Paypal...buyer protection fees didnt help me

Let me clarify -  you can "appeal" a claim decision - my suggestion is to do this with a "live" person rather that online. Paypal has a "dispute resolution" / "Claims" department (not sure the exact name) that is US based and the trick is to try and  get connected to them directly. The regular CS is usually based overseas and reads from a script.

You should call them and insist on speaking with someone in the "Claims" dept - if you do not succeed at first - try,try try again..!

If you do end up speaking to the right person, make it a sob story and do not in any way suggest that they are trying to cheat you - yours truly speaks from experience!

There is a also a paypal user forum - here is a link for the "disputes" thread:

www.paypal-community.com/t5/Disputes-and-Limitations/bd-p/5

I can understand your anger and frustration but this has nothing to do with predatory behavior on part of paypal. CS / Support has been automated to a ridiculous extent at most companies that a Live person rarely gets involved unless the matter escalates. A lot of us have learnt the hard way that "AI' in not very "I" and can be very "A" most of the time.

As a general rule (and for future reference) Paypal Buyers Protection claim is more likely to be successful if you bought from a known merchant or intermediary (like ebay) as opposed to a person to person transaction for the simple reason that a P to P claim is more susceptible to misuse / fraud.

Good luck and let us know how it plays out.

Cheers!

Good advice srinisr!

Can you use a PayPal friends and family payment to buy things from strangers? 


Yes, but you really, really shouldn’t — and not just because it’s against PayPal’s user agreement.

The lack of fee makes it a tempting option for sellers to use instead of ‘goods and services,’ and you may be offered a discount on the agreed amount if you acquiesce. In theory that sounds great. You pay less, and the seller takes more — what’s not to like? 

Well, scammers can use this approach to take the money and run, knowing that you’ll have no recourse to open a fraud claim with PayPal. If you sign off someone as a friend or family member, PayPal reasons, then you’re vouching for the contact and therefore you’re not entitled to extra protections.

‘Goods and services’ payments are covered by PayPal Purchase Protection. Friends and family payments are not. While a seller asking you to use ‘friends and family’ may just be trying to save a few bucks (albeit in a slightly underhand way), it simply isn’t worth the risk: consider it a red flag and insist on using the ‘goods and services’ option or find someone else who will.

The friends and family option is typically used not for scamming buyers but to avoid IRS 1099 fillings and paying taxes...the paying with PP directly to get buyer protection obviously diesnt work hence this post.

@missioncoonery Based on my observations you're in a small minority, vast majority claim PP always on buyer's side. As others have mentioned and experienced, no real forensics undertaken by PP, most disputes resolved by algorithms.

I suppose I understand their finding for buyer in most cases, buyer happy, at least seller gets item returned to them. I've had two disputes as buyer with PP, won both cases without long delays.

The one thing I don't understand about your case is, I know seller cut off communications with you so you're distrust of him understandable. But how do you know damage wasn't caused by shipping? Did you talk about that possibility with seller? If not, I can more understand his intransigence, he may have perceived your initial contact as provocation.

Since seller won in what seems like rare case with PP, one has to assume he had documentation on his side, or a better story.