I purchased a pair of supposedly orthopedic sandals for my mother for 29,99€. The seller website went out of its way to project the image of a small, German shop run by a group of young people. Descriptions, pictures and videos of products were all of high quality.
After ordering, we were a bit surprised to learn from the tracking information that goods were being shipped from China. Once the goods arrived, they were of such poor quality that giving them away for free would be an insult to the recepient. They did not match the product description at all and were unwearable.
So we requested a return.
The seller offered a refund for 30% of the invoice amount as our "best option" - alternatively, we would be required to return the items to a private (?) address in Macedonia (at postage fees equal to the overall invoice amount). By now we had become highly suspicious of the company. On closer inspection, their team pictures turned out to be stock photos and the company is set up in China. Other customers report similar issues - including the experience that packages they attempted to return to Macedonia were not accepted there.
We are now convinced the seller's business model is to defraud customers by sending them subpar products and offering partial refunds that still result in a nice seller profit. We have an open case in PayPal, but it is difficult to report the details of the case because the seller managed to only give us the option (via PayPal) to provide tracking information for a full refund once we return the products (which is impossible for all practical purposes).
How do we get a human being at PayPal to look at this, resolve the case and kick the fraudulent seller off their platform?
