Many of us use Paypal on a daily basis, not just for purchases made through eBay. I know that in the past I have often used Paypal to purchase pretty much all of my items online-things from Etsy, etc. This has now changed. After my most recent experience I will never use Paypal again.
My story: I purchased something from a website that came with a 90 day money-back guarantee. Very simple guarantee-if you are not happy please contact us and we will be happy to refund you. I contacted the website-they sidestepped around refunding me the money. I then contacted Paypal to see what I could do.
The answer-nothing! Paypal has a dispute resolution process for upto 45 days after you paid-anything after 45 days and a dispute cannot be opened. For any reason, including one like this where the seller was claiming to offer a 90 day guarantee.
Frankly I am shocked and disappointed with Paypal's policy (as well as their customer service-five emails have been sent to me each one saying that "you can open a dispute up to 45 days after the transaction date. Hope this helps.") I've found several other people who had similar instances-they purchased something with a 60 day guarantee, it broke at 45 days, they asked for a refund, and Paypal won't help them. Unfortunately if we had purchased with a major credit card, we would most likely be able to get our money back.
Paypal should not be allowing websites that use Paypal to collect money to rip-off their customers. Instead Paypal should be investigating claims like this and making websites honor their guarantees-or those websites would not be able to use Paypal anymore.
I still planning on suing the website to get the money back but this is another lengthy step that shouldn't have to be taken by the average consumer.
I will never use Paypal again for major purchases.
My advice:
-Use credit cards online exclusively for better protection and service. I have had similar situations happen with my Discover and Visa-both times the card company worked with ME to get the item replaced or to get my money back.
-Realize that with Paypal longer guarantees are useless. Since you only have 45 days to open a dispute, a guarantee of 1 year or 6 months is useless unless you are paying with a major credit card.
-Same with Paypal's verified seller status. My situation is with a verified seller. It means nothing. Stick with credit cards.
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Don't use Paypal for any online services. I learned my lesson and am publishing this so others don't have to be ripped off in the future.
