You've probably already arrived at the conclusion that you won't receive your money back without a fight. ASER.CO will undoubtedly dodge any attempt at communications and I can already tell you how your PayPal resolution will go:
Let's hypothesise that you spent $200 and received products worth $20 (not unfeasible with ASER.CO). The product you receive will not even be remotely of the same quality as the advertisements and will often exclude key components (as is your case). The seller will respond to the dispute with illogical reasons why they cannot refund you and state (politely) that nothing is wrong with the product, even if you provide proof. You'll eventually get an offer of either:
- a discount (say 40%) or
- a full refund if you post the item back to mainland China.
Neither option is viable as you've paid 10x what the product is worth, so 40% off is still terrible value for an item that does not match the advertised product in any way. Return postage to mainland China will often be as expensive as the original purchase price too, so unscrupulous sellers such as SER.CO will rely on buyers simply giving up. But wait.... the company is in London/Toronto etc. and ships from the UK, Canada etc. I thought they were legitimate. Why am I being asked to return the item to China? Herein lies the rub. That's the subtle beauty of this scam. ASER.CO reap all the reputational benefits of selling out of a Western city and all the benefits of providing a return address in China.
What frustrates me no end is that PayPal facilitate this activity and reap the benefits of a spruiking a product feature (Buyer's Protection) that does not protect consumers from this type of scam at all. That the Return Shipping Claim scheme is hidden in terms & conditions and not referenced in the resolution centre when a return shipping offer is made is very questionable tactics indeed on PayPal's part. As is the lack recourse when a resolution offer is made by the seller that is blatantly unfair. I had the option of returning the product and providing a tracking number or sucking it up and closing the case.
There's plenty of evidence that these scams are happening. I provided a ton of proof when I raised a claim against ASER.CO and it was summarily ignored until I kept pushing for weeks. I even followed up to advise PayPal that ASER.COM were continuing to perpetrate the scam on a new website with the same methodology and a very slightly different product. I did not receive any solid information about what they planned to do apart from a scripted response advising that they review cases like this all the time and will review the seller. Yeah right. ASER.CO are still at it so nothing has transpired. I suspect that PayPal make things difficult for buyers caught up in this type of scam because they want to continue holding favour with Chinese sellers. It's commercially unviable to stop the scams.
What value does PayPal provide to it's users that my credit card doesn't? I could have disputed the transaction with my bank and had the money back in a week instead of wasting my time with robotic responses from PayPal and the Seller and dead ends within the Resolution Center. I eventually received a full refund from PayPal, as ASER.CO broke off all contact. All I had was a single email address that didn't bounce back emails. PayPal framed the refund as a once off gesture of goodwill, as I am apparently a good customer. It was a US$26 refund to an account that has processed about US$200K over it's lifetime.
