How does PayPal protect me as a buyer?

PayPal_Andy
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Moderator

Hey Everybody!! Welcome to Part 6 in a 38 Part study on the migration patterns....uh...whoops. Wrong board.  What were we doing here!? Oh, yeah. Smiley Tongue

 

Ahem- Welcome to Part Two of our PayPal Protection Series: "How Does PayPal Protect Me As A Buyer?"

 

Your information is kept private and secure. That's what we're here for: So you can buy things without anyone getting your financial information. It's the cornerstone of what we do.

 

Depending on the situation, we also have vetting in place for merchants to review their business models and try and cut down on potential issues before you have to deal with them. If you've ever filed a dispute, you know that this doesn't always prevent problems completely, but I can't imagine if we didn't review things before allowing sellers online.  It would be...bad.   

 

Even after this process, we have thousands of agents that review trends on accounts to search for problematic trends before things turn ugly.  So even if you file a dispute that we have no coverage for (see above), if we see that a seller is not providing you the best experience, then rest assured we'll ask some questions to see what's happening there.  If we don't like the answers we receive, we may not do business with them for too much longer.

 

We also have our security model. Our systems may be seeing something you might not be aware of that would make that transaction a bad idea.  While we want to process your payments, there are times when the security is there for your protection. 🙂  Please keep in mind that the security model does not mean your account or the sellers account isn't in good standing, however.

 

Ideally, we want all transactions to run as smooth as possible.  But as we all know, not everything works the way we'd like.  So for the times when you're trying to trying to purchase the hood of a '78 Dodge Dart and wind up getting a llama, (or vice versa) we have PayPal Purchase Protection.   

 

We have three flavors of protection:  Non-receipt, Not-As-Described, and Unauthorized.

 

Before we get too deep into this, there are always items for which we may not be able to provide you reimbursement. For a full list, as well as the Purchase Protection in its entirety, I give you section 13 of our User Agreement. 

 

Non-receipt: So you're waiting for your hood (or llama), and it's not there. Then you email the seller, and they say it's on its way, give it some time. Two weeks later, still no package.  So now you've paid for something that has not, and may not, arrive.  What to do? You would open up a Non-Receipt Dispute within 45 days of the purchase (now up to 180 days in many areas!).

 

Not-As-Described: Your llama (or hood) shows up.  Hooray!  You open the package, only to find a brick, or a broken part, or the llama just isn’t in the box.  You would then open up a Not-As-Described Dispute.  We'll collect as much information as possible and try to come up with a solution that's as fair as possible to all parties involved.

 

With both of these you have to file within 45 days (or 180, depending on what's available in your location).  One important part of this is the 20 day conversation period that you have. We give you time to work through our system, communicating back and forth, trying to come up with a solution that both you and the seller are satisfied with.  We encourage this, as once we come in and make a decision, not everyone may wind up as satisfied as they would like. So we give you time to work it out amongst yourselves.  Learn more about buying and selling safely online here.

 

Unauthorized Transactions: You didn't even order an item, yet you see a charge. Let us know and within 10 days we'll complete our investigation.  If someone got into your account, we'll get you your money back ASAP.

 

So we come to the end of our series. I hope you've all gotten something useful out of this, and wish you the best of luck with all your purchases!

 

Andy

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