PayPal starts cross-border protection of buyers, sellers

International payment gateway PayPal today began a service to safeguard cross-border digital transactions which will, in turn, insulate sellers and buyers from frauds.

Under the company's seller protection programme for intangibles, two types of buyer complaints will be covered - 'Unauthorised Transaction', when a buyer claims that he or she didn't authorise the payment and 'Item Not Received', when a buyer pays for the service but claims that he or she did not receive the service.

"A key objective for PayPal in India is to ensure that genuine sellers, small or big, are protected from unauthorised claims and chargebacks. Growing instances of online fraud act as a barrier for sellers selling online services and other intangible goods to clients abroad," PayPal India Country Manager and MD Anupam Pahuja said in a statement.

In case of unauthorised transaction complaint by the buyer, the PayPal Resolution Centre will investigate and if the seller furnishes evidence of delivering product then PayPal will take liability and clear payment for the seller. Through this, PayPal will provide protection to seller.

In case a buyer complains about product or service not received, PayPal will check with the seller. If the seller fails to furnish evidence of product or service delivery then PayPal will refund money to the buyer and try to recover money from the seller.

PayPal facilitates international payments. It claims to have 17 million active customer accounts and processed 4.9 billion payments in 2015 globally.

"With our Seller Protection Programme for Intangibles, we aim to empower freelancers and merchants in India to sell with confidence and assure them that they have our support to grow," Pahuja said.

A large section of PayPal users in India are merchants and freelancers selling intangible products and services like online tuitions, software or app development, event and travel tickets, the statement said.