Paypal - Vendor refund troubles

[beenkidded]

Hi all,

First post, so please forgive any errors I make.

 

The issue is, that a French based vendor advertised a monitor for sale. I ordered 3 of these monitors along with other equipment. The other items were sourced from another retailer. When the other items were delivered , I contacted the vendor to ask for an progress report on the monitors.They responded that they did not have the monitor's nor could they fulfil the order as the item was no longer in production and did I want a refund.

I requested the refund, but, and here is where we arrive at the crux of the matter.

They refunded me the cost of 1 of the monitors £104.7 and conveniently forgot about the other 2 I had paid for.

After numerous EMails, they finally admitted and said they would refund me a further £192:0, subject to validation by their Accounts department. As the first refund appeared in my PP Account within 12hrs,I fully expected the remaining amount to take a similar time to appear. This did not happen,and after further numerous EMails, the replys to which were "We have forwarded your complaint to the relevant dept" and nothing else happening. I finally lost patience and registered a complaint with PayPal.

On doing this I received, an EMail from the vendor saying "Unless I withdrew my complaint on PayPal, they would not proceed with resolving the issue". This has now been ongoing since 22Oct10 and to date has not been finalized. Another thing is they will not answer any replies I post on the resolution message box.

Also how can anyone talk to a human being at Paypal w'out it being a premium rate phone line. I tried one only to find I was talking to a Computer who's prefixed categories didn't fit my problem.

 

In conclusion can you please advise as to which way this can be progressed.

I have been in touch with "Trading Standards" and they advise that under no circumstances should I stop the complaints procedure.

[justace]

Follow Trading Standards advice, if you cancel the Paypal complaint you will lose the protection it gives and it can't be restarted.

The vendor has given you no reason to trust them.

Paypal do take quite a while to sort things out, they have to give the vendor an opportunity to put it right but they will refund you eventually if that fails.

[perplexity]

Why proceed to dispute an issue via Paypal with a seller albeit that you had already agreed with the seller to get a refund instead of the goods?

 

Paypal is not a debt collection agency.

 

Initiating the dispute delays the refund, especially if Paypal put a hold on the money. So as far as the seller's accounts department is concerned they've not yet got the money to refund, while it is simply not possible to refund via Paypal's usual facility with a dispute in progress, before it is escalated to a claim.

 

If you agree with a seller to end a transaction the correct way forward is to mutually agree to cancel the transaction via the eBay Resolution Centre. Then the seller gets his end price fee back from eBay.

 

Sellers in France would usually be paid by bank transfer, directly. They don't want to pay an extra fee to Paypal so are not so likely to thank you for that, nor would they know so much about the way it is supposed to work with Paypal, except that it's a lot of good money down the drain for no good reason.

 

8-)

[perplexity]

Paypal do take quite a while to sort things out, they have to give the vendor an opportunity to put it right but they will refund you eventually if that fails.

 

Wrong.

 

The buyer wants a refund which is precisely what is not facilitated by Paypal with a dispute in progress. Ordinarily, a seller may refund a Paypal payment directly from his Paypal account, which would thus refund the Paypal payment fee to the seller as well. As soon as a dispute is started via the Resolution Centre the opportunity is frozen out, as is everything else that Paypal controls with regard to the transaction, until the dispute is escalated to a claim for Paypal to consider.

 

Before then the participants are supposed to discuss, via the resolution console.

 

[beenkidded]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. As mentioned earlier, the vendor refuses to acknowledge any message that I put in the resolution center message box. So there is no discussion being carried out between us via Paypal.

On the basis of the last reply, might go some way to explain why the vendor wants me to withdraw the dispute. But I am now between a rock and a hard place.

 

Regards JohnT

[beenkidded]

Hi,

It appears that this thread is now in 2 forums, can the Admin please move this post to Gen Con Issues , same thread name.

I had agreed to a refund as you mention - but it did not materialize. The seller offered Paypal as a means of payment and to date other than this transaction I have had no problems with using them. Also if the seller had been more willing to explain the reasons for delayed payment other than bland statements such as we have forwarded your enquiry to the department concerned. I would not have had the feeling my enquiry was being kicked into the long grass.

