Hi there.
I'm not an expert, but I am going to say any company that advertises sone thing and then gives you nothing is not very trustworthy in the first place, so trusting that they will "send you a check" is perhaps not the best idea.
My suggestions - and they are suggestions:
1) change your passwords and other information. If your 13 year old cousin can get on your computer and access your financial information and passwords, I'd say your personal security is a) lax and b) compromised. You need to be a lot more careful with this information. I know you said the 13 year old was a "wizard" but if he can crack it...you see where I am going? He may have left a back door open somewhere while he was out there fooling around that he didn't know about. I lost 3 years of my life and thousands of dollars to identity theft. It took police reports, notarized affit davits, the fillingout of hundreds of forms, contacting thousands of companies, contacting the credit bureaus hundreds of times, changing my credit cards over and over, cancelling this woman's information over - please: trust me. You do NOT want to do this. Beef up the security on your computer. And when your cousins come to visit again, have a user account with limited access set up for them on your computer, not your account. Or tell them to bring a laptop of their own.
2) do not cancel the dispute with PayPal. Intimidation tactics are a surefire indication that you are not dealing with a company that does above-board business. As soon as you would cancel the dispute, they would disappear into the night, and you would never see one red cent. As it is, you have proof of a legal transaction that was proven false and you (or your cousin) requested a refund (on your behalf). The facts here seem pretty clear-cut: you know the company's name, you know what service they promised to provide - they did not do so; you requested a refund. Clear a day. Stick to your guns. The only wobble I see is that someone else had access to your account. That could be a sticking point. (See above reccomendations.) But it doesn't negate the basic facts of the case.
3) If this company (and double check their website just to make sure) uses PayPal as one of their forms of Payment, and they (PayPal) get enough complaints of fraud or of bait-and-switch about this company, they're going to know about them and have a history of them in their files, so don't be afraid to tell your story. PayPal will drop someone like this as soon as they see that they are in the process of bilking and then menacing their customers, so be sure to mention the part about them being a little "Sopranos" about the matter. As a customer (well, you know), you have the right to expect the service or item you paid for. When it is not forthcoming, you shouldn't have a bunch of large men with metaphor names intimidating you for being upset that you didn't get what you were expecting.
4) Tell your story to EVERYONE! Let people know about this horrible company and how they (are) treating(treated) you. No one should feel that way after a transaction. And the intimidation is pure hocky-pucks.
The New York Times wrote a story about a Russian fellow who sold eyeware out of his house in Brooklyn, and it was discount eyeware, and he would bilk (cheat, bait-and-switch) people and they would send the merchandise back and try to get a refund from their credit card companies and he would call them up in the middle of the night and say he knew where they lived and to drop the charge-back or he would set their house on fire and horrible things like that. And it would go on for years.
Don't let people like this get away with it. Deal with it out of the gate. PayPal is pretty strict. And they're really good with limiting information, so I don't know what kind of information your cousins gave to this company, but it would be a good idea to straighten up your personal computer security and your online information.
That's my suggestions. And those are worst-case scenarios, so don't let it scare you in the middle of the night, but...it would be a good thing to get your stuff in order.
And definitely DON'T drop the dispute with PayPal. Don't do it. Please!!!
Wishing you the very best and good luck with the resolution -
Raven
PS In reading your e-mail again, you say they (your cousins) went into your PayPal account and used a credit card but then you say the company was using PayPal. So, did they use your PayPal account or your credit card number that they got while rummaging around through your PayPal account? And if they used your credit card number, why was a dispute opened through PayPal? I just got confused by the words you were using.
