Has anyone won a PayPal dispute witha merchant?
 

Here is the situation. Early last month I bought a cell phone off of ebay to replace a damaged phone. Interestingly enough it was the salesperson at Verizon that recommended going the ebay route for a replacement phone. I bought it off a seemingly reputable vendor who had only 10 negative feedbacks amongst over 1400 positive feedbacks in the past year. I looked at most of the negative feedback before I bought, and a lot of them seemed to be from whiny customers, only 1 or 2 seemed like actual problems. I felt fairly confident that even though this was my first ebay purchase it would go smoothly.

When I got the phone it was a different story. Took it to Verizon for programming and it didn't work. I emailed the seller who advised me to return it and he would exchange it. A week after shipping the package Priority Mail and no response from the seller, I get to the point where I need a working phone right now, and bite the bullet and buy a new one from Verizon. I email the seller that night requesting a refund minus the shipping fees I had originally paid. After yet another week with no response left negative feedback for the seller, citing their failure to reply to emails, and the defective product. A few days later the seller hits me with negative feedback stating outright that I never emailed him, and insinuating that the problem was that I was a new ebayer who doesn't know what I'm doing or how ebay works. I emailed him again to try to get it corrected and now another week and a half later I still have not heard from the seller. I am running up against the 45 day limit Paypal has for disputing purchases in a few days, and am wondering if anybody has disputed a purchase and if it was worthwhile. On a side note the seller has received 20 negative feedbacks in the last month from other ebayers, many with very high positive feedback scores, most citing the same concerns as me, defective products, and does not reply to emails.
Any advice on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated.

Dispute it now. Attack! This guy is screwing you.

I have won a dispute- if the guy doesn't respond to paypal's emails, then you automatically get the money.

Do it now, or you won't be able to. Don't let this guy screw you over.

Actually, " 10 negative feedbacks amongst over 1400 positive feedbacks" is fairly significant in the world of ebay.
And...yeah, you're getting screwed, in a big way. Especially if you plan on buying and selling on ebay in the future. That negative feedback will weigh heavy. Dispute, dispute, dispute.

That sucks, go the dispute route from what I've read it does work. Good luck!

I've won two disputes on Paypal. One the seller didn't respond within the 10 days and so then they automatically give your money back; the other I had the emails I had sent out and received and with those won the dispute. I actually have another open right now that the seller has one more day to respond to. I think that the only want to get people's attention on eBay is to leave negative feedback and file a claim as soon as possible, otherwise they'll just take advantage of you.

I had a dispute with a seller whom I specifically asked if a camera had any dings. He said it didn't.

When it arrived, it had dings. I don't like using Paypal, so I went through the eBay dispute resolution. It took three months and a lot of paperwork, but I got my money back, minus the $25 eBay charges for the procedure.

I'd be interested to hear as many Paypal experiences as possible. Right now, I ordered a pair of jeans on eBay for my daughter. When they arrived, they appeared to be an "irregular cut." In other words, they didn't fit like the same brand of pants she had tried on in the store.

The seller had requested a cashier's check because "Paypal messed up her account." Now I'm suspicious.

Any advice?

Thanks for the replies. I just filed the dispute, hopefully sometime in the next couple weeks I will be getting some money back. I guess I just needed to hear from some people that this isn't a waste of time, or that the process isn't inherently geared against buyers.
BOR, at the time of purchase I thought 10 out of 1400 was pretty good. Since then I have seen numerous ebayers with over 5000 positive feedbacks and zero negative feedback, and virtually no ebayers with more than 2 or 3 negative feedbacks I am realizing that the seller I bought from doesnt have such a good reputation.

where does this guy live?

I've won a Paypal dispute. I won an accounting textbook on eBay in July, and after a few weeks, it didn't arrive and the seller wouldn't respond to any of my e-mails. I even went as far looking his name up on a White Pages site, but the number turned out to be his grandma's. After that, I reported him to Paypal for non-delivery, and if he didn't reply within 10 days, I would get my money back. He decided to reply, and refunded me the money manually before Paypal would do it for him.

That was the only negative feedback I've left, out of 75 transactions.

Just following up now, the seller did not respond to the Paypal complaint, much like they did not respond to my earlier emails. So I got my money back, although I made another newbie mistake, I had indicated on the Paypal complaint that I would be satisfied with a partial refund (the cost of the item won, minus shipping and insurance fees) instead of getting the full amount back. So I screwed myself out of twenty bucks by not saying I would be satisfied with nothing less than a total refund.

Here is where it gets interesting though. After I filed the Paypal complaint the buyer shipped me another phone. This one appears to be in working condition, a little dinged up but functional. If he had emailed me and sent me the phone in a timelier manner, like 27 days earlier than he did, this whole mess with negative feedback and Paypal disputes never would have occured. Now what do I do with this phone? I already purchased and activated another phone, and that phone can't be returned now, since it could only be returned within 14 days of purchase. So I can't use this phone the seller sent me. Do I return the phone to the seller, since I have my money back? Do I sell the phone on ebay to recoup my losses from the twenty bucks the seller got to keep and the eight bucks I spent shipping the original defective phone back?

I won a dispute but by the time paypal got it all said and done, the account the guy had set up for paypal didnt have the full amount to refund me. I ended up getting 2/3rds back, so I guess you could say that I won.

Hopefully you get yours cleared up, some people..

Since they didn't respond to any of your e-mails, I'm assuming that they didn't request that you send the the phone back, so I'd say it's yours to do with as you wish. However, if you do try and resell it on ebay, you should be upfront about it's non-functionality, and in doing so it probably won't sell for enough for you to recoup your losses.

Also, in case you didn't know, you can respond to feedbacks. So I would respond to the negative feedback that he left you stating that paypal refunded your money, indicating that the negative feedback was unwarranted and false.

What you decide to do with this windfall phone is up to your own valueset at this point. Regular Ebayers will likely consider keeping or selling the phone as theft, since you received your money back. It's most likely the seller is having a problem with his email or is working with someone else, given the details you've described. Regardless, a spare phone is handy to have around the house.