Defective item, paypal says I have to bear the cost of return

[padsun]

HI friends,

Seller sent me a defective electronic item, agrees to refund in writing, then says no, escalated to paypal, result is seller agreed to refund the price of the defective product on return of the item. So far so good. But paypal says I have to bear the cost of the return! The original postage cost is still under a separate case escalation with paypal. If a seller sends a defective product agrees to refund after a dispute (which implies that seller has accepted the item is defective) who bears the cost of the original postage and the return postage? Paypal's resolution centre does not seem to take note of the fact that the item IS DEFECTIVE and that is the reason for return and refund! The postal cost itself will be close to the price of the item (from Australia to US). I am new to Ebay and paypal and beginning to wonder if the buyer is protected at all in these transactions?

[kernowlass]

@padsun 

In the event of a dispute you need to bear in mind possible return trackable costs before you buy from that seller / item / country because....

Paypal state this >>
PayPal is not obliged to reimburse you for any costs that you incur to comply with any of PayPal’s requests for cooperation for the purpose of resolving the problem (including, without limitation, costs that you incur to return a SNAD item to the Payment Recipient or another party as PayPal requests), although sometimes it may reimburse these costs.

Although they will compensate you for some of the cost if you have activated this at some point before you made that transaction.
https://www.paypal.com/au/webapps/mpp/returns

If you buy from a business in your own country then you can normally recover those return costs via the small claims court although most businesses would reimburse you anyway. (BUT if you choose to buy from a private or international seller you may not have that option).

You also have the option to do a chargeback via your card issuer instead of a Paypal dispute if you funded your Paypal payment via a credit card.