Howdy. Gather round, gather round. Like the ancient mariner, I am bound to tell my tale of woe. Hopefully it entertains you, since it doesn’t serve any other purpose.
A period of time ago, FourSevens had a yuge sale—absolutely yuge. I bought a ‘Mini.’ When it showed up, unfortunately, it was broken; the light flickered through random modes. I sent customer service an email asking them what I should do, and they told me to use Deoxit as lube. This did not work, and they never answered my follow-up emails, so I disputed it on PayPal. That got someone’s attention real quick. They told me to send it back for a refund, which I did. The PayPal dispute deadline passed, but that was okay, because FourSevens said they would send the refund as soon as they received the light.
And… success! They sent the refund and all was well.
Just kidding. They didn’t, which is why you’re reading this post. FourSevens took my money and my flashlight, and then closed down their entire company. My time has been wasted in an extremely pure and thorough way.
No, PayPal automatically closes the dispute after a certain amount of time. I had to choose between escalating it so that PayPal themselves would decide the outcome, or letting FourSevens do their thing. FourSevens was the logical choice at the time since (I thought) they were a capable company—the PayPal dispute was initially to get their attention. If I had known they were going to shut down, I would have zapped them with the escalation.
Your right, paypal gives the seller a week or so to respond and if they don’t, gives you the choice of closing the dispute, or escalating it to a claim.
Sometimes places like gearbest or banggood will ask you to close the dispute and they will refund, which you should never do. Paypal will automatically close it when the refund arrives. If they don’t refund, paypal freezes their account until they do. If they get too many claims like that, paypal settles all their claims, and shuts their account down. And they know it, which is why they always settle at the dispute level.
I’m about to file one with gearbest right now. I ordered a light going on 6 weeks ago, paid for expedited shipping and tracking number which they didn’t give me. If it arrives before going to claim, I will cancel it. If not, they will have to refund. If it arrives after the refund, I will reimburse them the full amount.