I had a trial on an e-learning site at the beginning of 2020, used paypal as the funding source and then cancelled the trial before the end of the trial period and decided not to continue using the service, after having had a short look through the site and received their promotional materials I realised the company (Shaw Academy) were like the majority of e-learning platforms at this point, ambulance chasing con-artists who want to sell you a certificate for a course you haven't even completed. Anyway, all that aside, trial was over, service cancelled and life continued. The company continue ambulance chasing with promo emails (you know the type) sign up today and own the world for free, limited spaces available, 5 mins left to get this incredible lifetime offer blah, blah, blah. At this point, I go to the site, find no unsubscribe or notification options or contact details (ebay vendor policy violation by the way) and then carry on with my day. 2 weeks later I see the £49.99 charge on my account, so I immediately open an unauthorised transaction dispute on paypal and email Shaw academy to say what are you playing at, please return my money. Shaw apologise, offer me the super duper, one in a million, access to everything plan for me and a family of 8 for no extra charge and I say no, money back please, they say let's have a phone call to discuss at which point I tell the we don't need a discussion, I did not authorise the transaction, have not signed up to any services nor a new trial and they inform me that the trial was reactivated when I accessed my account. At no point during this process did I authorise a transaction, I was not informed a transaction would occur, that I would be charged on or by a specific date, an amount that would be charged etc. etc. on the site or in the email.
At this point, paypal decide the case in Shaw Academy's favour, I'm assuming this is because I had authorised the transaction months earlier during the initial trial signup, although you would think that the months between the authorisation and the transaction would work in my favour. Anyway, paypal decide in their favour even though at the same time the vendor acknowledged everything I have stated above including the fact that this practice is actually illegal under EU/UK law and their site isn't compliant with paypal vendor requirements (I'm an e-commerce developer, I've dealt with it from this side of the fence) and they attempted twice to issue my refund, which they now can't issue because of the dispute that paypal closed in their favour.
I've tried calling customer services 3 times about this, there doesn't appear to be anything but an automated service left in the UK. I can't open a 2nd dispute for the same transaction and the "chat" service is an FAQ search engine.
So, can I please get my money back before I waste any more time. Unbelievable lengths to get a refund even the vendor wants to give me.
Anybody got any tips on how to actually speak to a human at paypal? I'm about to remove all subscriptions from my paypal account and put them on direct card payments, its a sad day when HSBC are easier to deal with than paypal.
