Can I dispute a transaction past the 180 days when it violates the E.U. legislation?

[candlebox71]

Hello.

I have purchased 3 items from an online retailer about 13 months ago (8 Dec 2021), their total value was 65.86 USD. One item was a weather station and the two others were sensors connecting to the weather station. The retailer is China based but they have European warehouses. My items were shipped from Czech Republic, which can be confirmed from the tracking info provided, with Greece as their destination.

The weather station died without reason about a week after it was 1 year old, which also caused the sensors to be useless to me. Initially I contacted the seller about 20 days ago and asked for a discount in order to buy a similar weather station, with which the sensors I have would still work, to save me the cost of buying new sensors at least. The seller refused any discount. Then I contacted the seller again and asked for a replacement. The retailer replied that the items they sell come with 1 year warranty. The items however were originally shipped form Czech Republic, a member of the EU, which is also the reason I have payed VAT over the items purchased. Consumer products in EU carry an obligatory 2 year warranty minimum, regardless of what any merchant might claim. In the relative directive, one can read that 2 years warranty for consumer products is valid even if the merchant claims otherwise.

The reason I am writing here is an attempt to find out what is going on. According to PayPal I can dispute a transaction within 180 days. Let's just take my purchase as an example. If at 181 days after the transaction the products would malfunction to the point they would need replacement, I would have to rely on the merchant who could still refuse replacement or warranty. This would leave me completely unprotected as a consumer. There would still another 180 days that I would not have the right to dispute such an unreliable merchant according to PayPal. How can this be safe for buyers?

However, my case here is a bit more complex. I am strongly suggesting that since the items were bought from the Czech Republic warehouse, they should fall into the obligatory 2 year minimum warranty, as the EU directive enforces in the entire of European Union. The retailer chooses to completely ignores this, claiming they themselves provide 1 year warranty, even though they operate, sell and ship from within the E.U.

My question here is the following.
How can I force the merchant to abide by the applicable E.U. legislation, when PayPal does not let me dispute the transaction past the 180 days? PayPal surely knows and accepts the E.U. legislation, as it also operates within the E.U. PayPal receives VAT because it is E.U. based, when at the same time it allows merchants to ignore the E.U. legislation under which PayPal also operates with this 180 day limit for disputes. This provides absolutely no coverage for its clients and at the same time it allows merchants who violate this consumer legislation to just get away with it.
In my opinion, we should be allowed to dispute a transaction when a seller does not comply with the E.U. legislation for consumer products. It is not right to allow merchants to violate the applicable laws by exploiting problematic limits like this 180 day limit. It is not right for the buyers and it is illegal by law. If Paypal finds this to be fine, then one can only say that PayPal is helping in the violation of the E.U. legislation under which it has agreed to operate.

So, do you think I should be able to dispute a transaction when the seller does not comply with the E.U. legislation?
Or do you maybe think that even though this transaction is an undoubtable purchase within the E.U., we can all just close our eyes and ears, forget about the E.U. legislation and consumer rights and pretend nothing ever happened, allowing bad sellers to have their way with European consumers?

Thanks.

[kernowlass]

@candlebox71 

Paypal covers you for non receipt of item or item received but not as described up to 180 days post payment.

They do not have anything to do with warranties, that would be between you and the company you purchased from.

Normally if the company is in China and only the ''despatch depots'' are in your own country then it may well be your warranty is worthless. You can go to the courts and pursue a small claims court action if you want to against the company but you may not be successful if they only despatch internally and the company itself is not in your country.

[candlebox71]

Thanks for the reply.

So you are telling me that Paypal will only accept disputes about reception of items or if they do not fit their description? Well, I have to say my experience says Paypal will not even cover those. In a previous claim by me regarding an item listed as new but received without a box, broken in a cheap bag, Paypal dismissed my claim and allowed the seller to successfully sell an item as new without its original packaging and clearly broken.
So if Paypal does not care about warranties or the EU legislation, why should I continue using Paypal? Not receiving an item you have paid for or when an item is not as described (like receiving a charger instead of a battery) is only basic market logic, widely accepted when trading goods. It is not some extraordinary and exclusive Paypal benefit, which of course brings us to the fact that Paypal does not provide any beneficial protection at all. What I am trying to say is that I can use my credit card instead. It clearly provides me better protection than the so much advertised Paypal. I have tested and confirmed this many times until today. My bank's behavior is great when it comes to consumer rights and online trading or purchases.

"Despatch depots" are not in my country, I clearly described this above. The company is in China but EU legislation does not provide the consumer warranty based on where the company is located. The consumer protection is valid for items sold within the EU and in my case, this is an item sold within the EU, because it came to me in the EU, from another EU country. If what you wrote was true, then no European consumer would have a 2 year guarantee for most products in the European market. Electronics for instance would come with a "worthless" guarantee (as you said), since most companies are based in Asia. Same would happen to US products. Those companies also dispatch internally, don't they?
The internal dispatch is still not the case here. The product originates from Czech Republic. If it starts there and ends in another EU country, it is in EU soil and the EU legislation is valid and active.

[kernowlass]

@candlebox71 

Paypal buyer protection is not a 100% coverall, you read up on it and risk assess your transactions.

https://www.paypal.com/gr/smarthelp/article/what-is-paypal-buyer-protection-faq1269

Paypal supplies 'some' buyer and 'some' seller protection and as it never sees the item it has to make a judgement call. There is always going to be someone disappointed, buyer or seller.

