Order cancellation, no refund yet, and cannot open dispute!

[ttran]

On December 14, I placed an order on a $109.99 toy and placed another order on December 15 for the same toy. I emailed the website I bought it from a few days later and requested to cancel because I didn't do my research on that website before ordering and it seemed sketchy. The phone number was disconnected so thats why I emailed to cancel. After no reply for a few days, I opened a case with PayPal and lost it. Then they emailed me saying my order was cancelled. More than 3 weeks have passed and I still got no refund? What should I do? I tried opening another case but they won't let me. I emailed them about 3 days ago and still no response. Can anyone help?

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@ttran

I think when people discover the site is a scam, is to let the transaction unfold as it should and not panic. You buy, wait for item delivery. If say, in a few weeks you didn't hear back, file a Item Not Received dispute (you have 180 days from date of payment to do so). Easy. Trying to undo and cancel an order using a PayPal dispute will only make things worse because the reason may not apply to the very limited dispute reasons PayPal has. INR, SNAD, or Unauthorized Transaction and you can easily get a case closed on you. 

Now some merchants use the preauthorize and capture method of processing orders. If a transaction is pending for a certain amount of time and it doesn't get captured by the merchant it drops off or expires from your pending transactions and the funds are released as if the transaction never happened. So you would have to check your payment method to see if the numbers add up. If a charge was not put through or capture then it won't show on your payment method account because it is temporary charge.

And refunds to cards take up to 30 days from the time the order as canceled or refund issued. I would definitely call your card issuer if you paid with card or financial institution to verify if there was such a charge on your account. Also take a look at the payment transaction details in your PayPal account to see the order status.

Push comes to shove, call PayPal customer service to speak with a rep to review your account as no one in the forums have access to others' account:

Click HELP at the top menu, scroll down to click CONTACT US, and then scroll down to click CALL US.