Hi guys, I was wondering if anybody could help me out, around November last year I purchased some number plates for my girlfriends car, last week during the lockdown we noticed that the numbers are peeling off the plates (they are the gel type). I contacted the seller who asked which letters were peeling and once I answered he blocked me from all social media platforms which is the only way to contact them, after further investigation I found some reviews which alerted me to the fact that the plates are illegal and could have landed me with a £1000 fine and a failed MOT. At this point I decided to go through PayPal, I opened a dispute and received an automated message stating that because the claim was for a transaction older than 180 days (it was around 187 days ago) they couldn't do anything. Now I understand if it was just for the faulty item but it wasn't, the plates are illegal and were illegal on the day I bought them, not only are they advertised as road legal but they didn't ask for any proof of registration and the plates have no contact details for the company who sold them which is a legal requirement in the UK, I didn't know any of this at the time as the website looked legit. Surely PayPal can do something about people selling illegal items through their platform even if they can't get my money back, on the reviews I've found there are at least 10 other people who have been scammed and one even failed an MOT test.
