Does PayPal really help in case of problems? My terrible experiences.

[lucaacc]

Hello to everyone, I open this topic to descrive my terrible experience on PayPal Italia (Italy).

I'm using this service since 2021, I have made thousands Euro of purchases and almost a thousands Euro of sales each year, through several plataforms and sites. Everything went totally fine, I have 100% positive feedback everywhere.

I had to open 2 PayPal dispute in 3 years. The first one was for 50$ good arrived destroyed from an international shipping, and the second one was for mud inside the cellophane of a collectible item, not reported in the seller's pics nor description. I paid for it 59.90$ + 7$ shipping through eBay.

1) The first case in 2021, I was new about this so I opened an eBay dispute and called PayPal asking what to do. The goods have been destroyed during the shipping. The lady told me to also open the PayPal dispute because they would have helped me immediatly. Long story short, eBay wanted to refund me but couldn't because there was a PayPal dispute opened on the order. PayPal let it opened for 2 months and each person I was calling, told me different things, but the most exuse was to just wait. At the end I got no refund at all. This is not an eBay fault's, but it's PayPal's 100% fault. Terrible experience

2) This happened on December 2023. I bought a videogame vintage from an Italian professional eBay seller named cast-games . I recordered the unboxing and noticed inside the cellophane there was lot of mud. For personal reasons I have waited almost 2 months to check it better and forgot about it. I thought it was a visibile damage on the listing and said myself maybe I missed that. When I checked the listing, there was 5 pics in total of this game and casually  only 1 was of the back and even pretty far away and none of the bottom side. The mud was right in the back/buttom place.

I messaged the seller, and cleary he knows PayPal's flaws, he immediately replied I was wasting his time, because of people like me sellers bankrupt, it was just a little bit of dust etc. 

This game second hand is being sold on eBay for a few bucks to the max of 8$, and I'll have to open the cellophane because of the mud inside and other defects. So the seller sold something worth 5$ for 59,90$ + 7$ shipping. I already understood the way he replied I couldn't do anything about it, and when I said I was going to open a PayPal dispute he mocked me even more. 

So I opened the PayPal dispute asking to ship it back. Unboxing video uploaded, pics of his listing, of my pics of the problem and more. PayPal closed the dispute in the seller's favor. I messaged them and they said:

- They don't offer protection on collectable things.

- Even of the mud, the game inside works perfectly so I'm not covered by PayPal (It was listed as collectable thing and who said the game is working? I haven't opened the cellophane yet)

- They could have offer help only if I received something VERY different from what I purchased, with no protection for collectible things. which the condition is  EVERYTHING.

I'm shocked from PayPal, cleary in over 400 purchases this year, it was my fault check the issue after almost 2 months, but things happen in life. And it's PayPal keep repeating everywhere they do offer 180 days of protection. I still have to see their protection what it looks like. They just have a goal to close more dispute as possible which it means less money to give as refund or on shipping return labels. From a multi-millionare international company which fees are very high, this is unacceptable. 

[kernowlass]

@lucaacc 

1. 

Did you open a dispute for non receipt of item OR another dispute type with Paypal?

Did you escalate to a claim?

Did the seller provide tracking?

What did tracking say?

2. 

Item has to be 'significantly' other than as described for a Paypal dispute as Paypal do not get involved in quality issues.

You bought a game and received one so it was as described just not as good a quality as you would have liked.

In both cases as you purchased from Ebay a totally separate company it would have been better to have opened an Ebay dispute. You have up to 30 days to do so and they can check their sellers / feedback and items sold easier than paypal can. All Paypal can do is make a judgement call as they don't see the item involved and so its one persons word against the others.

To be honest 2 cases in thousands of purchases is pretty good. I have lost disputes and just put it down to the risk of online buying and selling. You are always going to lose out on some occasions. Paypal gives you 'some'  buyer and 'some' seller protection then its up to us to risk assess our own transactions, they are never going to be able to protect both parties 100%.