I’m all for Buyer Protection (after all, I’m a buyer more often than a seller) but Paypal’s Dispute Resolution system needs sorting out.
One of my companies offers an online subscription service. On Christmas Eve, a customer emailed us to say they couldn’t access the service having paid for it. On Boxing Day having waited a whole 48 hours over Xmas and not received a response, they put a claim in. What did they claim? That the product had not been received.
I then got notification of this, logged into Paypal (having emailed the customer and asked why they’d escalated it without giving us reasonable time to respond) only to find that the three options open to me when it comes to responding are:
- I have posted the item, here is the tracking number
- I did not post the item, I will refund
- I have already refunded.
THERE IS NO ITEM TO POST! This is an entirely online product. The customer has (either wilfully or through ignorance) filed an incorrect complaint. Unfortunately, Paypal don’t bother to investigate the type of product and take the customer’s word for it. There is no way I can find to add a “note” to the dispute and surely the simplest solution would be:
4. This is not a physical product
…or something similar.
Paypal have now found in favour of the customer and refunded them. This leaves businesses like mine open to ignorant or malicious claim-backs without any recourse to defend ourselves. It really is time Paypal got their finger out and at least gave merchants such as us (with a long and blemish-free history) the opportunity to respond properly to inappropriate claims.
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