I was recently scammed by Paypal

I've never had a Paypal account before, but recently I naively signed up to a scam website that had creating a paypal 'username and password' as part of the payment process. Don't do this.

I assumed it was a credible site because it used paypal - and wrongly assumed that paypal would have   conducted some kind of assessment on who they partner with, and what that partners pricing policy's/terms and conditions are. They don't.

From what I can tell, paypal will partner with anyone regardless of how dishonest and misleading their website is. Being 'fair and reasonable' is not an objective. Nigerian scammers - knock yourselves out.

The scamming site (www.coparents.com) targets vulnerable people. People who are desperate to become parents due to infertility but can't. It's a sperm donor site.

You are unable to trial www.coparents.com without paying - though it claims you can. To actually interact you must join paypal and enter credit card details. So a vulnerable person like me, who's 40 and had 10 miscarriages, sees a 1 month subscription for US$35 and thinks 'ok, I'll give it a go, and see what it's like'. 

I'll detail www.coparents.com and their dishonestly in another post, but the short of it was - They converted my 1 month membership to an ongoing subscription that you had to unsubscribe from. This was confusingly explained in a very long-winded, small-fonted 'terms of use' document, accessed from a tiny hyperlink at the bottom of the site. The document and contract terms was no where to be seen in the pricing section, a small section under 'help' that says:

Membership 1 month: 25€/$34/£22
Membership 3 months: 45€/$59/£38
Membership 6 months: 65€/$85/£58

Payments are made securely through the PayPal online payment system.

To me the agreement had been simple. I was paying for a 1 month membership to use the site for 1 month. It was clear as daylight, and I felt confident to process this payment through such a credible institution as paypal.

I activated my 1 month subscription to test the site and quickly discovered it was filled with perverts who want to have unprotected sex for free. My inbox was inundated. I had to block their email address. Having been through 10 years of infertility, it was the last thing I needed.

So I stopped using the site, pretty quickly. 6 months later I notice a payment for US$35 coming out of my credit card to paypal. I didn't think I had a paypal account, so was curious (forgotten about coparents.com). I had no idea how to access paypal, or what my password was - so instantly I cancelled my credit card.

I then went to paypal, entered my email address and a likely password - bam, it worked. I had a paypal account, without really knowing it. 

I tried finding the unknown transactions - but they were nowhere to be seen. So I emailed paypal asking to be contacted. Got a reply that looked to be written by a monkey who had not read my email, and made me feel like a plastic factory part on a conveyor belt. No reply still. What kind of people do they employ at Paypal?

So I logged in again, this time for some reason the unknown transactions were there. Next to the transactions was a vendors name - 'thankU SAS' -  I had forgotten all about the scam site (coparents.com) so I really did think it fraud. Next I disputed the transactions, of which there were 5.

Soon, I was happy to receive an email telling me that 1 of the 5 transactions had been seen as a scam, and the money would be refunded - which it was. Good result, paypal must be reputable after all.

Then I got an email telling me "The payments in question was sent as part of a payment agreement you previously set up with the merchant. As a result, we're unable to consider this to be an unauthorized payment."

So the other 4 payments were not refunded.

I then discovered this 'thankU SAS' person was actually 'coparents.com' and I was furious. 

So I've been emailing and emailing paypal, and all I get back from them are automated answers. It is honestly like dealing with residents at the zoo.

Lessons learnt:

1. Coparents.com website is a scam, don't sign up with them 
2. Paypal don't have any ethics in terms of who they deal with. Honesty of their partners' business doesn't matter, nor does 'fair and reasonable' pricing. 
3. Never, ever sign up to a service where the only method of payment is paypal.
4. If you choose to use paypal be prepared to be scammed, lied to, and cheated - and then for paypal not to care or reply to your emails.
5. There is no consistency with how paypal assess 'unauthorized payments'. One day they will refund a scam, the next day they won't. 
6. Paypal is not a credible banking institution like the visa companies - yet visa companies honor paypal payments. So if there is a credit card dispute, you are completely screwed.
7. Paypal don't care about their customers or if they are getting scammed - by their own partners.
8. Don't use paypal.