This transaction was not done using EBay.

[justace]

perplexity

 

You are mistaken. Note particularly point 4 below.

 

Pay for your purchases with PayPal.

eBay Buyer Protection only applies to items purchased with PayPal.

 

 

If your item isn’t as described or doesn’t arrive, contact the seller first.

Give them a chance to sort things out for you.

 

 

If you still need help, let us know your problem.

If you can’t work things out with the seller, tell us by going to the Resolution Centre or contacting Customer Support.

 

 

We’ll contact the seller to help sort things out.

We’ll get in touch with the seller and ask them to solve your issue.

 

 

If you and the seller can’t agree on a solution.

If after 10 days the problem can’t be resolved, let us know. We’ll arrange for a refund including original postage if your case qualifies for eBay Buyer Protection. Remember, eBay Buyer Protection only applies to items paid with PayPal.

 

Source - http://pages.ebay.co.uk/ebaybuyerprotection/index.html

 

beenkidded

 

Disputes can affect the vendors rating and increase their costs, which is why they would rather you withdrew it. They had an opportunity to resolve the issue within a reasonable time and didn't.

I've been through the whole process but my case was more complex and took months (Item not as described). Yours is much more straight forward since you didn't receive the goods.

 

If necessary, Paypal can take the money directly from the vendors bank to refund you, as they did in my case. Leave it with them.

[perplexity]

"Please note that buyers cannot request that PayPal release funds on the sellers’ accounts."

 

https://www.paypal.com/helpcenter/main.jsp;jsessionid=mvykMLjpZSjMcy7mT2d8FYvdspwcphy8LwZj2qGS1QM3yQvtZ47q!1368287614?locale=en_GB&_dyncharset=UTF-8&countrycode=GB&cmd=_help&serverInstance=9012&t=solutionTab&ft=browseTab&ps=solutionPanels&solutionId=164062&isSrch=Yes

 

 

Sellers are not supposed to refund with a dispute in progress. Sellers are supposed to offer to give refund, the offer being made by posting a message to that effect, to the Dispute Resolution console:

 

Closing disputes for sellers

 

If you are a seller you will not be able to close claims filed against you. Instead you will have the option to offer a full or partial refund to resolve a dispute:

 

* If you offer a full refund the dispute or claim will be closed immediately

* If you offer a partial refund the buyer must agree before the dispute will be closed

 

https://www.paypal.com/helpcenter/main.jsp;jsessionid=mvykMLjpZSjMcy7mT2d8FYvdspwcphy8LwZj2qGS1QM3yQvtZ47q!1368287614?locale=en_GB&_dyncharset=UTF-8&countrycode=GB&cmd=_help&serverInstance=9012&t=solutionTab&ft=browseTab&ps=solutionPanels&solutionId=163624&isSrch=Yes

 

 

N.B. also

 

13.12 No Double Recovery

 

You may not file a Dispute/Claim, or receive a recovery, for a purchase under PayPal Buyer Protection if you have already received a recovery for that purchase directly from eBay or the seller.

8-)

[ashmk]

JohnT,

 

Don't close the dispute. Once you do (as already stated) you cannot restart it and you will be stuffed.

 

By not replying the seller will just lose the dispute. Just continue to wait and you will win. Think of it like a court case, you will win by default.

 

Also make sure he is actually refunding you the money, you should have not been charged fee's for this. It sounds like he is sending money to you rather than issuing refunds.

[IdaInFife]

deffinatley do not close the dipuste - the seller can refund whilst the dispute is opened if they wish too/

[IdaInFife]

threads merged

 

id ax

[beenkidded]

Hi all,

Many thanks for the reply's to date.

But let me put something right, this purchase was not done using EBay, but as the result of a Google search. Also this company is not some small retailer, but a subsidiary of a large group.

As the seller has refused to respond via the resolution, how long should I wait before attempting to escalate this into a dispute?

[IdaInFife]

as they are not responding to you i would escalate as soon as it lets you

[beenkidded]

Thanks,

I will give them until Tuesday AM and if no response will attempt to escalate. Always assuming there is a suitable predefined category to select in the menu options.

