Maybe doing a chargeback isn't so easy after all?

[inhawaii]

I've read so many horror stories about chargebacks on these boards.

I was under the impression that for a buyer it would be a piece of cake, but apparently not.

I bought 5 pairs of safety glasses from a online vendor.

I paid with PayPal.

These fragile glasses were shipped in a Priority Mail padded envelope.

They arrived totally crushed but the glasses appeared to be ok.

However two of the five  glasses were opened.

Not just opened but the original packaging was missing. 

Totally useless to me for re-sale.

I reached out to the vendor and was ignored.

Only when I filed a NAD dispute with paypal did they answer me.

All I wanted was to return the two glasses (at my expense) for a refund.

I didn't think that was unreasonable.

They told me NO because their ten day return window had passed.

I then escalated my paypal claim to a chargeback.

I thought to myself if there ever was a "slam dunk" for a chargeback, this was it.

Two weeks later I was notified by paypal that I lost the dispute.

Maybe doing a chargeback as a customer isn't so easy after all.

[25kenwood]

I had a similar cut-and-dry case, where the seller was obviously in the wrong. I was shocked when PayPal denied it. Posted on 9/7/23 here:

https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/port-washington/profile/industrial-supply/global-industrial-0121-143415/co...

[marnotom!]

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@inhawaii wrote:

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I immediately contacted the vendor.

Did this 2 or 3 times and was ignored.

Finally left them a voice mail and they emailed me back but ignored my rely to that email.

In the paypal dispute they made like they were trying to get ahold of me and I ignored them. 

Paypal's "official" reason for denying my claim was that I admitted the glasses were not damaged.

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Thanks for that bit of explanation, @inhawaii.  There are still a lot of unanswered questions connected to your situation, but I appreciate that you didn't start this thread for an in-depth investigation into your purchase.

It largely seems to boil down to the vendor's 10-day return policy, if you were inside or outside of it, and what sort of conditions are associated with it.  It also sounds as though the vendor doesn't embrace the idea of partial refunds, possibly because they've been burned by buyers abusing this avenue, and that may be why they were less than cooperative with you over an issue of missing packaging.

Hindsight being 20-20 and all that, you may have been better off pursuing a full refund and "settling" for a partial in the first-stage ("dispute") of your dealings with PayPal when you can negotiate with the seller.  I could be wrong, but I think once PayPal gets involved (in the "claim" process), there's little to no possibility of a partial refund.

But the long and short of it is, what was filed here wasn't a chargeback.

[marnotom!]

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@rugerskick wrote:

I both buy and sell, and I have no idea how the seller won this chargeback.  Terrible pack job with breakable items.

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@rugerskick

1.  This wasn't a chargeback

2.  The OP wasn't claiming damage to the safety glasses themselves.

[sdneped]

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@rugerskick wrote:

I both buy and sell, and I have no idea how the seller won this chargeback. 

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On PayPal the terbiology is you'll first "Open a destitute" in the Ramification Center -- but somehow the next section calls it a "case" now, strangely indecisive. 

Then within 20 days -- or it'll be too late -- you'll return to "excoriate your case to a clam" for PayPal to revue, see here.

[marnotom!]

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@sdneped wrote:

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On PayPal the terbiology is you'll first "Open a destitute" in the Ramification Center -- but somehow the next section calls it a "case" now, strangely indecisive. 

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On PayPal, the dispute process has two stages.  The first stage is to open a case, and during that stage the buyer and seller have up to 20 days to work things out without PayPal getting involved.  If things aren't working out in that stage, the buyer can upgrade the case to a claim for PayPal to review.

It looks as though that page may have been edited or partially written sometime down the line to include the term "dispute" but in the process the term "case" ended up not getting defined properly.

I believe that all this is handled by eBay/Managed Payments with the seller's cooperation if a PayPal dispute over an eBay sale is made, however.

[gurlcat]

This thread has put me down one long rabbit hole memory lane @inhawaii , because elements of it reminded me of a chargeback case that I won (as the seller) and Paypal was the processor.  So I've gone back and found my posts about the situation -it was 2 years ago, fall of 2021, so I don't know how much may be different now.  The funny thing about that case was it was my first chargeback, and the advice that the eBay CSR gave me made no sense (just upload the tracking, even though this was an INAD case NOT an INR!), so I reluctantly followed her advice.  While waiting for the 30 day case to end, everyone told me that CSR was wrong, in fact another eBay employee looked up her notes and said she shouldn't have even advised on a payment dispute; only MP employees are supposed to do that.  

Well anyway, I WON the dispute.  But it was a victory with an asterisk, because I didn't know why I won, and I wanted very much to know why, because what if this happened again in the future, but with a much more expensive item? Why did the tracking matter?  Was it really about the fact that the buyer didn't even attempt a return before doing the chargeback? 

So I decided to just try and see if a Paypal employee would give me some insider info.  I must have been on an incredible lucky streak, because I somehow immediately got hold of a guy who was willing to yack away FOR 35 MINUTES, when I wasn't even their customer.  

Here's the summary of that discussion, in 2021. I realize the 'eBay' factor doesn't apply to your situation but most of this probably does.  Like Paypal has your seller's website return policy in their files.