Paypal Customer Support - Incompetence personified...

Four emails later to what Paypal laughingly calls Customer Support, and I'm admitting defeat.  Even though four(4) different people replied to my queries (List Of Shame: Ja, Surendren, Barani and Praveen) not one of these idiots could/would answer my question.  In addition to my naming-and-shaming of the individuals involved, I'm also including our communications below.

To summarise briefly, I contacted Paypal to find out how I would go about returning monies to Ebay Sellers that had previously Refunded (via Paypal) the same amounts(s) for orders that had failed to arrive - see previous post for details.  Prior to this, I had contacted Ebay's Customer Support and had been told;

xxxxx, the easier way for you to pay the item you received is find the transaction in your PayPal account, look for seller's email and click to "send money" to it.

 
Made sense.  So I contacted Paypal;

Hello. Although my question is about Refunds, Paypal's limited number of topic/sub-topic selections means I have to try and get my question answered this way. Simple problem, I have been Refunded money by a Chinese Ebay Seller because the order failed to arrive in a timely manner. Said order has since arrived and I am trying to return the refunded money to the Seller. The Paypal Refund information for this Seller lists his name (in Chinese characters (胥家良), plus his Ebay username (best-buy365) - THERE IS NO EMAIL ADDRESS LISTED!!! When I try to 'Send'money to the Seller, using 胥家良 or best-buy365, Paypal complains, saying it's an invalid name, and to enter a valid email address. How do I send money to a person when there is no email address listed in the Paypal Refund information? Or where do I find a users email address from their username?

Paypal Idiot No. 1's response;

Thank you for contacting PayPal Customer Support regarding your concern. I know this is important.

We’ve looked but are having trouble locating the specific transaction tied to your message. Can you help us out so we can provide a fast answer to your question? We look forward to helping you.

In most cases, any or all of the following information will help us identify the payment:

    Transaction date and amount
    Transaction ID number
    email address of the other party in the transaction
    eBay auction ID (if applicable)

We look forward to hear it from you.

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Yours sincerely,
Ja
PayPal

My response included the ask-for Transaction ID number;

Hello, that was a fast response!

The transaction ID in question is 08F9511676205873U.  At least that's the main part of it - the Seller refunded in 2 parts for the same order ($26.96 and $1.46) - total $28.42.

And that's where it gets complicated!  Some Ebay Sellers provide separate refunds for each item ordered.  I don't know if you can access my Paypal Activity details, but it's presently a mess with Refund transactions from multiple Chinese Sellers.  I ordered en-masse via Ebay in November/December, and presently only about half of the stuff I ordered has arrived.  Multiple Chinese Sellers have already promptly Refunded my money when I put in a claim.  But when/if a order finally turns up, I'd would like to repay the Seller in question.

And this is proving to be a problem.  Why is there not a clickable button from a Refund transaction that will allow the Buyer to painlessly return payments?  There is not even the Seller's email address available - the very thing that Paypal is demanding in order to 'Send' money.  This makes little sense.

I hope you can provide an explanation/solution.

 Paypal Idiot No. 2's response, ignoring entirely everything I had written;

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

Although PayPal and eBay are closely linked, we are separate companies and we don't have access to eBay's systems.

You can contact eBay Customer Support by email, live chat, or phone. Please visit www.ebay.co.uk for further information.



Sincerely,
Surendren
PayPal Protection Services

Annoyed by this senseless reply, I shot off the following;

What a pointless response, that is nothing short of insulting!

You (Paypal) asked me for the Refund transaction number of the Seller I am having problems with, which I gave - again, its;

08F9511676205873U

I realise that Ebay and Paypal are separate companies - that has noting to do with my query. I am talking solely about Paypal's site-interaction here.

So let me be specific, to which I require a specific answer.

For Paypal user 胥家良,

(3 Chinese characters, copied from the Refund Transaction's 'Seller info' in case it's being 'filtered-out' in the Sent email and you don't see it),

the Seller who Refunded my money, how do I get a valid Paypal email address?  This I need in order to return to him the money he refunded.

