seller sent wrong item and now want me to pay to return or they wont refund

[Yatesy1988]

i purchased a product online which they clearly purposely advertised wrong to get me to buy for £24 then sent an item that was nothing as described to get a tracking info worth maybe £2

They are now saying they will only refund the item if i send the item back which will cost me an additional £17 to send back but i have to pay to return the item.

So i will lose £17 to send back an item they sent to me that wasn't the item i ordered or only get 25% of my original order refunded.

Im not willing to pay to send this worthless item back and im not willing to lose the money i paid for the item i didnt receive so what do i do?

[kernowlass · Accepted solution]

@Yatesy1988 

If you go through the dispute / claim route and win then paypal normally tell you to send the item back for a refund.

In the event of a dispute you need to bear in mind possible return trackable costs before you buy from that seller / item / country because....

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 buy from a business in the UK then you can normally recover those return costs via the small claims court although most UK businesses would reimburse you anyway. (BUT if you choose to buy from a private or international seller you may not have that option).

You also have the option to do a chargeback via your card issuer instead of a Paypal dispute if you funded your Paypal payment via a credit card.

[Yatesy1988]

I bought through debit card through PayPal, wouldn't they just supply the tracking id that says an item was delivered and the card issuer just recharge? I recently lost a dispute with a company that only sent me half the items I paid for just because they had a tracking id that said an item had been delivered, and seller wouldn't reply with anything except the tracking is for nothing about the other items. Really makes me not trust using the resolution centre when they clearly don't bother reading anything you say

[kernowlass]

@Yatesy1988 

Well if you did a chargeback via your card issuer then thats different I thought you were asking about paypal disputes?

And yes a seller would win an item not recieved dispute if they could provide tracking that is why if the item was misdecribed or you received insufficient items  you would not open a dispute for non receipt but ' item received but not as described'.  

[Gazza19662]

What is the point of using PayPal in the first place, I am going to stop using PayPal and stop ordering the **bleep** from there sites as they are only backing up the sellers.

[Rlv1]

I ordered telescope from skortu in california . Later I received  an inferior product from china.  Paypal obviously sides with the seller and doesn't read the case info I sent, even a request for them to call me.  They want me to pay shipping to return product to china that I didn't order. I expect the product would never reach china, no verification no refund.  It would convenietly get lost. 

[Yatesy1988]

Yep and like Kernowless said paypal will just say we have to return the product at our own expense which will just be us paying to get our own money back. Its a great scam they've got going using PayPal to scam people out of there own money

[kernowlass]

@Yatesy1988 

Don't forget to activate the 'return shipping on us' link in your paypal account to get help with those return costs !!!

[blindem]

Why is the "activate return shipping" not the default? This is encouraging scammers in foreign countries to swindle us. My scammer is in China and is still posting the item I wanted for sale, with no intention of ever delivering it to anyone. They send a cheap *** unwanted item instead and want to settle for a fraction of the original payment.  I wonder what other rights I waive when purchasing with PayPal and what other hidden "Activate consumer rights" buttons I need to hit to not get scammed.