When the Internet was still a green place full of unknowns, PayPal was one factor that encouraged people to buy online with some confidence and security. It is still the same. This is mainly due to one of the most important PayPal policies. That is, if you have any problem with your purchase, you can open a dispute and request a refund of your money.
From here, PayPal analyzes your case and returns the money almost with total security if your request is justified. Here, PayPal has always looked after the interests of its users. That is one of the great keys to its success.
How to get your PayPal refund
To process a request for a PayPal refund, you must have a clear problem with the seller or the product you’ve bought, either:
- The product is damaged.
- The product is in a different color.
- What has arrived at your home does not match the description of the product.
- The product does not work.
- You have not received the product.
- Etc.
If you believe that the seller has acted in bad faith or there has simply been a serious error with the order, if you made the payment with your PayPal account, you will be interested to know that you can recover it (as explained in their so-called “ Buyer Protection Plan ”). Although yes, you will have to have a little patience since it is a process that can take up to 20 days.
A tip: do not make payments “as a friend”
The only condition to request a refund through the Buyer Protection plan is that we have made a purchase. At first glance, it may seem redundant, but what we mean by this is that if the seller has asked you to make the payment by sending the money “as a friend” (a type of payment that we can make from the platform options) PayPal it does not treat such transfers as purchases, and therefore cannot adhere to the Buyer Protection plan.
If you send money as friends and the other person accepts the payment, there is no way to get it back. Unless, of course, the other person is willing to pay you back. If a seller asks you to pay him in this way, never accept his proposition. It is most likely a scam. Even if it is not, you will not have the right to claim anything if you have any problem.
Conditions to access the PayPal Buyer Protection Plan
When you review the conditions of use of PayPal, you see that certain purchases are not contemplated within the Buyer Protection plan. This can be the case when purchasing real estate, certain types of vehicles, gift cards, and donations.
In addition to this, if you notice that at any time an unauthorized transaction has taken place (that is, that someone has withdrawn money from our account without our knowledge or permission), you must contact PayPal as soon as possible through their Customer Service.
How to request a PayPal refund
Now that we have all the concepts more or less clear, if you want to opt for PayPal Buyer Protection to get your money back, you will have to follow the following steps:
- Make sure your PayPal account has no issue. Otherwise, you will not be able to make the request.
- Check that you paid for the item with your PayPal account. It has to meet the requirements that we have previously mentioned (the product has not arrived, is broken, or is not as indicated in the description, etc.).
- Then try contacting the seller through the PayPal Resolution Center to resolve the issue directly before submitting the claim. This is what is in PayPal they refer to as “a dispute.” You have a maximum of 180 days from the payment date to open a dispute.
- From here, you have 20 days to contact the seller through PayPal. If you do not solve the problem or the seller does not respond, go back to the Resolution Center, click on the dispute you have open, and select ” View -> Upload to PayPal. “ In this way, the dispute will be considered a “claim.”
- From this moment, everything will be in the hands of PayPal. The company will analyze your case. If it decides that the claim is legitimate, you will receive a full refund of your money in your PayPal account.
They can extend the claim for up to 30 days or more, depending on the case’s complexity. It is advisable to enter the Resolution Center to see if there have been any updates. Once PayPal makes a decision, they close your claim. If you disagree with the result, we have a maximum of 10 days to present any objection.
