ebay and pay pal not protecting buyers from fraud

*growler

i purchased a wedding dress in january off e bay from hong kong. ive been in constant e mail contact with regards item and as was being custom made and for the biggest day of my life expexcted to have to wait for the item it arrived 5 months later and was a cheap immation of picture and seller will not adher to her refund policy of if not happy return in 7 days for refund she refuses to give address to return and will not refund. i tried to open a dispute with e bay and pay pal but they wont as they say there policy is 45 days from paying for item.how you can be in dispute whilst waiting for an item i dont understand! i explained that i didnt think it unfair to have to wait for something thats being custom made. obviously a loop hole that is being used to scam people! e bay told me i needed to get in touch with trading standards. they are not intrested. pay pal tell me to claim with e bay. im being ran round in circles and no one seems to be bothered that this seller is selling items that are not as pictured nor keeping to her refund policy! she clearly is a con. i dont want others to have whats happpened to me nor do i want her to get away with it. and i would like someone to be held responsible and refund me can anyone help? or offer advice??

soolin

Unfortunately the 45 day time frame to make a paypal claim is fairly well advertised. You don't even say that you weren't aware of it.

You can only be conned if you allow yourself to be conned, and I'm really sorry but i think that is what has happened here. On the wedding dress trhead on the celebrations board there are lots of brides who buy from the Far East, however, I'm not sure how many would be prepared to wait for months.

cyberbob

How is it ebays fault that you didn't understand ebay and paypals dispute policy? its clearly stated tha amount of time you can put a dispute in.

I'm sorry that this has put a dampener on your wedding preparations but you have to take some personal responsibility. Buying a dress over the internet for the biggest day of your life is risky but buying one over the internet from another country (where you have no legal recourse) is i'm afraid is ..........

squack

my former fiancee (now wife) bought one of these.. she was really pleased with it and looked gorgeous on the big day although it did take months to arrive

xanthe

Sorry to hear about your dress. I understand how you want to save as much as money as possible because weddings cost a fortune!

I bought one custom made from China. I paid extra for express delivery and luckily had no problems with it. The dress wasn't 100% perfect but it was well worth the price I paid imo.

SugarSpun

If you still have the packaging there should be a return address on it, it's a requirement for international shipping.

I'm sorry your dress is disappointing, I got mine from China and it was perfect. But then I think if you've your heart set on a designer dress then the changes the Asian dress sellers have to make to avoid copyright infringement make a huge difference.

Why not organise a fun day post-wedding for a burn the dress type photo shoot (lots of photography students would jump at the opportunity) and look out for a replacement dress that is gorgeous and that you love?

*growler

thanks for your reply thats the other thing that there was no return address only the name of company as she advertises on e bay which obviuosly screams she is a con. not to worry if something is going to go wrong its gonna be me it happens to! we live and learn. its just annoying that e bay dont do anything about these sellers.id be happy if she was removed so she carnt con anyone else but thats how things are these days the wrong people are protected!

*growler

it must be super to know everything !. some of us have trust and sometimes its abused. until you get into a situation you are often unaware of all the ins and outs. im well aware now. i didnt say it was e bays fault i said that there were flaws which allowed this kind of stuff to happen which e bay has no intrest in trying to stamp out. the seller is clearly fraudulant all round.

*growler

soolin wrote: »

Unfortunately the 45 day time frame to make a paypal claim is fairly well advertised. You don't even say that you weren't aware of it.

You can only be conned if you allow yourself to be conned, and I'm really sorry but i think that is what has happened here. On the wedding dress trhead on the celebrations board there are lots of brides who buy from the Far East, however, I'm not sure how many would be prepared to wait for months.

unfortunatley i didnt until i spent hours negotiating e bays site. then i still think it should be from when you recieve the item. in fairness to her it did arrive but she obviously knows what she is up to and the loop holes that she can get away with. im more mad that e bay dont do anything with these "con" people. it only allows her to keep conning more people

DaveAshton

Call me naive if you like (bloke + wedding dress = ????) but why's it take 5 months to make?
And more importantly, why didn't you open an Item not Received claim when it hadn't turned up within a month of you buying it?

I'm not having a go, just pointing out ebay and Paypal can't protect you if they don't know you need their protection.

soolin

*growler wrote: »

unfortunatley i didnt until i spent hours negotiating e bays site. then i still think it should be from when you recieve the item. in fairness to her it did arrive but she obviously knows what she is up to and the loop holes that she can get away with. im more mad that e bay dont do anything with these "con" people. it only allows her to keep conning more people

They do have policies in place to stop this, but it relies on buyers actually caring enough to see how they are protected. If you had looked at protecting yourself you could have avoided this.

The site could not function with a completely open ended refund or complaints system. No sale would ever be final and I'm sure sellers woudl walk if buyers had an unlimited time in which to decide they were not happy.