Pay Pal Refund is CANCELLED

DC1346
Contributor
Contributor

Hello All!

 

I'm at my wit's end and don't know what to do other than to post here.

 

I recently made a PayPal purchase from an eBay vendor using PayPal credit. The item I received didn't match the picture that the vendor had provided. It didn't even match the description. I tried resolving this with the vendor through eBay. The vendor initially said he would give me a full refund as soon as he received the product ... but he wouldn't generate a FedEx shipping label even though he himself had shipped this product to me through FedEx. He told me not to worry, that he'd be "good for it" but insofar as he had lied about his product to begin with, I didn't trust him ... so I turned to PayPal for help.

 

PayPal was great ... at least at first.

 

I uploaded pictures of what he sent and pictures from his site. There was no question from PayPal regarding the fact that what the vendor had sent, was not what I recieved ... and so it was with great relief that I received an email from PayPal within 24 hours to tell me that I would be refunded $1750 in full.

 

Sadly, I never received this refund.  I later got an email from PayPal saying that PER MY REQUEST, PayPal had cancelled my refund. 

 

The problem was that I never submitted a refund cancellation request. 

 

I logged onto PayPal and the system won't let me file another resolution request because the request for this particular transaction was closed.

 

So I decided to call PayPal. A customer service rep listened to my story and told me to hold.  I waited for 33 minutes and the service rep never came back.

 

I don't know what to do. 

 

At least with PayPal creidt, I could have paid for this via monthly payments ... but with the refund cancellation, I'm now liable for the full $1750 and the kicker is that I never submitted a refund cancellation request, so I don't even know how this happened and I can't get anyone at PayPal to talk to me. 

 

Is there anything I can do?

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14 REPLIES 14

kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@DC1346

 

Phone again and you may get an agent that actually knows what they are doing and tell them you want to appeal the decision.


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lancelotme
Frequent Contributor
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You said you made a purchase from an Ebay vendor,is that an Ebay transaction or did the two of you skip Ebay and you paid via Paypal? 

If it is an Ebay transaction recorded in your purchase history,then you should have open a case of item not as described on Ebay,Ebay will send you a return shipping label,once it showed delivered,it will refund you in full and charge his Ebay account for the cost of the return shipping.

If it is done outside Ebay,Paypal has closed the case,is there a customer service number you can call at Paypal credit?

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lancelotme
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Frequent Contributor

If it is outside Ebay,then do as the prior poster suggested ,call PAYPAL again .

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DC1346
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you both for your replies.

 

I'm not sure about what happened with the first service rep. Did he forget about me? Was he not as competent as he could have been? Who knows?

 

Lacking any other alternative, I called AGAIN. It took 22 minutes to get to a service rep and when I told her that this was my 2nd time calling, she took my phone number so that I could be called back if we were somehow disconnected.

 

It took about 40 minutes during which she would periodically check to see if I was still on the line. Thank Heavens for having a speaker phone option, because I was able to put my cell phone down and to pass the time playing with my cats. 

 

I was admittedly challenged in getting my problem across to the service rep. She kept telling me that I had been refunded which was true enough. The refund shows up in green lettering following a "+" sign on my eBay statement. Of greater concern was the red deficit for the same amount for June 29th. 

 

After getting her to understand that I was trying to find out why PayPal had refunded this money only to debit it a few days later, she got PayPal credit to reopen my claim and promised that someone will get back to me within 24 hours. Insofar as this is the July 4th weekend, I will be very impressed if this is rectified prior to July 5th but I'll take what I can get.

 

I will post an update here just in case anyone else has had a similar problem. 

 

I don't know at this point if there was an itnernal mistake that caused PayPal credit to debit my account after having refunded the purchase price. I AM WORRIED about the possibility of identity theft or the possibility that my account has been hacked.

 

If I had to speculate, I'd guess that the vendor called pretending to be me. He would have had my mailing address, email address, phone number, and case number for the resolution claim. Since this vendor is based in China and since I am also ethnic Chinese (U.S. born, 3rd generation American), his accent (if he had one) would not have attracted the attention of anyone who doesn't know me (since my accent is mid-western and NOT Chinese). 

 

I hope this wasn't the case but I can't think of any other reasonable possibility. If this did happen, PayPal either had a service rep who did not follow corporate protocol or PayPal has a security gap that needs to be addressed lest this happen again.

 

In the meanwhile, I am waiting to see what happens.

