Refund for false advertisement of Chinese scam

[cfreema7]

Dear PayPal, 

You're a global **bleep** far worse than Facebook. At least with Facebook, all they may sell off is some marketing info, but here, with this Radiance A3 watch, yu are participating in a fraud scam so simple that it can only exist in a huge Russian controlled money laundering industry such as yours! This Chinese **bleep** posts images of Samsung watch, has built fake websites all over the web, and posted several watch videos on YouTube promoting the Radiance A3 as one of the best smart watches available. So I ordered one, and it turns out the watch is a cheap $10 Chinese crap watch, but the marketing and ad material all show a Samsung watch. Now you open the shipping package, which is as cheap as the watch, as see this $10 watch that does not have the features, nor does it even look like the watch advertised. So here's where the scam comes comes in: They will refund the cost after you mail the watch back, and they list an address of Hong Kong. So now you're on the hook to spend $90 to ship a watch back to get a $40 refund. Of course you don't do it, and bingo! Scam fulfilled and money pocketed. Add to that, that previously, PayPal said I had until 09/16 to return the watch, and yet, on 09/13 I received a message that PayPal closed the case and no refund offered. Looking forward to see what President Trump and his America first has to say about this. Letters sent to AG, DOJ, FTC and Sen. Harris and Feinstein will have to say about this. I find it interesting that PayPal says it's only a pass through, but as it is, it promotes itself as a safe payment environment. And its is anything but that. They are just money grabbing **bleep** who don't have American values.

[kernowlass]

@cfreema7

Did you expect a good quality item buying it cheap via social media from China?

[mcdermottsabine]

I expected the item I ordered (or similiar).   I ordered a back rest and received watches.  The seller emphasized how expensive it would be for me to return the watches and that I should just accept the partial refund of 40% from them.  This is not a mistake or one off.  This is a known scam on the internet where others have received the exact item instead of anything remotely close to what they ordered.  A backrest for 80.00 is not cheap.  This was a deliberate bait and switch move of the seller.  This was not a case of expecting better quality for what I spent.  Re: Refund for false advertisement of scam

[richvle]

What did you end up doing? I ended up wasting a lot of time with PayPal's customer service, and they agreed to pay the shipping. But it was such a hassle to fill out the forms and the pictures to PROVE I am sending something back. I don't know why PayPal doesn't seem to be able to slow this SCAM down.

I still use PayPal...but when I see an option for using Google Pay or Visa Checkout, I choose those over Paypal.

[richvle]

I just got hit with the scam too. It was only $30 compared to you, but still. I've been with paypal for 18 or 19 years I think and I have NEVER EVER done a dispute with them before. I was hoping that would account for something. They're getting pretty quick to get a good looking site up and running. I've bought other things from China before, like from WISH. Sometimes that products don't work as described, but you would know believe how ridiculously easy WISH makes the return process go. Paypal....on the other hand, the exact opposite. I sent Palpal the copy of the invoice of this metal dish rack I bought WITH the picture from the seller. And then I attached what I received, which was a plastic utensil holder. This is not a case of buyer's remorse, this is an outright scam. It wasn't even like it was a plastic version of what I bought. And Paypal couldn't even tell that the 2 items are totally different from the picture. I contacted the seller, and that's when they gave a generic response about a return and making me return the bad product. USPS charged me $15 for shipping it back. Ridiculous when it was their mistake.

I had to go through the headache of the resolution center, and after which, they finally agreed to cover the shipping charges up to $30. Guess Paypal will just have to eat that cost. I called Paypal and told them this is an obviously bait and switch scam and I'm angry because this guy is playing the same scam on everybody. They told me that they would put a mark on the seller's account. But I bet more people will get scammed before any other resolution. So I had to take pictures of the address, cost, receipt, and shipping address. Which by the way, like the original poster said, is a strange and different address from the shipping address. Heck, all the email responses from the seller came from different domains too! This was all too shady!

So I uploaded the documents to get the shipping refunded. Unfortunately, I got confused and apparently I also had to upload the same documents to the dispute case. And since I didn't do that correctly (this whole resolution this is very convoluted), they ruled the case onto the seller's favor. What irks me is Paypal's refund process for scams is ridiculously convoluted and tedious. They can't even handle doing a shipping label for us. Amazon and other sellers do it just fine. Heck, even their eBay handles printing shipping labels for us. And it's so easy to make a mistake in doing the returns, that the seller knows they will win and that's why they continue to run this scam. And in the resolution, instead of wording it to say the seller shipped the wrong product even though I showed them the invoice email WITH their picture as well as what I received, PayPal still labeled it like I wanted a refund because I changed my mind or buyer's remorse, when in reality, it was a scam!

Well this is a $30 lesson for me (not counting time) to not buy from China through PayPal, because they do not have you covered.

[Brunge02]

Bought a spider farmer grow light From a website that used spiderfarmer stock picture. Received a plastic piece of trash. Out $80. Plain false advertising. Same return scam where they know you won’t pay to ship the item back. I knew I was scammed the second I saw tracking number from China.

[AndyT8]

Same happened to me - ordered a crockery set and got sent a cheap fake ring instead. PayPal are taking the side of the criminals and insisting I return the fake goods at my own cost, which is almost as much as the original order cost. They know it makes no sense to do that but still denied my claim so they can keep their cut of the fraudulent transaction! PayPal’s collusion with criminals stinks!!