Items never shipped, in dispute and now I think I am being conned!

[Timothy468]

OK, not sure best how to title this, or to make it brief enough to not bore folks. So...

I saw some stuff online, I bought the stuff through my PayPal account, and he took my money but he never sent me any stuff.

I sadly reviewed his online reviews *after* my purchases and wish I had done that first! Recognizing that it was unlikely he would A) send me anything, or B) send me the right thing, I asked for a PayPal refund. I did this by asking for a refund via the "dispute" process. One iten had not been shipped for a long time, so I was able to escalate it to a claim, and the other item will have to wait a few more days of non-responses from him, and then it too can be escalated to a claim.

Today he finally responded to my email that officially told him to cancel the order. He claims he shipped it all out "over the weekend" but he cannot recall it until I close out my PayPal claim. Oddly, he did not provide me with a shipper or a tracking number (nor did I get one automatically from any shipper). 🤔

So, I think he has gone all-out fraudulent on me, and hopes to trick me into closing my claim, then not refunding me, and leaving me stuck. Obviously he has not really shipped anything and the story is bogus, but is there a $20 fee from him to PayPal for refunds as he claims? Is there a different impact on a seller that goes to a claim from a dispute? It is really hard to figure out what I can do to get him to refund me other than leave it all to PayPal.

A review of his activity in BBB (an "F" rating) and Yelp, reveals this as a pattern of behavior. Is there some point where PayPal will no longer allow a seller to work with them?

Tim

[kernowlass]

@Timothy468 

If you had to close a case to get a refund then it would be pointless having a dispute process at all.
NEVER close until you have a refund, if he refunds you then that would close the dispute automatically.
If he doesn't escalate to a claim.
Do not close it or he can ignore you and you can't open a second dispute OR re-open a closed one.

[Timothy468]

Thanks for your comments. I suspected that closing a complaint meant never being able to re-open it - and thus losing any leverage I have through PayPal. I am not certain if that would have closed the door to a chargeback through my credit card company. But a chargeback (I think) goes from the credit card to PayPal, who might then freeze funds to the seller account until it is resolved. But resolution would seem to be much more difficult if I had closed the dispute already. I could not verify that there is a $20 fee the seller would incur for giving me a refund "through PayPal" (his argument is closing it would allow him to refund me privately at less expense to him or me).

The stuff I ordered and which was never sent, is already on the way to me from a more reliable vendor (in one day)! Given this fellow's pervasive pattern of fraudulent activity (oh, it gets worse, I dug into the Yelp reviews including the non-recommended reviews), I wonder why PayPal continues to allow him to use their services. Are they not responsible at some point for what happens to us through their service?

[Teslafan101]

That $20 is a chargeback fee if you file a chargeback with your cc issuer and he lost.

He is a fraudster,eventually Paypal will shut him down 

[Timothy468]

Caveat Emptor still applies to all purchases we make (at least when it comes to quality, etc). But getting nothing means I have purchased nothing.

The "fraud", in my mind, can be demonstrated in his email to me outside of the PayPal system attempting to get me to close the case. It includes several demonstrably false statements (such as that he already shipped the items; and he can avoid a fee if I first close the case). But the latter claim about how PayPal works is a PayPal seller misrepresenting a PayPal process and that seems to me to run a risk of causing people to distrust PayPal (IOW, PayPal would have a vested interest in preventing sellers from doing that sort of thing). If such were to be "proven" to PayPal, then they could take action, but the process (as I am experiencing it) seems designed to prevent me from prompting PayPal to take that sort of action.

Tim

[kernowlass]

@Timothy468 

He would only get a fee if you had done a chargeback but a chargeback is NOT a paypal dispute.

1. You can file a paypal dispute for non receipt of item OR item received but not as described OR unauthorised.

2. You can do a chargeback by contacting your credit card issuer directly IF you funded your paypal payment that way, in that situation the card issuer makes all the decisions and the seller would get charged the c.c. issuers processing fee of $20.

As for Paypals responsibilities, they don't shut someone down for just some bad reviews. Say they has 500 bad reviews but 50,000 good ones then the good would outweigh the bad AND to be fair the onus is on us as buyers to risk assess our transactions before purchasing items.

[Timothy468]

I am just (mostly) curious about how PayPal gathers data on their sellers, specially vi-a-vis claims made against them of fraud. This fellows reviews on Yelp run at about 1/5 being positive, and all reports on the BBB site are negative (by the nature of the way the BBB works) and it appears he earned his F rating by virtue of not responding to a majority of the complaints. The responses he did provide are what I would categorize as "completely off-the-wall rants" that blame everyone else, but do not really shed light on the claims (and the rebuttals by those complaining make the deceptive nature of his responses crystal clear).

But in terms of PayPal, I do not see a way to see, or learn, about a seller and possible complaints that have been made through PayPal. Similarly, that would seem to leave open a loop that might prevent PayPal from discerning a *pattern* of dissatisfaction, or in this case learning of data that demonstrate fraud (not just suggest it). To me, an absolute standard of behavior should be expected when it comes to participating in a platform like PayPal, which when violated, leads to a divorce. If folks are not easily able to provide that information to PayPal, then such a standard cannot be met.

I appreciate greatly all the comments here - it has been very helpful. I learned that his information to me was incorrect. I also hope that others might be able to read the thread and learn if they have a similar question! Thanks again.

Tim