Fell for a scam - let me tell you my stupidity so you don't do so.

[Thistledew]

I made the mistake of buying something from an add that came up on Facebook. It was advertised as a wooden number block set and purported to be a US registered company.

What finally arrived was some foam bath toy numbers.

Fortunately, I paid via PayPal so I'm hopeful I will still get my money (about £40 worth) back.

However, the company (now apparently based in China) is still trying to rip me off. They have made a formal offer via PayPal's dispute resolution of a partial refund only, but have alternatively offered in their communications to me to refund fully if I send the item back.

Of course, the cheapest recorded postage will cost me around £14, and as they haven't made a full refund offer properly via PayPal's mechanism, I think it unlikely that I would get my money back.

I'm about to escalate it directly to PayPal. Does anyone have any tips about the best way to do this? I have already sent picture of the advert, of the packaging showing that the order reference matches, and that the weight declared for the customs declaration is no way equivalent to the weight of posting something wooden.

Any other tips for getting PayPal to refund me?

Send photos of the item compared to the selling photo, if one.

The items are definitely not as described so paypal should refund you i full i think.
It sounds as if you have given them all the necessary info but perhaps also send pictures of the actual items?

Yeah those Facebook ads are annoyingly mostly scams. Rule of thumb is to Google the thing you like the look of and you'll find the genuine site they've stolen the pictures from.

Hope you get it sorted, it's mega irritating.

I have had a similar experience and going through PayPal
Is not that straight forward either. THey will refund up to £14 postage. Take photos of everything- package with label pre sending etc. The company sent return address
In Chinese so
Use google to translate. Couriers on line don’t regcognise Chinese. I’m still waiting to hear if they will refund the £55 I’ve spent but I am
No
Longer confident that PayPal are the guarantee they
Advertise to
Be.

I had something similar but not such an obvious scam - i bought some nice looking sandals i saw advertised on Instagram but when they arrived they weren't nearly as nice and didn't fit very well.
The company offered a refund if i returned them, after i sent them photos showing they were too big on my feet, but the postage (to China] was horrendous. They went to a charity shop.

It’s fairly obviously that buying anything from China (or the US) is not a good idea -whether it’s Facebook or amazon.

A friend of mine just last week fell for a similar scam. She bought what she thought was a kitchen helper with toy attachments for her toddler but what arrived was a mouse mat

I don't think she's managed to get her money back from paypal yet but I'll update if I find out anymore.

The only thing I've ever bought from China was a Deathly Hallows symbol necklace for dd when she was into that sort of thing. It cost 99p with free postage and took so long to arrive I'd forgotten all about it by the time it came.

I fell for one of these too. it was a folding piano, advertised for £20. what arrived was a cardboard picture of a piano keyboard. the genuine folding piano does exist but retails at £299ish. although I paid by PayPal it seemed obvious that the hassle of fighting for a refund would cost me way more than £20 of stress and upset so I didn't bother. I won't buy from a Facebook advert again.

What's also quite scary is that it was obviously a targeted advert. Just a few weeks before I had googled a UK retailer of the genuine product after a friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of her own child playing with it.

I don't think it was a coincidence that this toy was then advertised to me as I was browsing Facebook a few weeks later. The advert itself was very convincing and included a lot of detail about the product similar to how the genuine product is described.

Similar happened to me. I was offered a partial refund of 50% then they upped it to 75%
The item I bought was useless so I was stubborn and wanted to return, at their cost, for a full refund. It back fired and I ended up with less of a refund of their final offer
Take the best offer you can get and learn from it

Why did you end up with less? Was that what PayPal offered? Did they give any reason?

Be very aware it is not just Facebook.

I bought some seed pots made of recycled card through Amazon Marketplace, initially they were scheduled to arrive the next week.

I then received an email saying they would take 6 weeks

I tried to cancel the order and was told they had already shipped.

Eventually a parcel arrived from China, the pots were tiny in comparison to the advert and disintegrated the minute they became wet.

Amazon wouldn’t help. They said I needed to return them to China but as the postage would cost more than the original order, I just had to write it off.

