Cатсн²² (in)sесuяitу / ChrisJohnRiley

As some people might already know, I’ve been going through a payment dispute on PayPal for about 6 weeks now. To bring things into a short and crisp explanation, I purchased what was advertised as a book on Ebay. The seller was in America and I waited for the shipment. A couple of days passed and I received an email from Ebay saying that the seller had been banned and not to pay him. Well, a little late on that one. Still I waited in the hope of getting my book. A few days later I got a package form the US. What was inside this small package, a burned white-top CD containing an ebook. To make matters worse it wasn’t even the right ebook. So I email the seller in the hope of getting a response. Laughingly I did, although he suggested a good solution would be for me to download the right ebook from a torrent site. No I kid you not, he actually though that was a solution.

So off to PayPal and their dispute section. I filed the dispute and 2 weeks later was told if I mailed the CD back at my own cost I’d get a full refund. Right, I’m going to risk getting caught sending illegal goods out of the country and through US customs because PayPal say so.

Needless to say, I said no chance and PayPal closed the case without a second thought. I reopened the case and asked them to think a little clearer about the issues, and asked if PayPal condoned the selling and shipping of illegal materials. I waited like a good little customer for another 3 weeks. Tonight it came through load and clear.

“PayPal was not able to resolve this case because the item in question was virtual or intangible.”

I think they fail to see the point… or maybe they don’t. Perhaps this is how they make so much money. The buyer protection we all think is going to stop this kind of thing from happening is almost worthless. I’d think twice before using the service again, but what other choices are out there right now. I’m not sure, but I’ll be spending some time soon to find out that’s for sure.