Lorraine,
I wish that I could be more helpful but at the moment, I cannot.
I thought that it would be possible to claim an “out of time” refund from PayPal because you used your credit facility. Since this isn’t actually a credit card, per se but a “line of credit” extended to you for being a good customer, the rules do not apply.
If you may a purchase using a Credit Card, the Law offers you protection under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, of which you invoke Section 75 when making a claim. Unfortunately, the rules state that any Goods or Services must be of the value between £100 and £30 000. Since your claim is below the primary threshold, your claim would fail.
That being said, there is nothing to stop you writing to PayPal and asking for a review of the situation, understanding of your predicament and seeking an ex gratia payment. Don’t expect to recover the monies from years ago, as it would be impossible to prove that you did not avail yourself of those services and are trying to pull a fast one. Far better that you explain that, all efforts to contact them have failed.
Another option would be to contact AVG directly. AVG bought the rights to Gibson Research Laboratories who created the software, some years ago. Since then, they pride themselves on keeping both personal and commercial computers, safe. During the Melissa virus outbreak, I was getting two or three updates per day, as they fought to get on top of it. They were the only company doing this, as friends systems were dropping like flies and their antiviral rivals couldn’t cope.
Personally, I tested my PC here.. Sheilds Up! AND then changed my settings so that all mail had to be read online and never downloaded to my machine. If you need to create a new email address, do it here Free Mail Account and that will make you as safe as me, without the need for paying someone to check your emails for you.
When you have an email account on your machine, the mail is downloaded to the machine, meaning that it’s infected before you open the message or any downloads. The best way is to view mails, remotely.
I hope that this helps you, going forwards but I haven’t given up hope of finding a workable solution to this issue. Apart from blocking any repeat payments, in the future, read all of the stuff that comes with software, including the yards of EULA before accepting anything. The beggars will try to bury things that are untoward two pages before the end of two miles of legal garbage.
Good luck with your challenge,
Pete_the_Fish.
