"you'll be able to review order before you complete your purchase", but order is instantly placed

[sbauer]

I recently had a problem with Paypal where I wasn’t allowed to review the purchase details of a transaction before the order was placed, despite the message on the Paypal page that said “You’ll be able to review your order before you complete your purchase”.

This actually happened to me 3 times in the last month. Here are the details as I explained them to Paypal when disputing the payment:

When this order was placed, I was going through the checkout process to see if there was a place to enter a promo code - and I know these are sometimes not shown until the final stages of checkout. So when I was sent to Paypal to authorize the purchase, I was careful to see that there was a message that said something like "clicking on continue will return you to the seller's site where you can review the order before placing it." So I thought that was fine, since I hadn't decided whether or not I was going to place the order. But when I hit continue, the order was automatically placed. I immediately contacted the seller to tell them of the situation and to say that I wanted a refund... Please advise how I can get my money back.

Paypal reviewed my case and denied my refund “because the documentation we have on file shows that this transaction is valid and was authorized by you.” I had nothing else to prove my claim that I wasn’t allowed to review the order. Fortunately, the seller did return my payment in full.

I recalled that I had a transaction a couple weeks before where I didn’t get to review the order before it was placed but didn’t think much of it because I was ready to make that purchase.

Then I placed an order for software similar to the one in the disputed transaction but with a different company. This time I took screenshots of the checkout screens [see attached files]. Again I was not allowed to view the transaction details before the order was placed, though Paypal clearly stated that I would. This was also a purchase that I was ready to make so I have no dispute regarding this transaction.

But I do feel this is a serious problem that Paypal needs to address. When people pay for goods online, they trust that the system is fair and clear and this situation violates that trust.

I searched Paypal’s Help for a way to contact them and report this problem and I can’t find a place to send a message to them so that I can get a response to my request. Why are they so difficult to contact? Even the Contact Us option just sends me through a maze of preprogrammed responses and categories - none of which addresses my problem.

I did find a post in the Community Forum of someone who had the exact same thing happen to them:
[coolspot Oct-29-2017 09:14 PM
... Did not have a chance to review order?! No Payment Confirmation Screen!
Hi all,
I was ordering some software off a shareware developer’s site and I was not presented with a confirmation screen. After selecting to pay with PayPal, the bottom of the PayPal screen says, “You’ll be able to review your order before you complete your purchase”.
So I click “Agree and Continue” and I was immediately I was charged for the item!
There was no payment confirmation screen?
Why is that?]

They go on to say they contacted Paypal Support [wonder how they did that?] and got this response:
[...you are correct in noting that there is no confirmation page after clicking on “Agree and Accept.” Since this seems to be an error with the merchant’s site, we cannot issue to refund outright as of yet.]

Well, I’ve had this happen to me 3 TIMES in the last month from 3 DIFFERENT merchant’s so it doesn’t seem to be an isolated incident. And even if it is a problem on the merchant’s part, Paypal is the one saying “You’ll be able to review your order before you complete your purchase”. So they need to take responsibility for their part in this misrepresentation. Perhaps they need to require participating merchants to have a confirmation screen or be in violation of Paypal policies.

I’ve been using Paypal for over 15 years and never had a problem like this before.

Has anyone noticed this problem when going through the checkout process?

Does anyone know how to get Paypal attention to address this issue?

[Glenice19]

Yes I have also had this happen to me twice now and am not at all happy, and I will not continue to use Paypal if this is not resolved.  I have been using Paypal for years and have had no problems until now.  Does anyone from Paypal monitor this forum??  This matter needs to be looked into immediately.  Unfortunately I also cannot find a way to contact Paypal directly and am feeling very frustrated with this.  

[Glenice19]

I have just had happen to me again so obviously nothing has been done about it.  Why has this recently changed after many years of trouble free use?  Could someone from Paypal please explain and address this anomaly!!

[Machaman]

Just had this happen to me! I was trying to use up my Paypal balance for an item that cost a few bucks more than the item, so I found somewhere online that you need to select to pay by credit card (why!?) to use up your balance and then pay the rest with a credit card. So when I got to the screen that says you can confirm before you order, I suspected that the next screen would show that balance being deducted. WRONG! It immediately deducted from my credit card and now I still have a balance left! This is totally ridiculous. 

[MarcoXYZ]

Just happened to me yesterday. It's ridiculous how they never fixed it in all these years. We should take action against this scam, because that is what it is.

[CarolinaKL]

Same happened to me and now I am more than 10 days fighting with the store Next, to get my order cancelled and my money refunded! Also opened a dispute with Paypal and got the same answer as you! I always used PayPal for everything, but now I will be paying with my debit card. It's just not worth the stress!

[jlc1977]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I experienced the exact same issue. It is completely unfair and misleading to the purchaser.

In my case the order instantly finalised as well after clicking agree and continue. Despite immediately emailing the vendors website to cancel the order, I was unable to. I had to wait for the package and then pay for postage to mail it back. Paypal only reimburse up to $45, so i was out of pocket.

It is completely unfair as at no stage do we as the customer provide the final authorisation for the transaction to be completed.

[Glenice19]

Come on Paypal!  I did not realize this was still happening, I first complained about 2 years ago but as I have not experienced it for a while now I thought it must be resolved.  This is simply not good enough!

[jlc1977]

Hi Glenice,

Until I found this topic, I thought I must have imagined what I thought I read at the time of the transaction. I do not believe the vendor thought what I was contending was plausible. PayPal Initially did not understand my query either.

You are quite correct it should have been corrected by now. There ALWAYS needs to be an opportunity for the purchaser to confirm the purchase after leaving the PayPal site. In my opinion, the PayPal screen is merely my opportunity to select my preferred payment method. It is by no means me authorising the transaction to be finalised. The transaction should always be finalised/amended on the vendors website.

Until the matter is resolved I am hesitant to use PayPal as a payment method again, especially from that vendors website. 

[Glenice19]

That is exactly what I am thinking too!