How difficult can it be to provide this simple piece of information?

Paypal Idiot No. 3, also ignoring everything I had written, asks again for the same Transaction ID number, which I had already given twice;

Kindly provide the transaction id which is related to purchase of the item.

Yours sincerely,
Barani
PayPal

 I respond with a two-liner;

I have twice already (2 times!) supplied the transaction ID - so here it is agian for a third time;

Transaction ID: 08F9511676205873U

Paypal Idiot No. 4's response;

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

Although PayPal and eBay are closely linked, we are separate companies and we don't have access to eBay's systems.

You can contact eBay Customer Support by email, live chat, or phone. Please visit www.ebay.co.uk for further information.



You can contact eBay Customer Service by email or phone.

Here's how to contact eBay Customer Service:

    Go to http://www.ebay.com/ and log in to your account.
    Click Customer Support near the top of the page.
    Click the Contact eBay tab.
    Choose a topic that most closely relates to your issue.

eBay will provide an answer and, if applicable, further contact options by email or phone.

Sincerely,
Praveen

And Paypal's Customer Support is back to passing the buck to Ebay, despite the fact that in my very first post I explain that I had first contacted Ebay and they had told me to contact Paypal.

Is this seriously what passes as acceptable Customer Support in the eyes of Paypal - either ignoring the query entirely, or fobbing Paypal users off with irrelevant generic Cut & Paste answers?

It's a disgrace.  Shame on you Paypal.

Edit1:

Seen as Paypal's Customer Support was a no-hoper, I contacted Ebay's Customer Support instead, in a final cry for help.

As another order, placed on December 17, 2017 had arrived, I set about repaying what had been refunded to me via the 're-order-items-to-repay' route - only to discover that this Seller had 'blacklisted' me!  I can neither order items from his Ebay store or contact him by email.  So the only option available to me was to ask Ebay to contact the Seller to my behalf and aprise him of the situation in order that I could repay him;

Hello.  I could get no satisfaction from Paypal's Customer Support -http://omelettesbitsandbobs.blogspot.ie/2018/03/paypal-customer-support-incompetence.html.

I am hoping you can help on a related matter though.  A delayed order from another Ebay Seller (start-supership) that refunded me money has arrived, and I wish to return the money to him.  Unfortunately, this Seller has apparently 'blacklisted' me, as when I try to repay him by re-ordering the items from his shop, I am told that the Seller refuses to sell to Buyers that fail to "meet his requirements."  Plus, when I try to email him via Ebay, I am informed that the Seller is unable to answer my questions - so I have no means of contacting him!

Would you contact him on my behalf and tell him I wish to return the money that he refunded me?

Thanks.

Here is the response I got from Ebay;

xxxxx, I understand that you are a little confused and concerned on how you can repay the seller for the item you wanted. . I am a buyer myself and I have had experiences of having difficulties buying an item. Based on the information when I try to checked your account actually it indicate that the seller may have set up something in their listing that is blocking you from purchasing these items. I would just like to let you know that an eBay seller can set up in their listing and block certain buyers according to their requirements. We offer a number of ways for sellers to prevent and handle problems that may arise during transactions. What I can suggest is to find similar item that you can purchased since you cannot purchased the item again with the seller (start-supership).

I hope this information is helpful. Please let us know if you have other concern.

Thanks for choosing eBay , we value your business. You have a great day!

Yours truly,

Jay O.
eBay Customer service

 This dullard first implies that they understand my query, then "suggest" as a solution that I purchase similar items from a different Seller!  Items that I am already in possession of - WTF!!!!!  I'm getting the sense when dealing with Ebay/Paypal Customer Support, that I'm not dealing with real, thinking people, but some bewildering type of first generation AI that these clowns are trying to pass off as the real-deal.   How else can someone seem so clueless?!?!?

I'm appalled at what Ebay & Paypal offer by way of Customer Support.  It's truly a disgrace.