Luckily for me most of my costs where on a credit card. I did use PayPal for some and ofcourse I was over the 45 day time limit. I took the time to get an actual human being on the phone (trust me it takes quite a bit of time) and I asked if there was anything that could be done. His response was that IF there were a lot more complaints (duh there are only about 499 more) they might open an investigation any how. So anyone and everyone who paid through PayPal needs to file a dispute no matter what the time limit is. You have to file it on the computer first. You will most likely get some sort of message basically saying your screwed and we won't help you. Then look up the number on their contact page, they have one specifically for claims. Call, wait on hold for around 30 minutes and then start from scratch explaining the entire thing. Funnily enough depite the message saying you can't file the claim, they will in fact already have you claim on file from your first attempt. They will not allow you to file it over the phone so you do have to go through the page first. They also said that the claims were paid back on a first come first serve basis IF they determined your claim to be valid and IF there are any funds left in BE's account. So it may not get us any where but I think its worth the effort to atleast try.

Thanks, aboleyn. I've now filed disputes on all my Booster payments with Paypal. It returned messages for every one that I couldn't open a dispute on the payments, but I'm glad they'll be on file anyway. I will also call them, but if I'm going to be on hold for half an hour before I get to talk to someone, I will have to wait until tomorrow when I've got a bigger chunk of time. All of my payments for Flan were made through paypal, not with credit card, so I hope this helps somewhat.

I called PayPal and got through right away. I'm guessing that they are speeding up the process because they are getting more complaints from us regarding this issue. I called them with questions about refunding people who purchased things from me and they were very helpful.

They also gave me another bit of very useful information. They told me that ebay has a special process to obtain refunds for purchases. I know those people who purchased luncheon tickets might need to look into the refund process from ebay.

Hmm, I tried to file a dispute with ebay and got the same old message about being over the time limit. I sent them an email and so far no response.

Ok. Well, maybe that won't do any good. They didn't tell me about the time limit, so I didn't know. I would still try to file a complaint at least. If you find something for that, please let me know. Even though I didn't purchase a luncheon ticket, I'd be willing to file a complaint against BE.

If PayPal won't do it, can we file the claim with the credit card that the PayPal account paid with? Would that work? Is it worth even trying?

Rach, I believe you can. I would call the credit card company and ask them. It's worth trying.

Rach I was able to do exactly that. As long as it was through your credit card company you can just bypass paypal. Its only the people who paid with actual cashy money in their paypal account who are getting completly screwed by paypal. I will avoid paypal whenever possible from this point on and I am going to try and cancel the link to my bank account. Even the girl who worked for paypal that I spoke with admitted you are better off using credit cards.

Oh fantastic. I'll call tomorrow!

The only one I'm not sure about is the big one, my luncheon ticket - I *accidentally* paid via bank transfer instead of putting it to a credit card. Didn't think at the *time* that it would be a problem. D'oh!

If anyone who paid with paypal used a debit card (like I did)...forget paypal they are no help. I went directly to my local branch (after being brush off by a corporate PNC rep) and spoke with someone in person. He was MUCH more helpful and if I can bring proof of cancellation they will open up a dispute. Good luck all!

Did someone happen to get a screen shot of the cancellation notice BE put up when they took down their web site? That should be sufficient proof that they cancelled.

Proof of cancellation of the con can be found in the screen shot in this post.

If you click on the image about 3 times it will blow up into a full-screen shot, wherein Vicki clearly states that the convention was canceled.

I wish everyone the best of luck in getting their refunds!

BTW, there has also been a great deal of discussion on this topic over on the new board, here.

The mods at the B3 site prefer that refund info and all other issues with BE and Flan2 be kept here. The B3 forum is trying to keep out of this issue (since they have no answers) and it's probably easier if there is a central place like here for discussions like this.

But if you want to thank someone for B3 or catch up with someone who attended.. that's the place to be!

I paid with automatic bank transfers for most of my paypal payments, only one debit card payment that pulls from the same account. I visited my credit union today, and although they initially thought it would be a problem because disputes must be filed within 60 days, a phone call to a higher-up was all it took to approve opening the dispute anyway. All agreed that 60 days from the date of payment(s) was not the applicable date here because there was no problem at the time. The clerk was able to open a dispute for me. I am told that the money should be refunded in a few days. I need to provide a written account of what occurred, with the details of what steps I took to rememdy the issue, including names and contact info, dates, etc, of anyone I spoke to about it. They need this letter within 21 days or they may reverse the charges and remove the money from my account again, but I will make sure they have plenty of info. They did not take any of the documentation I brought with me, but I will probably include some of it with my letter.

I only filed claims for the tickets I bought directly from Booster. I spent almost as much on private party transactions for re-sale tickets. I don't know if I will ever see that money again.

Hi gang,

The questions that were posted here seem to have been answered, but please keep posting if you are having any trouble. We want to help! Remember, the key phrase is "services not rendered," and those services WERE within 30/45/60 days.

I also wanted to note that my credit card company looks to have opened a dispute with PayPal -- I received an email this morning from PP with the notice, even though my card has already been credited the amount I paid to Booster. This is good, because the dispute will be handled by my card company and it's one thing *I* dont have to deal with.




This is why I keep saying in my posts about this on other sites, that it is VERY important that anyone who had tickets bought from them let their buyers know the chargeback process is in the works. It can save a lot of worry all-around. If some time passes without hearing from someone you bought from, you can alwayss open a dispute in PayPal if you paid that way. OR (and this has happened to Browncoat friends of mine) if you hear back that they don't know how to go about getting their money back, offer to help explain the chargeback process and what they might need to do. I can only hope everyone who was involved in the selling of tickets is going to be honest with this, 'cuz that's the Browncoat way.

I got a call back from my credit union today. As it turns out, the Visa/debit card charge and the ACH automatic bank transfer charges are handled by different departments. The ACH rules have a dispute cutoff at 60 days from post date, so they are going to have quite difficult time doing anything about those - it's not their rules. They will see what they can do. In the mean time, my letter of explanation and my supporting documents need to go to two different people. I'm hoping the addition of the Ashland police criminal investigation case number will help get someone's attention higher up.

I have learned one very serious lesson from all of this. I will NOT be using ACH bank transfers for any future Paypal payments. I do a fair amount of shopping on ebay and have never had an issue with anything there yet. But when you make a purchase and pay through Paypal, they highly encourage the use of automatic bank transfers over credit card payments. I will make sure to specify that the payments go through the credit/debit card from now on.

So far, the payment I made using bank transfer is the only one I've had refunded!

So for all of us that used our debit cards that pulled directly from our checking acct, still no good news, huh? Just checking.

I give up. Thanks goodness I only shelled out $85 for a dealer booth. My heart goes out to all of you who paid way more.

PayPal's case found in my favor... wii.

What does that get me? Nothing.

Same here.

Ditto. They found in my favor and gave me.....um...nothing. Color me unimpresssed with paypal. I am still out every dollar I spent on this