Thread: PayPal: buyer beware

Hi everyone, just wanted to share a recent experience with paypal and their so-called buyer protection.

November 2019: purchased an item using PayPal, paid roughly $45.
Dec 2019: Since the item had not arrived, I wanted to contact the seller for an update, and their store no longer existed. Cue alarm bells
Dec 2019: contacted PayPal about my concerns, they obtained a tracking number from the seller, said it was on its way.
January 2020: item still had not arrived, made claim on PayPal. While that was being processed, an item did arrive with the tracking number given by the vendor. Not only was it not the correct item, it wasn't even close and was something I would not pay $2 for in a dollar store. Utter garbage. PayPal denied my initial claim on the grounds that a tracking number had been given, so I then informed PayPal about the bait & switch scam, providing photos for evidence. Their eventual response: return the item with tracking for a full refund. The cheapest shipping option with tracking for me was $60, so obviously I refused to do that. Their response? Too bad.

I have since discovered via PayPal's facebook page that the same seller has done the same exact thing (same item paid for, same garbage shipped) to multiple people. PayPal has not only refused to issue us refunds, they have also thus far taken no action against the scamming seller.

This particular item had nothing to do with shaving gear, so I hope no one else here has been affected by this particular crook. But please be aware that if someone sells you X, but ships you Y, PayPal will do NOTHING to protect you unless you pay to ship it back with tracking even if that exceeds the value of the transaction. To me, this demonstrates that PayPal values a scammer's business more than they do mine. I had been a loyal, honest, and regular customer for years and years, but they have now lost me as a customer as I refuse to support any business that so clearly protects scammers.

So please be aware of whom you are sending $$ to via paypal. At $45 I consider this a relatively cheap lesson. It could have been much worse.

The way to beat this is to use your credit card instead of PayPal. Or maybe use your credit card in PayPal. I have found with my buyers protection my credit card company will take care of me.

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

The way to beat this is to use your credit card instead of PayPal. Or maybe use your credit card in PayPal. I have found with my buyers protection my credit card company will take care of me.

I think you can use your credit card with PP and I have heard of someone letting their CC company reverse the payment. But that gets the money back from PP, not the seller and I have read that PP might dislike that enough to block your account. So idk what is the smart move there.

I got to disagree with you there my friend. If PayPal won’t help then we shouldn’t worry about what the cc company does to them and if they sanction you then why do business with them. They must be held accountable. Short story. Bought a phone service and then found it didn’t work out where I was working at the time. Tryed to cancel after a couple months. Breaking contracts is awful hard to do with mobile suppliers. Ended the argument told them no problem Amex would be in touch. They canceled.

That is what your buyers protection is for and if PayPal wouldn’t help me then f@#%k em. The way I am I just don’t let anyone screw me over. He paid good money, he honored his end of the deal and the seller and PayPal are wrong. You don’t need to go thru PayPal there are other ways

When I've called and EVENTUALLY got a person they have usually taken care of me before. That is rough. Have you tried calling back and trying to get someone more helpful?

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

That is what your buyers protection is for and if PayPal wouldn’t help me then f@#%k em.

Yup, that's where I'm at right now. In this particular transaction, the payment came from my bank, not a credit card. I likely could contact the bank, etc., but frankly for $45 I've wasted enough time on this schmazel already.

Joshua: I have called a couple of times a couple of weeks ago. I got through to a person once, but that was after nearly 90mins of waiting on hold and navigating their bewilderingly unhelpful menus. Life's too short to go through that shit again!

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

The way to beat this is to use your credit card instead of PayPal. Or maybe use your credit card in PayPal. I have found with my buyers protection my credit card company will take care of me.

I use my credit card for most things brought online.
I once brought some.. um.. 'exotic' DVDs online and got charged double. A quick phone call to my card company and money was back in my account 24 hrs later.

I don’t use PP that often for purchases unless from a trusted seller ( got burned once ) but PP made good so now I use my CC with PP and it’s worked out very well

Interesting way to get around the PP buyer protection. As said above, I also use my CC with PP because if PP won't make it right then usually the CC company will.
Amazon Visa refunded my money when a stone came to me broken because the imbecile who shipped it just placed it in a big box and it was free floating.
Bottom line, a good CC will give you much stronger protection than PP in my experience.

Is there a good reason not to out scammers like this on a public forum like this? I like to turn the tables on bad actors like this and let them know that they tried to screw the wrong person.