Paypal wont return funds

[AliG]

Oh on a completely separate issue which I haven't even bothered to complain about yet, because it seems to common and has happened at least 6 times to me is as follows:

I purchase "UGG BOOTS" for my girlfriend advertised as "GENUINE, BRAND NEW, BOXED & SEALED" on eBay. This was on Dec 15 or 16th 2007 with a promise of "Delivery in time for xmas". Genuine UGGS only sell through UGG Australia for a fixed price. I paid that price for these boots, if I'd paid half price, I would have known I wasn't buying genuine boots.

Sure enough they were delivered on time for xmas, and I give them to my lovely partner. She opens them. They are fake as hell, if you go on google and search for "Fake UGGS" there are about 20 points to check on your boots. Well these boots fell in to about 15 or the 20 categories, i.e. flat foam base rather than proper sturdy indented base. Short height, bad stitching, etc. These boots were not really worth more than about $30 and I'd just paid the equivalent of $250 for them.

I contacted the seller immediately who told me that he'd bought them from a wholesale store at a quarter of the price and put them on ebay for $250 because thats what he saw the others selling for, he ***ured me that no one else had complained. He told me I could have them for half price.

I told him that these fake boots were worthless and I had no intention of paying for them when they'd been advertised as "GENUINE" and I'd paid the price accordingly for "GENUINE" boots.

Seller stops responding sure enough, paypal claim follows, you know the story..

Its now the 5th FEB!! and paypal are still 6 weeks later "reviewing" the case. It seems pretty simple and straight forward to me and probably anyone else but as I think we've all seen with paypal, they dont have time to read through the cases, my best bet is that some halfwit in some customer services department in the far east goes and flips a coin to decide who wins the case..

Oh the seller managed to log on to give me negative feedback on ebay for the transaction! Apparently I didn't communicate enough with him. Theres my first negative feedback in about 80 transactions ever.. oh and guess what, according to ebay I can't even contest this negative feedback as its part of the community feedback system, I just have to get over it.

As a savvy internet user, I've always told people that there are certain things that you just dont buy on ebay and buy online but theres plenty that you can, I change my mind on that now, its just an absolute joke. I'd rather pay more, and go to a real store with real people speaking real english and selling real products, rather than dealing with a load of faceless online companies that don't seem to be held accountable to any laws in any countries.

Lets wait and see..

[AliG]

I forgot to mention, this 'chargeback' concept is pretty unknown in the UK, as its not something that anyone ever has to do, the stores and merchants have their rules and consumer laws that protect the consumers, as a regular purchaser, I never heard of a chargeback until about 6 months ago.

It's a real shame that that you have to know about these things to get anywhere on paypal.

From what I've learned and experienced, my advice is as follows:

- Any money that ever enters your paypal account, withdraw it to bank immediately.
- Use the same bank account and same credit card every time.
- If you think that it may be smart to add your partner/friends account and pay money to him as any normal person might wish to do, your account will get locked probably forever, dont do it. Pay it out to your own account then ask your bank to make a transfer, it's just easier dealing with a bank with real people rather than a lawless company consisting of foreign idiots like paypal.
- If you are ever buying any goods of any significant value that you don't want to lose out on, USE YOUR CREDIT CARD through paypal. If you have funds in your paypal account, I'm not sure you can use your card unless the funds dont cover it, in which case, go and withdraw all your funds, then make the payment with your credit card. If you use your card which may be VISA or Mastercard, etc, they are REAL companies with REAL laws and protection. If you get screwed around by paypal or a seller that won't deliver or delivers incorrect items, start a paypal dispute, chances are they'll screw you about as usual, just go straight to your card company WITHIN NINETY DAYS and request a chargeback. You don't generally need to go into all the details of the paypal transaction and who did what, just state "goods not as described and seller refuses a return" or "goods not arrived" that is sufficient for a chargeback but your bank/card company will ***ist you with that.

It is in paypals interest to screw you and pocket the difference. It is your bank/card company's interest to maintain a real reputation and keep real customers happy and treated fairly according to the law and according to VISA/Mastercard's policies and rules.

These are my guidelines for protecting myself as a consumer.

As for being a seller using paypal.. good luck. I've tried to sell using paypal before and as my 99.9% positive feedback confirms, I'm a good, honest and decent seller. The number of chargebacks and paypal cases that I've lost out on that are genuinely ridiculous, I've lost track of. Chances are, in a dispute, the seller will lose out, that's just a rule of thumb. The buyer can launch a chargeback should he lose out and guess what, paypal loses out then and WONT fight chargebacks for you. As a seller, other than paypals "protection policy" which is absolutely worthless, you are totally unprotected and thus when paypal rule against you, there is realistically nothing you can do short of launching a civil court case.

I think that the best course of action, is as this site states, if you're a real seller, trying to run a real business which most people are, then you need a real merchant account to accept cards and payments. Also, I'm not sure of anyone's thoughts on moneybookers - it hasnt been around as long as paypal, but I'm using it right now to accept payments from overseas and haven't had a single issue with them yet, also including the fact that they use real exchange rates and fee structures rather than paypal who seem to just decide their own and is about 3% above visa's or the central european bank's rates.

WHAT A SCAM!

Another note.. paypal has a note on their site that they are.. actually I say that, it's disappeared since I last saw it, I wonder why?

Something along the lines that they are registered with the FSA as an 'online financial institution'. Financial services authority is a good straight forward UK licencing authority. You might wonder how they can let this kind of thing go.. Well an 'online financial institution' IS NOT A BANK. Paypal is NOT A BANK and does NOT have to follow the rules of operating as a BANK. It is just an 'online money service' for shuffling 'virtual credits' from one account to another.

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