Sorry for the long post.
In the past 10 years I used paypal for all my online purchases because I thought they protected me, well heres something I wish I knew.
The other night I signed up for a website (Not porn but I wish it was) this website offered access to software. So I figure why not at least I am protected so I fire off my $35 via paypal and i'm off. Email gets sent to me login/password everything is looking good. In the end the software does not do what its guaranteed to do and less than an hour later my access is revoked.
At this time I try to contact the company but no response so I open a dispute the only category that fits is "item not as described". 2 days go by and no response so I escalate my claim. Immediately after doing this Paypal closes my claim ruling against me as this falls under the "not covered in the protection policy".
Status
We're unable to decide this claim in your favor at this time. PayPal's Buyer Complaint Policy applies to the shipment of goods but not to disputes about merchandise quality.
What happens next
We encourage you to work directly with your seller to resolve this matter.
Case closed and no where on the site to dispute this so I call customer service. Customer service says the same thing I am not protected against this and there is nothing they can do, if they had alot of complaints they would investigate and possibly close the account. In the meantime he offered me the contact info for the seller. Turns out the "seller" collecting the money is an ecommerce website who collects the money for the real seller and won't give out this info so this will get me no where.
So in the end paypal and myself received no response from the seller and yet they refuse to do anything about it.
- Oct 27, 2010 - PayPal: Email sent to buyer
- Oct 24, 2010 - PayPal: Email sent to seller
- Oct 24, 2010 - PayPal: Email sent to buyer
- Oct 24, 2010 - Buyer: Dispute escalated to claim
- Oct 24, 2010 - PayPal: Email sent to seller
- Oct 24, 2010 - Buyer: Dispute filed
- Oct 22, 2010 - PayPal: Email sent to seller
- Oct 22, 2010 - PayPal: Email sent to buyer
- Oct 22, 2010 - Buyer: Dispute filed
Here is the portion of the user agreement that states that you are screwed, this took the customer service rep about 15 minutes to find.
- PayPal Buyer Complaint Policy. The Buyer Complaint Policy is PayPal's process to help you resolve a problem directly with the Seller through the PayPal Resolution Center for purchases that are not eligible for PayPal Buyer Protection.
The PayPal Buyer Complaint Policy is similar to PayPal Buyer Protection in that it enables buyers to file Disputes for Items Not Received (INR), or for items that are Significantly Not as Described (SNAD). By filing a Dispute, you can communicate with the Seller and attempt to resolve the problem. If you are unable to resolve the problem, you may escalate an Item Not Received (INR) Dispute to a Claim – but you may not escalate a Significantly Not as Described Dispute to a Claim. You may not file a dispute for a Personal Payment.
Even though you may escalate an Item Not Received Dispute to a Claim, you are not guaranteed recovery. If the Claim is decided in your favor, your recovery is limited to the amounts that PayPal can recover from the Seller’s Account.
So in the end what service can Paypal offer me that my credit card cant? My credit card protects me but Paypal can't. In the end I guess I should have filed this dispute as a "did not recieve product" so let that be a lesson to me in the future even though my future does not involve paypal.
/rant