Amex/PayPal/eBay Chargeback?

efunc

Yes of course, and BMW will just sell you a £40k set of wheels. The chassis, engine and electrics are just inconsequential extras they throw in! And airlines are just selling you a cup of tea and a bun. The flight to Malaga? Just an extra.

That's very thin ice. You cannot unpick components of a service and suggest they're not really there. Buyer Protection is a core component of modern financial services, and one of the main reasons many use cc or pp for a transaction. I could have just paid the seller in cash when he dropped off the MacBook, no need for the hassle of PayPal at all. But no, they insist that their service is superior mainly because of the protection they provide. Likewise eBay or Amazon over Gumtree, or Facebook Marketplace. Their oversight and walled gardens are their core selling points.

MattMattMattUK

efunc said:

Yes of course, and BMW will just sell you a £40k set of wheels. The chassis, engine and electrics are just inconsequential extras they throw in! And airlines are just selling you a cup of tea and a bun. The flight to Malaga? Just an extra.

That is a strawman and totally pointless as a comparison.

efunc said:

That's very thin ice. You cannot unpick components of a service and suggest they're not really there.

You can actually, especially when that is specifically how they operate, both legally and within their own terms and conditions.

efunc said:

Buyer Protection is a core component of modern financial services, and one of the main reasons many use cc or pp for a transaction. 

It is why some people use PayPal, being realistic the reason many people use PayPal is inertia, they have used it for years and so continue to do so, paying via PayPal rather than direct with a credit card actually lessens protections rather than enhances them.

efunc said:

I could have just paid the seller in cash when he dropped off the MacBook, no need for the hassle of PayPal at all. 

You could have, you could have paid him in BitCoin, gold sovereigns or even bartered to pay with potatoes, but those are equally pointless and invalid comparisons, just as the suggestion of paying with cash was.

efunc said:

But no, they insist that their service is superior mainly because of the protection they provide. Likewise eBay or Amazon over Gumtree, or Facebook Marketplace. Their oversight and walled gardens are their core selling points.

PayPal offer a service which increases protection of a basic bank transfer, but it is contractual not regulatory and has terms and conditions, one of those is a thirty day limit which they apply very strictly. If you fail to comply with those restrictions then the protection does not apply.

efunc said:

Well it's a bit inaccurate to suggest that PayPal are entirely invisible and 'only pass the money on'. They clearly do more than that and sell their service with a Buyer Protection incentive. If they really take buyer protection seriously then they should at least take the time to look at individual cases and give them consideration. In my case they didn't and closed my claim without asking the seller to provide any counter response or evidence. 

They do look at them if submitted within thirty days, if you fail to meet that condition then they reject it, very simple.

efunc said:

For them to say they only pass money on without a care about whether it's fraudulent or not would be a stretch in our financial and legal system surely?

Not at all, you initiated a payment to someone, entirely of your own volition, you were not forced or coerced.

efunc said:

Amex ar least did take my concerns seriously.

It did not cost Amex anything, they took they money from PayPal.

efunc said:

I understand that I missed the 30 day deadline by two days, but the seller also delayed delivering the laptop to me by two weeks in the first place because he said he was tinkering with it and needed to screw the case back on! PayPal did little to look at the correspondence I supplied to determine when I actually received the MacBook.

That is still not relevant. Under the terms and conditions you have thirty days, you missed the deadline, therefore the buyer protection which is contractual not statutory no longer applies. Your route of recovery is against the seller not the payment processor. 

If you had paid directly using the card you would have had the option of chargeback, which has a 120 day deadline from either when you received the goods or from when you were supposed to and for S75 you have six years. Both are also statutory rather than contractual. 

efunc said:

In any case, if what you say is correct and I'll end up defending this in court I suspect I'll be significantly out of pocket due to the legal costs and with PayPal just citing their T&Cs and moving to a swift judgement. That being the case, are they likely to offer me the opportunity to settle the disputed amount first, before legal proceedings?

In a small claims court which this would go to the legal costs are minimal, but yes it would almost certainly be cheaper and definitely be less hassle to pay before court. They will probably give you one offer to pay in full, likely with some penalty applied, then they will take the legal route. 

efunc

Thanks, I'll consider this when the time comes. Defending the claim is still an option but I'll have to study all the T&Cs carefully before doing so and will obviously be outgunned by expensive suits knocking out 5 of these cases a day.

MattMattMattUK

efunc said:

Thanks, I'll consider this when the time comes. Defending the claim is still an option but I'll have to study all the T&Cs carefully before doing so

The terms and conditions are very clear, thirty days, by all means read them again, but I just cannot see any way that you could win the case and previous posters on here who have experienced the same have found just that. Within the thirty day protection period PayPal process and accept claims, outside of that period they do not.

efunc said:

and will obviously be outgunned by expensive suits knocking out 5 of these cases a day.

It is not a case of being "outgunned", it is a point of law.

I seem to be very emotionally invested in this and seem to be letting that cloud your judgement, for some reason you have chosen to dislike and financially harm the wrong party, PayPal, rather than the seller, who is the party you should have gone after.