On June 09, 2015 I won the following auction for an Agilent 33250A waveform generator
The seller accepts paypal and the purchase is claimed to be covered by the ebay/paypal buyer protection program.
Everyone should be able to see the BIG BOLD CLAIM: “ebay MONEY BACK GUARANTEE - Get the item you ordered or get your money back. Covers your purchase price and original shipping”.
So far so good. On 11 June, 2015 I send the payment and on 16.06.2015 the seller marks the item as shipped providing the DHL tracking number (961101085832).
To be clear I paid 22EUR for a DHL Paket International, which covers transport loss or damage up to 500EUR and typically delivers in my country in no more than four working days.
As I know this shipping service and I’m used to see the parcels moving quickly within the DHL network you will probably understand my surprise for not seeing any progress at all in the tracking system during the following week.
I don’t want to bore you with all the details so I’ll go straight to the point.
I asked the seller for an explanation many and many times and all I was able to get was a request to be patient and wait more time.
On July 2nd, tired of waiting, I filed a paypal dispute which was then escalated to a claim when DHL told me that they had no track of the parcel.
At this point, many of you will probably guess the outcome of the deep and careful paypal investigation. here it is, Paypal decided in favor of the seller and the claim was closed without any refund. What you won’t probably guess is the explanation given for such a resolution. Well, this is what popped up in my mailbox a few hours ago:
“Your seller has provided shipment tracking information in response to your claim.
We used the shipping company's online tracking service and found that it confirms delivery of the merchandise.
As a result, this case has been closed. We're happy we were able to help you resolve this issue.”
Delivery of merchandise. Did you read that?
Now please go the DHL tracking page and tell me if you see anything about delivery.
http://nolp.dhl.de/nextt-online-public/set_identcodes.do?lang=en&idc=961101085832
The parcel is stuck on “The shipment has been posted by the sender at the retail outlet” since June 16.
Basically, it never left the DHL store.
How can they have a proof of delivery?
It’s clearly an error. There’s no other explanation.
That’s what I thought while reading the notification, but then I decided to call paypal and they managed to surprise me even further.
After waiting 10 minutes at the phone for a further investigation the answer was that they decided in favor of the seller because she was able to provide proof of shipment to my exact address.
And the conversation ended somehow…
How is all this even possible? Can they really do this?
Can PayPal lie about the proof of delivery and refuse to refund a frauded buyer while the whole web is filled with their claims regarding the protection program and the money-back guarantee?
