PayPal customer service is completely incompetent

[malcf]

Does anyone else have issues with PayPal customer service promising to refund postage and then never doing it?  Are they liars, as bad as the fraudsters they support through their payment platform or just completely incompetent?  Or all three?

I paid for a web purchase via PayPal for an OEM product advertised by a company purporting to be based in the UK.  I received a cheap Chinese generic product, with a UK return address on the parcel.  When I asked to return for a refund I was told by the supplier I had to send it to China (in breach of UK consumer law).  I complained to PayPal, and they also told me I had to send it to China, therefore being complicit in internet fraud, but offered £15 towards postage.  Oh I forgot to mention that I have discovered subsequently that this company has been supplying fake products for ages, and the internet is full of reviews about them, and PayPal lack of action in dealing with it for years.  I have finally got the refund of the original product, but PayPal keep avoiding paying me the promised postage refund.

Their resolution centre is anything but...it is just something they hide behind, presumably hoping that if they can keep avoiding addressing the question you ask, you will eventually give up.

[kernowlass]

@malcf

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/uk/webapps/mpp/refunded-returns

If you did activate it then have you clicked on the relevant transaction and 'claimed' the shipping refund?
If so then it takes up to 10 WORKING days.

[malcf]

Thanks Kernowlass...

PayPal offered to refund the postage over 2 months ago, but have failed to do so.  Frankly I don’t care about policies - if a company says they are going to do something I do not think it unreasonable to expect them to do it, particularly when they are trying to cover up complicity in internet fraud.

They did tell me about the pre-registration for postage refunds...last week...but obviously I would have needed to have pre-registered in February when they told me they were going to refund the postage (when they didn’t mention it), so I can’t claim on it!

I have now had over 20 generic responses to the question “how do I raise a formal complaint with PayPal?” which they refuse to answer, and their portal keeps giving me an error when I try (“Oops something’s gone wrong haha hehe...try again”).  I guess they must think they are great because they probably don’t get many complaints.

if they actually bothered to read any of my messages they wouldn’t keep coming back with trite answers - such as raise a dispute (done that, got my original money back already - muppet, look at the history file).

I stand by my original statements - liars, incompetent, corrupt organisation with excruciatingly poor customer service.

Thankfully they are giving me a fantastic case study for my work in customer experience, and I hope they will enjoy the wide publication of this sorry saga throughout the summer...

[kernowlass]

@malcf

Sorry but if you didn't activate the link for free shipping returns which has been on all paypal accounts for the last 2 years then sadly paypal are not responsible.

BUT if they told you to return the item and said they would refund return postage without checking first that you had activated the link before the transaction then they were wrong to do so.

BUT either way to get a refund you still have to return the item back to the seller.

HOWEVER as the seller seems to have scammed you by pretending to be UK based then personally I would have bypassed Paypal and done a chargeback directly via my credit card issuer.

That of course only applies if you did fund it with a c.c. but my advice is to always do so, then you have a 2nd level of protection when you get let down by Paypal.

[Willc77777]

If Paypal attempted intentionally to have horrible customer service the could not be worse.  I mistyped my password one too many times and they want every document known to man about me.  Here is their latest incompetent attempt at "customer service" (that is one of the funnier things this group of incompetent people have talked about):

We emailed you a little while ago to ask for your help resolving an issue
with your account.

What's the problem?

Before we can offer you certain products and services, federal regulations
require that we collect specific information to verify your identity. This
information includes your name, address, date of birth, and National Tax ID
or Social Security Number. We haven't been able to verify your identity
using the information you provided, so we need some additional
documentation from you.

Until this issue is resolved, you'll be able to log in to your PayPal
account but you might not be able to add money to it or use some of your
account features.

Case ID Number: PP-007-26XXXXXXXX

How you can help

It's usually pretty easy to take care of things like this. Most of the
time, we just need a little more information about your account or latest
transactions.

Please log in to your account and go to the Resolution Center to find out
what you need to do. If we don't hear from you soon, we may limit what you
can do with your account until the issue is resolved.

Sincerely,
PayPal

This group is incapable of canceling my account because I have $1 in my account.  My new hobby is going to be trashing Paypal by simply posting the truth in every forum I can find.  Some people actually travel and have a life and cannot drop everything they are doing and emailing copies of every document they have ever had to prove who they are.

I can no longer call these people up because I will not be able to act civilly with them.  Take my advice and run very fast and very far away from Paypal.  If they could resell incompetence this would be a real money making organization.  I am going to do my best to make that $1 the single worst expense Paypal has ever seen through all of the horrendously truthful descriptions of my experience on every website related to poor customer service on the planet!

If you work for Paypal I would suggest you find a new job tomorrow because if they treat their employees even close to how they treat their customers you owe it to yourself to either find a new job or become homeless either would be a far better outcome for you!

[kernowlass]

@Willc77777

A bit pathetic just because you don't want to follow government requirements that Paypal have to follow.

https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/PayPal%E2%80%99s-Customer-Identification-Program-(CIP)-a...

[SACrosbie]

The Resolution Center is a FRAUD.  They will close your case without doing any work or contacting the seller.  If you try to add anything to keep the case open you get an Error.  That is clearly intentional on PayPal's behalf.  PayPal itself is a fraud.

They won't even let me close my account. 

I would have to build some support to report this company, but big business in the U.S. is so corrupt there is no hope of getting anything done. 

I tried to enter this information in the Resolution Center about 10 times. his is the sixth or seventh time that I am trying to add information and got "OOPS Screen". They are just playing with people.  It does NOT matter to Paypal.

On February 6, 2021, I was charged and legitimately purchased an ANNUAL subscription to Microsoft Office 365
- PERSONAL edition for $89.27 Transaction ID: 92A79248Y7101111U

That is where my dealings with Microsoft should have ENDED. In a year, on February 6, 2022, I MIGHT renew
the ANNUAL Subscription -probably not.  The lowly Microsoft recorded this transaction as $0.00 - obviously a manual change after they did what ... they charged me AGAIN! 

On March 3,2021 I am charged $123.17 for the SAME THING. An ANNUAL Subscription to Microsoft Office 365
- this time the FAMILY EDITION - which I do not want nor need. Transaction ID: 1EB30587043616155

So, less than a month from the first purchase, I am charged again. Same thing - different edition.
The second time, I did not want the edition that I was charged for.

Paypal staff either cannot comprehend this or just do not care and are too lazy to do the work.  They closed the case and here my PayPal account was used to rip me off - and the rip-off artist is Microsoft!