My experience with Paypal involving a first ever "item not received" dispute has been atrocious and I'd love to hear from others who feel the same way as I fear their "system" makes it impossible for honest sellers to get a fair hearing and is totally biased in the buyers favour. I mostly sell Vinyl Records on Ebay and have shipped these across the world with 100% success and 100% positive feedback to date. This summer an Ebayer contacted me stating that they had not received their item, in this case a rare 1970's album sold at a fraction of its worth (lesson learnt - do not sell vinyl in August as everyone is on holiday!). The buyer had given me a storage warehouse delivery address (never advisable) as opposed to his home address and asked me to write his ID number on the package in case it got lost (which I did). My listing offered insured delivery but he opted for the cheaper 2nd class postage. Once he got in touch I immediately sent him a copy of the "Proof of Postage" stamped by my local post office and asked him to go back to the depot and see if it had been delivered elsewhere (I'm not sure he did as he never confirmed this). 15 days later he wrote to me again and asked what to do. I'd sold this record under cost and told him that I'd done everything that I could and did not want to take a write off here. Ironically it was me who suggested that he escalate this to a dispute claim - believing (naively) that Paypal would give the facts due consideration as promised in their blurb. I then received the Paypal notification that my buyer had raised a dispute - again somewhat ironically this took the form of a message from him along the lines of .........."Hi XXX have done what you suggested, let's see what Paypal can do", he even mentioned that he was satisfied I had posted the item as he had received the proof of postage! Even though I had been told that I had 20 days to respond, couple of days later I received a "second reminder" to respond. With this I thought it would be prudent to upload my proof of postage via the dispute centre. Sadly it didn't have this option - in reality it is very black and white, namely provide proof of delivery (i.e. tracking), OR issue a full refund! Errm, what about (as in my case) sales were recorded delivery was not requested??? Ah well, I uploaded my proof of postage confirmation (the only proof you have in such cases) and signed off with confidence that someone would read the correspondence, review the facts (and circumstances) and revert in my favour. I didn't have to wait long! Two emails were simultaneously received about 30 seconds after - one thanking me for uploading my information, the other informing me that a "After careful consideration of the evidence provided" Paypal had decided in favour of the seller and issued a full refund to the buyer. So, in less than 5 seconds Paypal had carefully considered this case and issued a refund.......................pull the other one for this is beyond a farce! I immediately appealed and today received a short, sharp response stating that all transactions above $750 required tracking. Errm, my transaction was a fraction of this - what about me, had even the person who reviewed my appeal even read the details? To summarise - a buyer who provided a storage warehouse address, did not request insured delivery (offered on listing) and was sent proof of postage stamped by my local post office (100% confirmation that the item was posted) gets a full refund, the seller with 100% positive everything is left to take 100% write-off - no deliberation, no careful consideration, nothing. How therefore they decided against me in this case is utterly unbelievable. Simply put, the system cannot possibly give a seller anywhere near a fair hearing unless you send all items via recorded delivery. It is wide open for buyer abuse (my buyer was a dealer) and it is completely slanted against the seller. There is no "careful consideration" (I asked how anyone could have read through my email correspondence with my buyer and reviewed my case in 5 seconds - Paypal didn't answer). The answer is - a robot programme made the decision. I have responded to Paypal today but if I don't receive a fair hearing, I'm leaving Paypal and unless they can prove that my case was actually reviewed (in seconds), I'll escalate. Like many honest, loyal (to Paypal) sellers out there, I simply cannot afford to take a write-off for something beyond my control and I can't sell on a programme that is completely biased towards the buyer. Sellers beware! Love to hear of anyone else who has experienced something similar.
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