I had a recent bad experience going through dispute resolution (as a buyer) with Paypal. Encountered a "bait and switch" situation with an online bulk sms operator (found out after payment the seller is based in Indonesia and under a totally different name from the online persona). Anyway, cut long story short here is a brief summary of what transpired: 1. Merchant offered a trial account for its service. I signed up and tested the service using the trial account. Service performed as expected (SMS message sent promptly and reliably) 2. Satisfied, I topped up the account with real credit via Paypal. Once account topped up with real credit, service stopped working! 3. Contacted merchant's online/chat support. Support tried to upsell me to a higher priced service (note: I tested using the lower priced service during trial and it worked well). 4. I refused to buy the higher priced service. Support then reminded me of Terms and Condition and limitation of performance of the service I purchased (basically they claimed the service I purchased only offered 60-70% success rate!!!). When I checked, the T&C was spelt out in the payment receipt email! I double checked and nowhere could I find that mentioned in the merchant's website and FAQ pages. 5. When I was adamant not to upgrade, Support started insinuating that I was trying to use their SMS service for fraudulent activities and the merchant does not want me as a customer! I got support to confirm they will give me a refund (and captured a screenshot of the chat). 6. Subsequently I opened a dispute with Paypal with the reason "Service Not as Described". After weeks, and after providing all supporting information + screenshots (including the part where merchant promised me refund), Paypal abruptly closed the case with "case resolved". Attempts to contact Paypal for a redress on this case was futile. Luckily the paypal transaction is using my Visa credit card. I have raised my dispute with my card issuing bank and that appeared to be a hassle free process. At this time, based on the evidence I submitted, my card issuing bank has blocked the Paypal payment 🙂 Shame on Paypal on its dispute resolution process. Kudos to my card issuing bank on its stress free dispute resolution.
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