So:
- Steering rack bought from eBay via seller, whom I have no complaints about and paid with PayPal, opting to use one of my credit cards as the option (for extra protection), which still goes through the PayPal system - but not the PayPal credit.
- Steering rack returned on 6th June direct to Royal Mail sorting office.
- Contacted seller to chase up refund yesterday (12th June) - was told refund was made on 6th June and it takes 5-7 days!
- Checked my CC account online - no refund, only the original payment.
- Sent an email to the seller querying this, had an email this morning from them saying it had been made and goes back to PayPal - which is all they see. But, they also apologised as only £100 had been credited back instead of £150, so would be making another refund today for the £50 and yes another 5-7 days for that to go through.
First, there is no such 'History' tab option at all as quoted - and hunting about under the transactions - no refund at all and finally nothing on my PayPal balance!Log in to your account and go to the 'History' subtab of the 'My Account' tab. If the Status of the payment is listed as 'Unclaimed', click the Accept button to reflect this transaction in your balance.
So instead, followed the link in the PayPal email and surprise "this page no longer exists" Getting fed up of this, I opt to contact PayPal as they specifically told me the funds were there.
- Now the fun begins going through the automated help system, I entered the 6 digit reference supplied from their help pages prior to contacting them.
- Now you have to 'speak the reason for calling'. So spent the next 10 minutes swearing at the automated system as none of the options were correct
- Finally said something just to get through to a human being.
- Spent another 15 minutes explaining the fine art of exchange rebates when returning car parts and refunds as she was already confused between the original transaction and the £100 refund I was querying!
- Finally, after another 10 minutes of delving she located the reference, only to tell me that this would go back to my original card payment method (my credit card) and would take 5-7 days!
- So 7 days from seller to PayPay and another 7 days from PayPal to my Credit Card company - ridiculous.
- So exhausted at this point I decided to have a rant about how they should change their standard templates to include up to date information / options when referring to the online account - and maybe that would stop irate people ringing up on that front
So beware of anything like this using ebay where you have to use PayPal (even when using a credit card) where a refund / rebate is likely.
Faster payments system my ar*e. It's all about hanging to your money as long as they can - better in their pockets than yours.
In future, when I'm on steering rack number 4 I will have to source a company outside of the bay of evil where you can just use a Credit Card and be done with it, as I'm not going through that heap of hooey again. Rant over.