[ashmk]

Why wait? I would escalate asap.

Paypal will limit what the company can do with their account and the quickest way to fix it is to make you happy. It would be in their intrest to fix it asap. It sounds like you have already given them a chance to fix this and they took the p*ss already. Go for the throat!

[beenkidded]

Hi,

patience has run out - just escalated to a claim.

Will let you know how Paypal re-acts or not as the case maybe.

[beenkidded]

Hi all,

just a note to say, Paypal have just informed me that a full refund has been placed into my account. Do not know if the vendor replied to any questions from Paypal. But in case anyone be interested the outfit was Pixmania.

So thanks for all the advice, mainly not to, cancel the claim.

 

Regards

[justace]

Congratulations on recovering your money beenkidded 8).

 

I'm so glad you stuck with it and got the outcome you deserved.

Paypal won't provide any details of the case, so you'll never get to know what happened.

The important points are that you got your money back and an unreasonable vendor will be penalised.

Great result.

 

Thanks for letting us know.

[NJz]

A growing familiar story unfortunately

[perplexity]

Hi all,

just a note to say, Paypal have just informed me that a full refund has been placed into my account. Do not know if the vendor replied to any questions from Paypal. But in case anyone be interested the outfit was Pixmania.

So thanks for all the advice, mainly not to, cancel the claim.

 

A full refund, for the three monitors, albeit that the cost of one was already refunded?

 

If that was your claim it is tantamount to fraud, a criminal offence.

 

 

The important points are that you got your money back and an unreasonable vendor will be penalised.

 

As was previously pointed out, Paypal blocks the opportunity to refund.

 

There is usually a link that appears as a part of a seller's Paypal transaction record to facilitate a refund. With a dispute in progress it fails to function. I have yet to find myself on the seller's side of a dispute but on several occasions a seller explained, patiently, that this is what had happened so for as I am concerned the seller is not to blame.

 

Nor would I be so keen to part with a second helping of money with Paypal already in possession of the first lot.

 

Would you?

 

[beenkidded]

Hi,

Not wishing to clog this thread up, with an increasing amount of info, but Perplexity gives me the impression he's carrying a torch for this outfit.

I have found out, that the vendor does not carry any stock whatsoever, contrary to what the adverts imply. So does not know if the goods for which he has taken money for actually exist. Also if they had been more forthcoming in their EMail reply's, instead of just issuing computer generated ones to every query I made, I may have held of on the claim. I even gave them my phone No so we could expedite the problem.

There was an added complication in that one of the items,sourced by the vendor, from another supplier. Had to be returned as that would not do the task I wanted. They refunded the money with no quibbles, but via, Pixmania.

To summarize, this meant, not one item of the original order eventually ended up in my hands.

Paypal have refunded me, the full initial payment minus the previous refund. Hope this clears up any ambiguity.

 

Regards All

[perplexity]

The vendor is probably a drop shipper, which is not unusual. Drop shippers appear to be selling stock in hand while what they actually do is order from abroad at a much lower price as soon as a local buyer puts in his order, the idea being that the mark up is sufficient to float a business.

 

The practice is of course dishonest, deliberately misleading but exists as a fact of commercial life. Thousands of drop shippers trade on eBay, which eBay knows full well while next to nothing is done to put a stop to it.

 

The worst of it is when the goods eventually arrive (usually from China) with an import duty for the unfortunate buyer to pay, but with no prior knowledge that this would happen.

 

The way that Paypal works is another matter. Over and over again the buyers make the mistake of resorting to the Paypal Dispute Resolution console as soon as possible instead of exhausting every other possibility, to solve a problem. It's too often a mistake because the process is not what they expect it be. To be sure that an issue is dealt with intelligently, do it yourself.

 

[ashmk]

Perplexity is CAG's village idiot, nobody take much notice of what it says. Generally I just skip over it's posts.

[perplexity]

Perplexity is CAG's village idiot, nobody take much notice of what it says. Generally I just skip over it's posts.

 

I see.

 

You know that it's wrong because you'd not so much as bothered to read it?

 

The convincing way to take no notice is to keep your opinion to yourself.