Based on the comments it seems this practice started when eBay switched to their own internal payments system.
A lot of anecdotal evidence in the thread that this is a common thing.
I assume there is more to it...
A lot of anecdotal evidence in the thread that this is a common thing.
I assume there is more to it...
A few years ago I ordered something off eBay. It was overpriced, but it was the only place selling this particular variant of the item. Anyway, the next day they sent me a message saying that variant was out of stock and could send me another instead, but of course I opted to cancel. After a lot of back and forth (them offering me dodgy extras and me refusing) they sent it anyway and told me to return it.
To cut a long story short, they did indeed send the item, but not me. And the mad part is, PayPal admitted to not caring, even with written proof from Royal Mail that the order wasn't addressed to me, PayPal pretty much said (I cant find the original dispute now, so not verbatim) that as long as the order was sent to someone, I have nothing to complain about.
In the end I just asked my bank for a chargeback, which took 5 minutes compared to the literal month the above took.
I ordered a drone, but the package supposedly weighed 75lbs and consisted of 2 palets and went to my city but the wrong zip code according to tracking -- I documented everything and started a dispute but paypal did not care.
This works best with Fedex because they won't release full tracking details afaik unless you know the destination address, which you don't know, of course.
I bought a home automation device from a dodgy site at a price I knew was too good to be true. Needless to say, I never got it, and when I filed a dispute with PayPal, the buyer “substantiated” the shipment with a tracking number. I, of course, never got the package, nor did I get a refund.
There were all kinds of inconsistencies with the seller’s response (as I recall, their first response was that it had already been shipped, and when I escalated it, the tracking number was for an item that didn’t ship until after my dispute), but it was facially good enough for PayPal so the scammer made $60 off me. Live and learn.
Customer service's approach to fixing this is to submit a ticket to engineering that never gets looked at, then encouraging you to open a new account with one of the larger banks (Wells Fargo, Chase, etc.).
You know things are bad when your customers are pining for Paypal back.