, then it's just some field the customer is typing something into.
  • You can set in your Address Book:

    https://www.brickowl.com/user/823093/addressbook

    In most websites when you are making an order in the checkout you see your address where it is going to be shipped (as you filled it when registering or doing it at that moment) so I would expect to receive the order in that specified address, PayPal address can be set for long ago and most people don't update it if just use PP casually.


    How many times did you use seller protections vs headaches with shipping addresses? If the math for you is right or left do so then :smile: its your store at the end.
  • @Stellar The address screen has an edit button, and two (or three for sellers) notes below it, so it seems as tho BO only maintains a single address. There is an Add New Address button, but when I go to that screen, I don't see anything designates it one way or the other (billing and or shipping). My interpretation is that BO does not validate the billing address against PayPal. It could be anything. But the reason for having multiple addresses on file, is to select which address applies to the order.

    At a minimum I think the customer should respond to my attempt to contact them.
  • Customer finally responded. Address supplied via PayPal is out of date and invalid. Order refunded and canceled.
  • Was reading through the past year or so of Forum posts on Address mismatch. I'm much closer to @nita_rae's position on this. The people arguing that we are obliged to follow BrickOwl's TOS miss the point that we are *also* obliged to follow PayPal's TOS. And someone mentioned separately insuring the package going to an edited address - that doesn't solve the problem wherein PayPal doesn't care if the package is delivered, if the delivery address isn't the PayPal address.

    I was looking for a setting to block orders with address mismatches. I have one that's $5 - I'm going to send it after I've wasted time confirming with the buyer. (also now have to request a refund from ShipStation). But I agree automatic cancel is probably just the best and fairest thing to do.
  • ^ PayPal does not oblige you to use the address they provide.
  • @nita_rae
    That's the no. 2 issue I come across, PayPal TOS require you to keep a valid, current address.
    The no. 1 issue is customer entering incorrect zip code on BrickOwl

    @Bricklanta i don't think you can block orders in that manner, you can block users. Unfortunately I don't see this problem ever going away - it's the way @Lawrence wants it. His site. His rules.
  • @Hoddie I don't know if I feel comfortable with the word 'oblige'. Within the USA, PayPal supplies a shipping address with the transaction. The seller can ignore that address (should they wish to do so), but PayPal will not cover any Unauthorized Use type of disputes if you choose to ship to a different address.

    Having said that, my accumulated impression is that PayPal (at some point in time) associates an address with an account (e.g. email address, phone number, or whatever). PayPal does not forward verify the continued accuracy of that address, they just keep supplying it on transactions until such time as the account holder changes it to some other address.

    For PayPal payments in Express mode (i.e. guest checkout or just present a card with no prior account), PayPal has to do something similar to the Stripe address/zip verification.

    But that is where we get into a corner condition (as I did with a recent Stripe payment) where the customer is using a non-business card for business purposes. Customer gets billing to their home, but wants to enter the billing/shipping address as the business address. Stripe will allow that to authorize, but it will fail the address verification. As I have zero visibility as to why the address is failing, I'm not going to handle any of those going forward. Either the customer needs to honestly supply the correct billing address, or they go elsewhere.

    In the past, I was told (and informed some customers) that they can talk to the card issuer, and request additional addresses to be added to the bank's records. I'm not sure that has ever actually worked, but I think some banks support it.
  • Also keep in mind that PayPal does NOT provide any seller protection if purchase is paid via "Express" mode or whatever it is called. Seller protection will ONLY apply if the buyer logs into his PP account and pay that way.
  • @bricksinbins If you can substantiate that, please do so. All the payments I receive are marked 'Eligible' for the SPP.
  • If it says "Eligible" then it should be fine. I had one case where I had proof of shipping AND delivery. PayPal still refused to honor seller protection because it was not paid via logged in PP account, just straight CC and the buyer claimed fraudulent purchase with the CC company. That was the PP response to me. End of story. PP was completely unhelpful as expected.
  • ^ you're right - some sites allow people to pay with a card via PayPal without them requiring a PayPal account. Such sales are not covered by PayPal's protection policies. I don't know if BO is one of those sites.
  • @Hoddie It would be unlikely for BO to offer that type of payment, and still have payments arrive as 'Eligible'. Now, having said that, each seller (which has a PayPal account and receives payments) has the ability to filter out some payments which might not arrive marked as 'Eligible'. In general, I'm referring to cross-border payments. You can choose not to accept those, but at a cost in how many orders you receive. It's all about managing your risk.
  • I learned PayPal has a setting where you can choose if you accept these types of payments or not. PP kind of discourage you from turning it on and not accept non account payments. What a surprise.
  • @bricksinbins

    Is it this ? "Initiate payments from the “pay anyone” subtab of the Send Money tab"
  • @bricksinbins Yes, PayPal gives you a new account, complete with a long length of rope to hang yourself with. You then have to disable various options to make it more safe, and less risky. That PayPal no longer refunds the fees they collect, means all the risk is on the account holder.
  • @nita_rae Yep, isn't it wonderful...
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