For those, like myself, who thought Paypal would protect them when orders aren’t received, time to reconsider. I have two knife orders placed in August at GearBest that never arrived. These were not my first GB orders, and subsequent orders have been received.
After waiting 35 business days I contacted Gearbest and got the canned responses others have described. As 60 days approached I started Paypal claims. On the first one, GearBest sent PP the order’s Registration Number and claimed it was a tracking number. They had done that with me, first claiming it was a tracking number, then saying it couldn’t be used for tracking. They also sent me an email asking that I drop the dispute.
Yesterday I received an email from PP with the subject “We decided Case ID #PP-xxx-xxx-xxx-458 in your favor” (numbers changed to x’s by me). There was no body to the email, so I went to the Resolution Center and found “After careful consideration, we’re unable to decide this claim in your favor at this time” and the case was closed. What?!
All I could do was request a review of their resolution by reopening the case. But… non-receipt of goods was not offered as a reason to reopen. I had to use something else — I chose “Quantity Received Not Correct ” (which was technically correct — I received zero items). I mentioned the mysterious email and questioned how, after 10 years and over $40,000 of PP purchases with only one other dispute (also in 2015) they could fail to decide a straightforward $10 item-not-received case in my favor.
Today the case says I chose “Item Not As Described”. Also, the other dispute I had earlier in 2015 (the seller vanished, PP found in my favor) no longer appears. Instead of the 180 day claim history my account had yesterday, today there is only a 15 day claim history. PP says it may take 30 days to resolve the case.
YMMV, but unless PP provides a clear explanation I will only use them in the future if there is no other option. It appears the Buyer’s Protection is gone.
EDIT 10/28/15 - I called Paypal and they closed both claims/disputes in my favor. The rep I spoke with was very competent and helpful. Apparently something got bollixed on their end with the first claim, but after resolving the second one she reopened the first and resolved it properly. I am completely satisfied with their resolution of the claims.
BTW, when I called and got through the mechanical answering protocol to a live agent (not too many steps), I got the “Call volume is high, wait time is long, we’re-sorry-you’re-very-important-to-us” message. Surprisingly. wait time after that msg was only about 2 minutes. YMMV.