eBay PayPal I bought a Gibson guitar that cost $2,500 from an unscrupulous ebay seller. The guitar arrived to my home "decapitated", that is, the head of the guitar was separated from its body. The seller would not refund me, neither would eBay. Seller put a damage claim with FedEx, Fedex picked up the guitar from my house on 12/27/13, and said they would refund the seller and the seller would refund me. Ebay closed my case in favor of the seller. The seller has my money, the claim money and I was left without the broken guitar nor money. Ebay and PayPal do not want to issue me a refund, neither does the seller. It seems that I have no other recourse with this sociopathic mechanism.The only reason I did transactions with eBay using pay pal is because they claim "Money Protection Guaranteed". There is no protection. The companies of eBay and PayPal are misleading people, and colluding with crimes commited by sellers. I would appreciate your help in recovering my money. Thank you. www.eBay.com Internet

In this case to get your money back you actually have to "Force the horse to drink". What I mean is, make PayPal cough up the dough by going to your local District court house and filing a small claims and list the seller, eBay Inc, and PayPal on the claim. Take photos of the guitar and bring proof in to the court that you withdrew the money from your bank account to pay for the item on eBay. If the guitar cost X amount, the bank statement should show X amount. Then bring in the guitar or show photos. Show the court the printed pages of eBay's buyer protection guarantee information and you should be able to win the case no problem.

Bring eBay to Small Claims or file a General Civil action for even more. You can file a General Civil for up to $25k (pro-per) which means without a lawyer. Small claims usually $5k or less doesn't requre a lawyer either.

All carriers often get the bad rap for poor packaging. Contact FedEx again with your tracking number. Request a claim report indicating whether the claim was approved or denied. Though the damage was probably due to inferior packaging by the seller (which you should have witnessed when opening the package), if it was approved then you are entitled to a refund. If the claim was denied due to inferior packaging, then request a copy of that standard report to be emailed or faxed to you. Provide that report to Ebay, and they will have no choice but to legally refund your purchase (up to Ebay stated guidelines), and then they will have to take the case up strictly between themselves and the seller.

Hold your temper and language while doing so, and it doesn't hurt to mention the name Amazon when referring to future purchases. Often times that is an invalid threat, as the competition would have had the same results for the same reason. In this case, however, Amazon has been showing a far superior protocol for seller requirements (packaging, in this case) and buyer customer service.