PayPal Siding with Obvious Scammer - What can I do?

[RockinHippy]

I bought a cat scratch post via a Facebook selling ad, I only bought as they offered PayPal, which I stupidly believed offered me protection as a buyer, it clearly doesn't

Item didn't arrive. I did receive an ugly cheap owl necklace, which I was puzzled by, but thought might be in place of a very cheap pair of earrings that I had bought for DD as that parcel was due, cat post wasn't.

Christmas came & went & no cat scratch post. Seller ignored any contact, so I opened a dispute. PayPal have just now sided with the seller, despite my updating with information clearly showing the seller as a scammer as loads of other people are having the same problem & receiving the same ugly necklace or a bag of rope instead of a much heavier parcel containing a cat scratch post

Pissed off & asking what can I do next ??

Thank you

How on earth did they side with the seller? I've been in this situation before but i was the seller, the buyer tried to get the item for free basically and i had to fight my way through the whole thing to get my money back after they decided to 'refund' her without my say so. If it is advertised as a certain item and you didn't receive that item i would raise a case against the amount you paid (i'm just not sure how to do that)

Escalate it? Is it via Ebay? They will eventually ban scammers

So did you open a not received case, then they put the tracking info that was on the owl necklace package in? How long did it go before you reported it? I can understand things getting confusing as you think you had not received anything when in fact they sent something else to get a tracking number.

Do a chargeback through your bank or credit card?

It's so frustrating but I don't think there's a lot you can do. A friend of mine bought a pushchair off eBay through PayPal and when a letter arrived a couple of days later she signed for it without thinking. It was an empty envelope but because the seller had "proof" the "pushchair" had arrived PayPal didn't want to know.

It's really crap

You opened the wrong case I suspect. You should have opened an 'Item not as described' case rather than a 'not received' because Paypal can only see you've received something and not what that something is.

Can you change the case? Give Paypal a call.

Living & Sisters thank you. That's exactly it. I did update with more information as soon as I realised I had received something & screenshots showing this to be a scam. Seems they've ignored the update & just processed it in the original not received category. Makes sense now & hopefully easily sorted out🤞

& thanks everyone else.

I was shocked as I've dealt with disputes both as a seller & a buyer in the past & always found PayPal to be very fair. The one as a seller was an item not received, but I had screenshots from their Facebook page of them wearing the item & PayPal were great.

Hopefully it's fixable, it's not a huge amount of money, but though not particularly cheap for the item, but knowing they are blatant scammers boils my pee, so I don't want to let it go.

I now have had replies from them in Twitter I must look like a right moany cow on there as that's all I ever use it for so now just waiting on them emailing me. 🤞

Should be fixable if you've now got the right case going and if in doubt its always better to give them a call.

Paypal is pretty safe if you're paying goods and services, you just need to know what case to open really.

I suspect you and others have been used as a Christmas Payday loan. Seller knows they will end up refunding but until that point get a few quid to tide them over. Although unusual to actually get something for your money.

How on earth did they side with the seller? I've been in this situation before but i was the seller

Scammers know how to play the system, is how.

I saw that ad OP, and all the complaints on it. The price was clearly far too cheap for what it was, and I saw in the comments that someone had reverse image searched it and found the actual product that retails for around $300.

I do have sympathies and hope you get your money back, but if a price seems too good to be true, it probably is

Lemony unfortunately I saw those complaints & the price of a "real" one of the cat trees after I had bought it & realised it wasn't coming. Though when buying, I have a very similar cat tree that I paid £12 for in a sale, so I had no reason to think it was under priced. The price of that cat tree elsewhere is taking the pee & aimed at the more money than sense brigade. Who in their right mind pays £300 for a cat tree