Long story short: I tried ordering around 5-6 items on ebay but was unable to. Made another account and purchased them however account got suspended for absolutely no reason other than 'We believe your account poses risk bla bla' and received notifications that all the items have been cancelled and will not go through. So I made another account and tried again, same exact thing happened with same notifications being received. I must have created around 5-6 more accounts to try and get those items but it turned out that none of the items were actually cancelled. They ALL went through and I received them all with the money being taken out. However all of the items were either damaged or not as described.
Since ebay closed my accounts I am no longer covered by their money back guarantee and their customer service have rejected my account suspension appeal, no longer willing to help. I set up returns for every single item but only 2-3 sellers sent me their shipping label and another one gladfully refunded me the whole amount. The rest of them have agreed to post me the shipping funds through paypal however I am unable to respond back to them due to the suspension on my ebay account restricting me from messaging/replying to sellers. THE SELLERS THEMSELVES HAVE AGREED TO THE RETURN BUT EBAY BEING EBAY have created a storm out of a teacup by restricting me messaging ability. Since all these sellers are in china there is no way I can pay for return postage as some of these items only cost around £10-£15 and I'd be paying 3x more for the return. All I had to do was reply to the sellers with my paypal information and this whole mess would have been sorted.
So I phoned paypal today and spoke to a bunch of different agents/representatives to get the full details on how to pursue this matter. The first one was a woman who was the most informative and she told me that Paypal has a specific policy in regards to its buyer protection (which would be in my case) and that it requires the buyers to have sent/returned the items already (however she did mention that this does not void the dispute or rule out it, that I can still go ahead with it but just something to bear in mind etc). But my problem is that I am unable to return the items in the first place as:
1. Since ebay have suspended my account I am unable to respond to the sellers and provide them my paypal details so that they can fund me the shipping costs. The sellers have already provided to me their shipping addresses and confirmed they are happy to send the shipping costs, but I am unable to reply to them.
2. Some of the return costs for these items are 3x more than the amount they cost me. It would make no sense for me to go ahead and return them, that is why the sellers had agreed to the costs. Some of the most cheapest options don't come with tracking either so I would have no proof of delivery.
3. Consumer Act 2015 law which states that I have right and entitlement to refund within 30 days of receiving not as described items.
Basically before I go ahead with this dispute I'd like the best advice on how to convincingly word it so that paypal can just refund me the money without having to return the items. The first woman I spoke to from paypal did say there's a chance that the resolution/outcome of the dispute may be that I have to return the items first before getting my refund, however isn't this going against consumer act 2015 where sellers are responsible for postage costs on damaged items?? Even ebay's own policy states this on their page: "When a business seller is selling an item to a consumer, any loss and damage to the goods that occur in transit are at the seller's risk. Therefore, in these cases, a buyer should not have to pay for postal insurance."
If there's some kind of template you would like to provide me that I can use for each transaction then it would be really helpful and I would appreciate it. There are about 8 transactions in total that I need to dispute here. I read an old case here on the paypal community but its from 2016 where someone in my position was able to get refunded from Paypal as they had used this consumer act 2015 law by stating it on their dispute form in a way to remind paypal that they are not above the law. Another guy I spoke to from paypal today started telling me that paypal wont really care about ebays policies and that my ebay account being suspended wont matter to them even if im unable to respond to the sellers. I informed him about consumer act 2015 but he went on to act like they are above the law just because 'paypal have their own policies'. Even so, paypal cannot act above the law here and it still applies to them. So yea, in conclusion, I need to know what exact rights, wording, sentencing/points I can use in all of my disputes to remind PayPal that:
1. I under no circumstance should have to return these goods back without having the postage funds provided to me, as some of these items return costs are 3x more than what I originally had paid for.
2. Consumer Act 2015 full entitles me to a refund if damaged/not as described goods are received and if I claim within 30 days
3. It is all ebays fault here, not mine nor the sellers. Both me and the sellers were happy to work this out and resolve these issues however ebay initiated first blood when they restricted the messaging feature on my ebay account and now I have no choice but to submit these disputes.
All in all I guess if paypal doesn't refund me the money without returning these items then I'll just have to go ahead and file the disputes with my bank, which I wanted to avoid. Thanks for reading.
