You have bought a book on becoming a Powerseller from eBay but when it arrives you find that the front cover has been torn off and some of the pages are missing. What do you do if you do not get a reply to your email to the seller? If you paid using PayPal you should login to your PayPal account and go to the security centre. Click on the “open a transaction dispute” button under the “report a problem” heading.
PayPal will help you to communicate with the seller. If this does not resolve the problem you can then enter a claim. PayPal will then investigate the transaction and if they are satisfied with your claim, they will refund the full purchase price including postage.
There are a few items that the buyer needs to be aware of to avail of this protection and also what it entails.
• The item purchased must be tangible and capable of being posted. This means that downloaded items such as eBooks are outside the remit of the protection.
• The item must not be an eBay prohibited item.
• The purchaser must have paid by clicking the PayPal “pay now” button or by associating the payment to the eBay item.
• A dispute must be opened within 45 days of the payment.
• The payment must be made in a single transaction.
• Multiple claims can not be made for the same payment so if several items are included and are being disputed, this will be treated as a single item.
• You must reply to all PayPal communications within a timely manner.
• Receipts, transactions details etc may be required so keep a copy of all information.
• You may be asked to post the item back to the seller so you will need to obtain a receipt of posting and make sure that you package the item correctly.
• You may be asked to destroy the item and provide evidence of destruction.
• Even though you may escalate an Item Not Received Dispute to a Claim, you are not guaranteed a recovery. If the Claim is decided in your favor, your recovery may be limited to the amounts that PayPal can recover from the seller’s Account. (PayPal User Agreement - Disputes between Buyers and Sellers - Buyer Protection Programmes)
Even though PayPal does not offer full or blanket protection it does go a long way to making purchases on eBay safer. As with all transactions involving money you should take precautions before paying over your hard earned cash. Read all the description thoroughly and if you have any doubts or queries, email the seller. Check the seller feedback and read through the comments. These simple pieces of advice may save you time and trouble and help make your Online Auctions more fun!