I got scammed but the only way to get money back is by shipping items back at my own expense

[Kput]

I ordered 20 pieces of an item from a seller, but they only shipped me one. The seller did not respond so I escalated the case to paypal. Now the seller has agreed to a refund but only after I ship the item back at my own expense. The seller has received multiple negative feedbacks on eBay since so it's obvious that they are a scammer.

The item was shipped from Ukraine but the return address is in the US. 

This seems like a pretty easy way to scam people, just agree to a refund but only after returning the items. It's not really fair that I have to pay extra just to get my money back. I don't even know how to verify which of the addresses is the official paypal address.

What can I do in a situation like this?

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@Kput 

PayPal is not going to let you keep the money and the item as a "punishment" to seller. PayPal is third party, not there when seller shipped and not there when you received. When the case is escalated to PayPal, they just undo the transaction if it is wrong or not working out for you. Seller loses sale, shipping costs to you and get their item back and you pay return shipping. Split down the middle. They're not going to go into morals with you. Buyer protection is not a 100% guarantee, warranty or insurance, PayPal never claims this so it has it's limitations.

PayPal has a return shipping refund program for future purchases if this return is not eligible:

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/refunded-returns

Ultimately, if you are not satisfied with PayPal's decision and you paid with credit card, you may invoke your chargeback rights and dispute through card issuer instead but once you do, the PayPal dispute closes and can't be reopened.

Next time, please do a web search on the merchant/site/product/price before buying. There are shop sites set up to grift people so be on the look out.

[Kput]

Thanks for the reply. This seems like quite an easy scam since it's often not economical to ship things back. I guess I'll have to go the chargeback route.

Is there a way to somehow make sure that the return address is verified by paypal? Because like I said the item was shipped from Ukraine but they want me to return it to the US.

[Grandma051]

I to have to pay Shipping back to China to get refund. Not fair

[kernowlass]

@Grandma051 

Then don't buy internationally as paypal is doing exactly as they said they would do under buyer protection.

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

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/us/selfhelp/article/what-is-return-shipping-on-us-and-how-do-i-activate-it-fa...

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.