From the searches I did, apparently this is super common, and there is no solution, except perhaps small claims court.
Lesson learned: never use paypal balance to pay for things. A credit card chargeback would have worked 100%.
I purchased a digital service subscription.
1. The seller's page is flooded with hundreds/thousands of fake reviews, making it impossible to properly vet them prior to purchase.
2. I found major bugs with the program. Support ignores them and does not respond.
3. The program has major issues with its primary objective. Again support is clueless and stopped responding. This and #2 make the program unusable.
4. On their website they make a claim that they'll help you get "x working within 2 business days". If this took place it would likely have solved part of the #2 & #3 issues. But support never responds to the inquiry.
According to the Buyer Protection Program https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/buyer-protection I should be receiving a refund for "Significantly Not as Described". My item is NOT listed under the "Ineligible Items and Transactions" list.
My case clearly applies under:
* The item is unusable in its received state and was not disclosed as such.
* The item is missing major parts or features and those facts were not disclosed in the description of the item when you bought it.
* The condition of the item was misrepresented.
Yet my claim against the merchant was denied and says "The case was closed as this transaction is ineligible for PayPal Purchase Protection."
One or more people suggested a bot probably closed the issue, and when I contacted support that seemed to have been the case. But then a person reviewed it and kept the decision. The support guy I talked to kept acting like I was disputing for "item not received", which I'm not. I'm disputing for "Significantly Not as Described".
It doesn't make any sense to side with the seller. This is not a product I keep when I get a refund. It's a digital subscription that the seller can easily disable. And it's completely useless to me.
This is unfortunately par for the course for my experiences with Paypal over the past decade. It's just bewildering why they pull this kind of thing. It makes no sense for them to unnecessarily **bleep** people off.
