One problem I have found with some UK eCommerce sites though is that their payment gateways are often broken with Brave/Chrome and the paypal payment option is an easy way of bypassing this issue.
The financial institutions at the receiving end of FOS decisions don't necessarily regard it as effective. Claims management companies, for instance, can flood banks with very many dubious claims, with the FOS as effectively the enforcer.
So I called the public utility commission, which apparently starts fining both parties within 48 hours of the complaint, which I submitted on Sunday. Monday morning arrives, and there is a comical gathering of trucks with crews frantically working to replace the pole (which is a fascinating process).
The foreman told me that the government is essentially level 3 support, and had I worked through the company, he probably would have inspected it over a few months before any work would have started, and only if I was persistent.
The key lesson is that large companies only perceive pain. PayPal lives in a big loophole, so it’s difficult to inflict pain on them and thus difficult to ever be satisfied with them.
Just taking that first step towards the Financial Ombudsman was enough.
If you don't use the word complaint then companies can argue that they thought you were merely providing feedback or engaging in something other than a complaint.
As soon as you use the word complaint, they can't argue that and it puts you on track to escalate to the ombudsman and the companies know it, and they know you know it.