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@DC1346

 

Good luck.


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DC1346
Contributor
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<< You said you made a purchase from an Ebay vendor,is that an Ebay transaction or did the two of you skip Ebay and you paid via Paypal? >>

 

The purchase was made from eBay using PayPal credit. The initial dispute was mediated by eBay because the product I received was clearly not what I had ordered..  Although the vendor promised to give me a full refund, he refused to issue this refund until his merchandise was returned. I thought this was a reasonable request. What wasn't reasonable was that he refused to generate a FedEx shipping label even though he had shipped this product to me via FedEx. He told me not to worry because he was "good for it" but since he had already committed mail fraud, I didn't trust him to reimburse me for the cost of shipping. 

 

To be fair, since the vendor is in China, he couldn't generate an international shipping label ... but since he wanted me to return the merchandise to a stateside address, he should have been able to issue me a shipping label for this. eBay even said that he was liable for the cost of shipping but when he stopped responding to repeated request for a shipping lable, I tried to contact eBay. The problem with eBay is that they no longer have live chat or email. The only way to contact them is via phone and after their automated system put me on for 40 minutes due to "high volume," I gave up and took my complaint to PayPal.

 

The nice thing about PayPal is that I was covered against fraudulent sales since I had made this purchase using PayPal credit.

 

My problem with PayPal is that although they did refund the payment in full,  a few days later they debited the entire amount, and repaid the vendor. They subsequently sent me an email saying that my refund had been cancelled PER MY REQUEST. The problem is that I never requested a refund cancellation ... so at this point, I'm wondering if the vendor called PayPal pretending to be me. He would have had my contact information, the eBay transaction number, and the PayPal resolution case number. 

 

Unless PayPal had some sort of internal communication problem, I don't understand how my refund could otherwise have been cancelled PER MY REQUEST when I made no such request. 

 

Having closed my case, there was no way for me to resubmit a claim ... so I called PayPal and they have reopened my case to find out what happened. 

 

 

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ShiraYuki
Frequent Contributor
Frequent Contributor

same as what I thought yesterday but did not bother to reply since I assumed you called them again, that someone might have called cs rep pretended to be you to cancel the refund. you should have asked the last rep if there's any other call registered on your account since they have access on logs and list of reps who handled your account.

this is why I feel secure when a representative ask me public record questions whenever I ask for some changes on my account.

 

hopefully you get your problem fixed asap.

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lancelotme
Frequent Contributor
Frequent Contributor

Ok,now you have told us more -

It is an Ebay transaction,you bought from an EBAY seller based in China,he shipped the item from China ?using Fed Express?

Or did he ship from USA?

The reason I asked is that Ebay has a warehouse in NJ catering to Chinese sellers who shipped the goods to NJ and EBay fullfillment center did the packing and shipping for them,what is the return address on the package?

If he is in China,he cannot send you a Fed Exp label ,Ebay expects him to send money in lieu of label but Ebay cannot force him,with the exchange rate of 6 to 1,I doubt any Chinese sellers will readily ,merrily send you the $$ In US dollars.

The Chinese goverment could have restriction on individuals holding US dollars,so it is hard to tell whatever US dollars he received from his sales on Ebay would be kept as US dollars in his Paypal or bank account or converted to Chinese dollars.

The reason your payment was first refunded and then cancelled is because you did not return the item-you did not upload a tracking number which eventually should show it has been delivered to the seller,hence you lose.

I dont know how Paypal credit works,if there is no Paypal credit,your payment would not be refunded until the return tracking shows it has been delivered.

So my guess is that Paypal credit is acting like your credit card,gives you the benefit of the doubt by issuing you a temporary credit as gesture of good will and then take it back from you as you did not return the item.

If my scenario is correct,then I am afraid you would not get your money back until you return the item.

You may have t o pay for the return shipping to China.,may sure it is trackable on line and if $750 or over,signature confirmation as well.

THIS IS THE STORY REPEATED OVER AND OVER AGAIN WHEN YOU BUY EXPENSIVE ITEMS OVERSEAS.  

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lancelotme
Frequent Contributor
Frequent Contributor

I just reread your post,yo said he asked you to return the item to a stateside address? and you want him to send you a return label to that stateside address . 

What is a stateside address?

Say you are willing to pay for the return shipping,do you know if this stateside address will get you the refund?

When you open the case with Ebay,did they tell you what his return address is ?

or is the case closed because the deadline for return has past?

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