April 4th I purchased a free-standing baby gate online and paid with PayPal. I thought I found a good deal online - it wasn't a big box store, but the website had an address in Washington DC and looked legit. After the purchase, I never got any email/confirmation from seller, only an instant shipping confirmation through PayPal. Red flag. After about 10 days, I reached out to the email on the website - no response. I opened a PayPal dispute and only got a Chinese shipping number in response with no tracking info. I elevated the issue to PayPal and again, the seller just responded with a shipping number. Saturday May 16th I received a small (about 6inches square) plastic envelope with a return label from China. The shipping label listed contents as "towel", but it only had a torn piece of cardboard inside. Within a couple hours I got a notice from PayPal that my dispute was closed because I received the shipment. This fraud is infuriating! PayPal will not allow me to reopen the dispute because it has been closed. I also tried the Messenger application here, where I provided the details and included images of the plastic envelope from China and the torn piece of cardboard. Since Saturday, PayPal has post 4 "responses" that someone will respond in an hour. I can't find a number to call or anything. I thought using PayPal was supposed to offer some form of protection?! Any suggestions on what I can do?
