Paypal, Klarna buyer protection vs credit/debit card chargeback, which is best?

madbilly

Hi everyone,

I couldn't find definitive advice on the MSE website nor any existing forum threads which answer this, so please excuse me if they're there, I guess search engines aren't what they used to be.

I know about S75 protection for purchases on credit cards over £100 (and below £30k?). This question is not about that.

This is about purchases for £100 and less. Is chargeback from credit/debit card better or worse than Paypal or Klarna buyer protection? I've got no experience of claiming on either, though I've used Ebay's form of buyer protection a few times in the past with positive experiences. Do Paypal, Klarna work the same as Ebay? What about directly with banks? 

Cheers

born_again

PayPal has a 180 day dispute period.
As a rule Debit/Credit cards are 120 days. (max 540 days from debit date for future dated purchases such as holidays etc)
No idea on klarna. 

Chargebacks also cover larger amounts, so S75 is not the cover all ins policy many think it is.

MyRealNameToo

madbilly said:

This is about purchases for £100 and less. Is chargeback from credit/debit card better or worse than Paypal or Klarna buyer protection? I've got no experience of claiming on either, though I've used Ebay's form of buyer protection a few times in the past with positive experiences. Do Paypal, Klarna work the same as Ebay? What about directly with banks? 

They are simply different (never dealt with klarna). All are relatively simple short term protections and relatively crude. 

You could probably argue based on personal priorities that some may be better, for example Chargeback won't cover something that was fine on the day it was delivered but broke 5 days later (in principle anyway as known cases where it has but that may be because full details weren't disclosed) where as I believe PayPal would. I'm sure there are likely to be some areas where chargebacks are better/easier than PayPal. 

madbilly

Hi everyone,

Thank you for the answers. It seems that even if paying with Paypal, for example, if there's a problem an claiming with Paypal isn't successful, it's still possible to try with chargeback so long as the deadline has not passed, so it might make sense to use Paypal for purchases below £100 from the purchase protection point of view.

Cheers

MyRealNameToo

madbilly said:

Thank you for the answers. It seems that even if paying with Paypal, for example, if there's a problem an claiming with Paypal isn't successful, it's still possible to try with chargeback so long as the deadline has not passed, so it might make sense to use Paypal for purchases below £100 from the purchase protection point of view.

You will just need to keep track of PayPal's policies... historically if you did a chargeback when you had an account you simply put your own account into a negative balance and they'd start debt collection against you. These days they claim back the money from the person you paid so it does work. That isnt to say the policy won't change again in the future