Items returned - no refund, PayPal dispute rejected

elmothebrave

I could really use some help with this issue I've been trying to sort for months.
I ordered some football shirts from a website 'UK Soccer Shop' way back in June/July, which sold fan-designed replicas of shirts, website appeared to be American, a long with long shipping so assumed this was the case.
Bought £75 worth of product, waiting a couple months for it to be delivered. Items were of really bad quality, so I enquired about a refund. Company said I could have one, and gave me an address (USA) to return the items to. I paid about £15 in tracked international shipping, so I know it arrived at the address in September.
After about 3 weeks, no refund had arrived, so I checked PayPal to see what their advice was. On PayPal help section it said to always contact the company first, so I emailed company to ask where it was, and they said they were looking into it. They never got back to me on where the refund was, despite me asking every couple of weeks.
In November I submitted a dispute to PayPal (again it said to contact company but I figured 3 months of trying was sufficient!). PayPal messaged to say the company would give me a refund, if I returned the items to an address which was different to the one the company had given me, a UK one which I would have preferred in the first place. I noted all this in my dispute, gave tracking number showing that the parcel I had sent was in fact delivered, along with the email they sent with the US address. PayPal rejected my dispute as I gave invalid tracking information.
I couldn't believe this, so rang PayPal to find out what was going on. The woman on the phone said because I had contacted the company outside of PayPal, I was no longer protected by them. However, there is no option to talk to the company through PayPal unless you do a dispute, and even then you're not talking to the company. I explained that I had followed the advice on the PayPal help pages, including contacting the email address the PayPal site told me to contact!
I'm super annoyed about this whole situation, and find it frankly unbelievable. I have done a lot of research into the company, who appear to run multiple websites, have multiple emails, and no specific address. Their website says their returns address must be requested as it changes (which seems odd to me but I don't know anything about that).
PayPal's view is now that 'all' I have to do is ask my bank, despite me trying to get this refund for 8-ish months now. I don't really know what to do, I don't know if I have a right to be annoyed or whether I've got all this wrong. Any advice?

liggerz87

How did you pay through bank card to PayPal I'd speak to bank giving all the evidence you have 

powerful_Rogue

liggerz87 said:

How did you pay through bank card to PayPal I'd speak to bank giving all the evidence you have 

Bank is very unlikey to be of any use.

elmothebrave

powerful_Rogue said:

liggerz87 said:

How did you pay through bank card to PayPal I'd speak to bank giving all the evidence you have 

Bank is very unlikey to be of any use.

Another issue is that I have changed banks since then!
I did speak to the bank, who in all fairness were more helpful, but I would have to go in to a branch which I can't do right now. 
I'm just not sure whether this is reasonable thing for PayPal to do?

Sandtree

Assuming you paid PayPal account to PayPal account then the problem with a chargeback etc is that it just takes the money out of your PayPal account leaving you with a negative balance and they pursue you for the debt - if you paid without being logged in then it takes it from the merchants account. 

EmmyLou30

It's a serious flaw with PayPal that they do no checks on businesses to ensure the address for returns is the same address they are registered to PayPal with. I had a return I sent to Pandora, UK address obviously, they acknowledged the return by email and then I waited for the refund.....and waited......and waited. After repeated calls I started a PayPal dispute and it was concluded that because I hadn't sent the item back to the address Pandora used for PayPal (somewhere abroad) PayPal washed their hands of it. So I got no protection at all, just like you. Eventually I got the refund when I threatened to take Pandora through the small claims process.

I think your only recourse at this point is to keep pestering the business, PayPal and your bank will be of no help. 

elmothebrave

EmmyLou30 said:

It's a serious flaw with PayPal that they do no checks on businesses to ensure the address for returns is the same address they are registered to PayPal with. I had a return I sent to Pandora, UK address obviously, they acknowledged the return by email and then I waited for the refund.....and waited......and waited. After repeated calls I started a PayPal dispute and it was concluded that because I hadn't sent the item back to the address Pandora used for PayPal (somewhere abroad) PayPal washed their hands of it. So I got no protection at all, just like you. Eventually I got the refund when I threatened to take Pandora through the small claims process.

I think your only recourse at this point is to keep pestering the business, PayPal and your bank will be of no help. 

Thank you for this advice - have rang financial ombudsman today if still no action then small claims I suppose. I complained to PayPal about the lack of regulation on their end and they seem to think it's my fault! I feel like most people use PayPal as they think there is protection there, but clearly that's wrong...

EmmyLou30

I complained to PayPal as well trying to get them to see that I had already sent the item back to where the company had told me and also attached proof it had arrived and they'd acknowledged receipt of the return, I'd done everything right - PayPal said still not good enough! I asked how I would possibly know I would need to raise a dispute until I needed to raise a dispute, or how I could know PayPal allowed them to use a foreign addresses for UK company. They didn't care. I hope you manage to get somewhere with it. It certainly deterred me from using them again.