I will no longer buy anything from a Marketplace seller and am currently avoiding Amazon altogether.

Me too, I ordered some garden chairs but what arrived was two storage bags and no chairs! I have evidence see pic but they say I only ordered the bags!

Photo

@Thistledew
Item was clearly ''NAD'' {not as described}
Paypal will refund you....BUT you will probably have to send the bloody things back by tracked delivery.

I bought something from Paypal {India} and it was NAD...I had to send it by recorded delivery {15!!!} but got £35 back. {lost the £15}

Thank goodness you paid by ''Goods and services''....A trusting person I know lost £1300 {thirteen hundred} buying an antique from America by Friends and family.... lost it despite all their bank could do.

The person was gutted....and felt so trusting.
He was ripped off by a practiced con artist, who sells top 'Overseas customers'.

I have bought from China before {twice} and each time the goods were as described. {-each time I thought the goods were in UK though!!}

Me too - Paypal wouldn’t refund unless I returned the item to China. I did but the company claimed not to have received it. Even though I had proof of postage PayPal still refused to refund. So I got no refund and was out of pocket on the return postage.

I have been through all this nonsense with NewChic, which also trades under other names (same clothes). They send whatever they fancy - no relation to what was ordered- and when you try and sort it out you discover that they are based in China. And they refuse to acknowledge that it is a different garment, even when photos are sent. In the end, after months of farting around, most people just throw in the towel as I did.

Beware ads for clothes where the head of the model is not shown - they are clothes poached from other sites and the company you are dealing with does not actually have the goods to sell - they send whatever they fancy.

I’ve never had a problem getting money back through PayPal.

Other scams to beware of:

I bought a couple of things from Ebay.
Same seller.
She put a note in, saying ''buy from me direct, I'll give a better price''.

I got a few pounds off , and she said ''Can you pay me by friends and family, please?'

I paid her by goods and services.
I had a stroppy email saying ''Don't you trust me?''

• When the bloody thing arrived, it had restored ears {a vintage china horse I'd had as a child} -rendering it worthless.

I was furious.

Paypal got me to send it back , recorded delivery, and said they'd refund the minute seller received it.

I lost £7.90 in postage.

My own stupid fault for trusting her.

Never {ever} pay by friends and family.

@BeBesideTheSea

Me too - Paypal wouldn’t refund unless I returned the item to China. I did but the company claimed not to have received it. Even though I had proof of postage PayPal still refused to refund. So I got no refund and was out of pocket on the return postage.

Oh goodness- that's awful.

Thanks for the heads up on this. Sellers on ebay /amazon should say if the items are in UK or not.

I was shocked to see my items were being shipped from China. { Party bags and a poster DS wanted for his Birthday.

It is worth looking at Trust Pilot.
It is not 100% reliable but it is always worth looking.
I thought I was pretty sharp about stuff but fell for China scam (company did all it could to pretend it was uk based). Had I looked at Trust Pilot I would have realised.
Basically, once you are transacting outside of UK it is
really difficult to enforce consumer law.

Pic of poster {sent unframed} ..I assumed it would be a British or American seller ..but they are printed in China- the seller had very good feedback though.

Sellers intentionally say they’re located in the U.K. when they’re actually in China.

It’s important to look not only at seller ‘location’ but scroll down and clock on seller details which often has an address. In Guandong.

Don't engage any further with the seller. Open dispute with PayPal. In reason state that ordered item didn't arrive. In, further details, say that something did arrive but not what you had ordered. And wait. Ignore offers from seller. PayPal will refund and you don't need to return. What they have sent isn't what you ordered so you haven't received your ordered - you have received some unsolicited crap.

I have just been through the same thing except mine was garden chairs and they sent me a brass gold coloured ring.

First they offered me 80%, at which point I opened grievance with PP and told them to get lost. They then offered 90%, as 'the most' they could offer. I refused this. They then said they would refund 100% BUT I had to cancel the PP claim first.

Yeah ... Right .... Nope - about a week later PP refunded fully