bought a sofa

[fireangel205]

recently bought a sofa for £800 and paid via paypal. When received the sofa was of  very poor quality and not as advertised so I emailed the company and told them what was wrong and that the foam in the sofa was so soft you almost sank to the floor when you sat on it. Evidenced by various family and friends. I thought it was general practice to also raise a paypal dispute in order to get my money back. The seller who had my telephone number in order to arrange deliver the week before phoned me and shouted at me that I was ruining his business as paypal will freeze all his assets and I didnt give him a chance to investigate. He was very angry that I did this and I explained I thought it was general practice when you paid via paypal. He asked me to close the dispute and said that if the outcome was not to my satisfaction I could re open the dispute. However I am told by others that I cant re open once closed. All I want is for the company to take back their defective sofa and give me a refund. The seller told me about other people who had done this to get money out of him and I reminded him that I had wanted this sofa since last year when I saw him advertise it on Ebay and on Amazon and asked if it came in the colour Black. He informed me that the black sofas would be in stock end of March 2019. I waited all this time to purchase so I am hardly trying it on as he said others had done. 

Does paypal freeze his accounts because a dispute is opened?

I am confused as to what to do all I want if a refund and to send the sofa back 

thanks in advance

[kernowlass · Accepted solution]

@fireangel205 

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.

HOWEVER having said that IF and only IF paypal find in your favour then normally the onus is on you to send the item back to the seller and provide trackable proof of delivery before you get a refund....so it may have been more sensible to have tried to work it out with the seller first as you have up to 180 days to open a dispute.

BUT if the item was defective and the seller refuses to refund return costs you could go after them in the small claims court.