HELP! How do I dispute a fee for a Goods & Services transaction that was done by mistake?

[djimatt]

A friend tried to send me money that he owes me, $1,020.00, and accidentally used the goods & services option, because that's what Paypal defaults to. Paypal charged ME, a consumer and not a merchant, a fee of $29.88. No sale took place, my friend was trying to send me money that he owes me. Naturally, I attempted to reverse his transaction by issuing a refund. What did Paypal do? They debited the FULL amount of $1,020.00 from my CHECKING account, rather than refunding from the amount in my Paypal account and reversing the fee. Now, they tell me that nothing can be done to resolve my issue because I didn't make an exemption claim before I initiated the refund. I have a long chat history with a customer service agent who told me to have my bank stop the refund payment, but my bank doesn't do that without charging a $30 fee, which is more than the Paypal fee of course. Their only "solution" is this: "You can submit a feedback on our official website by clicking "feedback" on the bottom right hand corner of the site." I will attempt to do this, but how is this ethical/legal??? Who else can I escalate this to? 

[djimatt]

I've also tried to handle this through resolution center, but it won't recognize either the original transaction or my refund as an eligible disputile transaction.

[sharpiemarker · Accepted solution]

@djimatt 

Unfortunately, PayPal no longer refunds PayPal fees when issuing refunds since new policy of Oct 11 2019 on goods and services payments. Not even for mistakes. The difference in fees comes out of your pocket. Best to train your senders of personal payments in the future to send correctly. What is done by the sender is done. You can ask the sender to pay $1049.88 as friends and family to cover PayPal fee since they made the error in the first place.

Once a refund is issued on a transaction, it can't be reversed or disputed. If this ever happens again, do what the customer service rep says, to ask the sender to open a dispute and you issue refund within the dispute. And do the whole transaction again.