Ebay seller won't refund payment

[Charlesamo]

Hi everybody, I hope this is the correct forum to put this in:

I bought a PC from somebody on Ebay about a month ago, for £80.00, and paid them by PayPal. The PC arrived and is working fine, however, I had just changed banks and forgotten to update my PayPal account with my new bank's information, and the PayPal payment I had sent to the seller had been refused by PayPal, as the bank transfer from my bank to my PayPal account had failed, as it was trying to take money from my old bank account, not my new one.

 

Both I and the seller received e-mails to this effect, and I contacted them to tell them that I would pay the necessary money into my PayPal account, from my new bank account, and set this up, but told them that it would take up to seven days to get to my PayPal account, according to PayPal.

 

The seller then said that he desperately needed the money as his PayPal account was now down by £80.00 as the payment that had gone in, had then been frozen by PayPal, and removed temporarily from his account.

I said that I would pay him by bank transfer, if he would refund the PayPal payment as soon as it went into his account, which he agreed to do.

The bank transfer went into his bank account on the same day, and he then says that he paid the bank transfer into his PayPal account, as he had had a balance of -£80.00, due to the frozen payment.

 

He claims that his account balance was £80.00, but changed to -£80.00 when the payment was frozen. Obviously this is incorrect, as it should have gone down to zero, not -£80.00.

 

I telephone PayPal to find out whether my payment had actually left my PayPal account and gone into his account, because according to my PayPal statement, it definitely had. They confirmed this for me, three times (three separate long phone calls), that the payment had gone from my account into the seller's.

 

I contacted the seller again and told him this, and asked him to refund my Paypal payment as agreed. He insisted that the money hadn't gone into his account, and that his account had gone from £80.00 to -£80.00, and that he couldn't refund the money as he 'didn't have it' in his PayPal account.

 

This has been going on for five weeks. I am under the impression that the seller doesn't actually understand what he is looking at on his PayPal statements, going by what he has said to me, and also by the questions I ask, which he ignores and never answers.

 

I have finally had enough and told him that I am going to have to take him to the small claims court. I have asked him about five times to simply telephone PayPal and ask them to verify that my payment has gone into his account, but every time I ask this, he just ignores it and replies about something else.

 

Bearing in mind that this has already cost me about £10 in phone bills, and will now waste a huge amount of my time, plus that of the small claims court, is there a better way for me to resolve this? The seller claims that he has a 'legal team' (which I strongly doubt) and has been saying for the past month that he will get his alleged 'legal team' to 'sort things out with PayPal', which he hasn't done in the slightest. I have asked him to get his 'legal team' to contact me, so I can ask them to look at his PayPal statement, as I am sure the payment will clearly be on there. He now says that 'since this is a legal matter' he can no longer communicate with me, and will leave it up to his 'legal team'.

 

Is it possible for me to claim compensation for wasted time, as the seller clearly has refused to do even the most basic thing, to sort this out? (i.e. he won't telephone PayPal and ask them to confirm that the payment has reached him, and he won't send me a redacted screenshot of his PayPal statement, even though I've sent him one of mine, for the payments and time period concerned).

 

I am at my wit's end over this, such a huge waste of time because I did a favour for somebody by paying them the bank transfer, to try to help them out.

[dx100uk]

how was the first payment made [ or do you use a card to fund you paypal account at all?

 

dx

[Charlesamo]

Hi, the first payment was made from my PayPal account - I had about half the amount in my PayPal account at the time, and the other half was taken by automatic bank transfer, into my PayPal account, or at least, it attempted to, but the bank said the transfer had failed, five days later (of course - why the banks can't tell PayPal immediately is beyond me).

[perplexity]

I am at my wit's end over this, such a huge waste of time because I did a favour for somebody by paying them the bank transfer, to try to help them out.

 

 

Really?

 

According to your own account, you made a mistake.

 

It is the seller's right, to be paid, not a favour.

 

I am not so surprised if the seller would rather not be bothered, in view of such an attitude.

 

I feel the same.