Even credit cards normally only give you up to 120-180 days for claims and they equally do not cover warranties or guarantees.

If a company is in another country then of course a warranty would be useless as you can't enforce warranties or guarantees internationally, unless that company agrees to abide by it.

As for using Paypal then personally it matters to me not one jot if you use paypal or your card, that's your call.

[candlebox71]

Paypal does not have any problem with "some" buyer and "some" seller, over "some" item when it comes to their "some" money. I disagree with your conclusion, "someone will always be disappointed". There should not be disappointed buyers when they manage to present hard evidence of the seller abusing a buyer again and again by exploiting this "some" system of Paypal. In my case, Paypal saw the item because I presented the evidence. 4 years later I still find their decision terrible by all means. It became the reason behind limiting my transactions with Paypal.

I strongly disagree with your term "some" buyer. A buyer needs to identify himself/herself in all sorts of ways. We are not "some" buyers, we all have confirmed names, addresses, identity cards, bank accounts and tax registration numbers, all of them demanded by Paypal upon registration. I am not "some" buyer, same way nobody is "some" buyer. We all have confirmed identities, even though it suits these cases to have known buyers appear as "some".

How is it possible that an identified seller that causes problems to buyers, just registers a new Paypal account when he/she is reported and just continues selling under the new account with the same abusing policy, without Paypal being able to identify him/her? I saw this happening with my case! The seller changed his Paypal account and name and continues to sell without problems. The worst of all, Paypal allows him/her to continue troubling the buyers. Talking about "some" buyer protection here, it surely falls aroung a single digit percentage.

I do not know about credit cards in your area, but I have successfully received a refund 18 months after a purchase because the seller refused to fulfill his 2 year guarantee. On top of this, most credit cards provide additive protection when using them to purchase goods, I am sure you are aware of this already.

Buyers do not have access and surely do not search where their money is transferred once they pay for an item. This is not the way world market works. I made a purchase for an item which was advertised that it was already in Czech Republic. The item was in Czech Republic and I ordered it from an EU country. This is clearly a purchase within the EU, the reason for the price having additional VAT, regardless of where the money goes eventually. This is not an "international" purchase, I did not order an item located in Asia or America, at least to my knowledge and the advertiser's statement. Purchases within the EU are not considered international, there are no custom charges, the market is free and purchases are free of customs, therefore there is no need of "enforcement". There are regulations regarding the transactions within the EU and everyone should respect them. On top of this, when an item is in the EU, why should a buyer care where are the head offices of the website or company who sells the item? Should we maybe also check the servers of the website to see where they are located? If they are outside EU, are we not entitled 2 years minimum guarantee? Buyers are not investigators, they are consumers.

As for me using Paypal, I just wrote down what I thought when I made the comparison with my bank and their credit cards. It was a plain statement/conclusion. I was in no way expecting you to care if I use Paypal or not...

Thanks.

[kernowlass]

@candlebox71 

Sorry no time to wade through all of that.

But basically you say there should never be disappointed buyers...why exactly?

I have sold to scam buyers before so why should they always win?

Secondly even if you use a credit card you do not always win so 'someone' will always be disappointed the seller OR buyer even with a credit card.

Both parties can never win and cards OR paypal have to make a judgement call.

You were at fault waiting over 180 days to open a dispute when paypal may well have been able to help you, learn from it and move on.

[candlebox71]

I can ask a similar question.
So are you saying that there should not be any buyer's protection at all?

I mean, if there could be disappointed buyers, what is the reason to protect them anyway?

There are also scam buyers, so let's forget about scam sellers and focus on the easier target here.

You make it sound perfectly normal, so next time you as a consumer buy something and later on

realize something is wrong with it, just go with the disappointed buyer mood and pay to buy it again, 

without demanding your consumer rights of course.

About my credit card.

Please allow me at least to have a much better point of view regarding my own credit card and my own bank.

When I compare it with Paypal, the difference is extraordinary. Something small as a clue.
You cannot speak proper English with a Paypal representative. It is always someone with a terrible "country of origin"

accent in which I cannot adjust to. Same goes for writing, the text and grammar errors is like writing to a primary school student.

Well, at least from my experience so far, this is the case with me.

Finally, I wrote above that the item failed 13 months after purchase (390 days). Where exactly do you see my fault here?

If you know of a way I could dispute my transaction in the first 180 days, possibly by predicting the malfunction

about 7 months earlier, I would be very happy to listen and "learn" as you wrote.
If not anything else, at least I will avoid such "faults" in the future.

Thanks for the replies anyway...

[kernowlass]

@candlebox71 

Still don't get it do you.

1. Buyer protection is for up to 180 days with Paypal (same as most credit cards regardless of what you say about yours).

So paypal does not cover you for 390 days !!

2. After 390 days if an item of mine broke and was under warranty I would be seeking redress via the merchant not paypal or my card issuer as I would know it would be too late for both of them. If the merchant would not honour the warranty then I would pursue them in the small claims court (as long as it wasn't tat bought internationally from China etc). If that equally failed then sorry that's life, things don't always work out how you want them to do with commercial online transactions.