seller wont refund my money? small claims court.

AustinByrnes

hello,

sorry if this goes on for a bit but its been a very frustrating few weeks!!!!!!!


i bought a iphone 3g on ebay in may, i sent the phone back the day i got it as it did not accept my sim card( the description said it would take any)

so i sent it back to the seller and he said he would refund my money so i gave it few days and nothing was happening, he then says that he wont refund my money till i leave him positive feedback on ebay as he doesnt want his rating affected.so i left positive feedback and he said he would send it. so i get one of those auto response from paypal saying a refund has been sent to your account please leave 48 to 72 hours for it to go through.

so i wait another few days and look at the status of the refund. and it states it was removed.so get on to the seller and he states as far as he is concerned the refund is sent that the money is gone from his account(bank accont not paypal account) and he can do no more.

so i wait another few days to see if there is a banking issue of some sort. still nothing so i contact him again while at the same time sending emails to paypal stating that a refund is trying to be made to me from this guy and it is not going through can you look into this.


paypal tell me it was removed because of insufficent funds in his account.i get back to the seller on this and he states, refund is sent, not my problem.

so i open a dispute claim on paypal on day 52 of this ongoing saga only to be told by paypal i am passed the 45day window of them having any power to do something about this. please try on resolve this with the seller.

so i ring paypal and explain i am having no luck doing that, hence why i started a dispute against him. paypal stance was we cannont legally do anything past the 45day window but we will send an e mail to the seller urging him to refund your money.

once again still nothing. so the seller has his iphone back, still has my money and paypal or ebay say there isnt a dam thing thay can do about it.

can i take any other action now to get my 190Euro back????

Oryx

It sounds like your seller knew exactly how to play the game. Keep you stringing along till the time runs out. Not sure what you can do, but I would talk to paypal again. Its unfair that a scammer like this gets away with it.

Zab

If you paid with a credit card you can dispute the charge with the issuing bank. However, as this will likely leave PayPal out of pocket rather than the seller I'm not sure what their reaction will be (ie they may close your account and refuse to deal with you again). Perhaps somebody who has done it before can chime in.

dudara

Moved to Online Buying & Auctions

dudara

nava

AustinByrnes wrote: »

so i get one of those auto response from paypal saying a refund has been sent to your account please leave 48 to 72 hours for it to go through.

That's strange I thought when you got the email it was because the money reached you account, are you sure it was from paypal.com? maybe was an email to make you think it was from them. Do you have a copy of it? check the senders address and post it here, should be something like @intl.paypal.com or @paypal.com? any links on the email, if put your mouse over and check the status bar and make sure it's www.paypal.com, again maybe copy it here, On the email it should also include the item the refund is for or reference number of the transaction.

Did you check the history in the paypal account? It should show the money been refunded to the Credit Card or Bank account.

theT

Hi OP,

From what you have described the email in relation to the refund is genuine. The issue with it being removed is down to a failed bank transfer on the sellers side(dont ask me how I know this as I am not acting in an official way). If you were to approach your card company re a charge back they should be able to sort you out relatively painlessly and it is very unlikely that PayPal will take action against your account for this( according to their user agreement they can but unless your cc company report it as fraudulent they more than likely will not).

Another option which is available to you may be to go to eBay directly. If you were logged into the ebay.co.uk rather than .ie site you may be sorted out by them directly. They have the same timelines as PayPal but can be a bit more flexible at times. Just make sure you log in via the UK site before you go looking for the contact options.

Good luck

vibe666

it's a bit sh1t that they just drop everything after 45 days even if proceedings are in progress.

i can understand it to a degree if nothing has been done at all until then, but you've been in contact and done all the right things.

i think you'll have a lot more success with your credit card company or bank (wherever the original payment came from) as they will take a legitimate claim seriously, and since you have all the correspondence you can back up your claims.

have a timeline ready and a copy of all the relevant emails pertaining to each bit on the timeline so you can send it all on to them so they can see every step clearly and resolve it for you.

good luck.

allthedoyles

Could you not have tried to get the phone unlocked before sending it back ?

ei9go

I have done a chargeback to Paypal and they never contacted me about it.

professore

ei9go wrote: »

I have done a chargeback to Paypal and they never contacted me about it.

Probably because they closed the sellers Paypal account and seized all the funds in it. You were probably within the 45 day window.

RasTa

If the seller closed the dispute by issuing a refund within the 45 day timeframe and said refund failed, get onto PayPal again as they should just take the funds from the sellers account as the refund failed.

Bob Z

RasTa wrote: »

If the seller closed the dispute by issuing a refund within the 45 day timeframe and said refund failed, get onto PayPal again as they should just take the funds from the sellers account as the refund failed.

This make sense. Get onto paypal again and explain this to them