Problem Solved: I didn’t buy a pricey watch with PayPal. Can I get my money back?

By Christopher Elliot Dilemma Solved Q Someone made an unauthorized purchase of using my PayPal email address I have filed insists three times and the first two times they claimed this transaction was consistent with previous activity The third time the customer provision agent mentioned they would escalate this but I never saw confirmation that a new claim was filed PayPal refuses to acknowledge that this purchase was fraudulent But it was Someone bought something on the Tag Heuer website and shipped it to Glendale Ariz I live in San Jose and have never been to Arizona I ve been delinquent on my mortgage payment this month because this was such a large amount I just want my money back Can you help me Hank Hu San Jose A PayPal should have removed the charge the moment you flagged it The company promises to monitor every transaction to prevent fraud email phishing and identity theft according to the company Surely buying a luxury watch on the Tag Heuer site and having it sent to an out-of-state address would have raised a few red flags Maybe maybe not Look for all PayPal knows you might have sent a new watch to a special someone in Glendale The artificial intelligence PayPal uses to flag potentially fraudulent purchases can t read your mind at least not yet But still it might have given you a heads-up that it was problematic I reviewed the paper trail of correspondence between you and PayPal The company has the audacity to claim this purchase was consistent with previous activity I haven t reviewed your previous activity but I m skeptical that you were buying luxury watches from Tag Heuer if you re struggling to pay your mortgage It looks like you were stuck in an endless loop with PayPal It s hard to know where AI ended and a human agent began working on your development But at specific point someone who appeared to be human acknowledged that you had a development under PayPal s Buyer Fraud Protection guarantee and offered to escalate your dispute That person may have handed it off to an AI again where it languished I publish the names numbers and email addresses of the PayPal customer utility executives on my consumer advocacy site Elliott org A brief polite email to one of them might have gotten another human involved and led to a resolution of your matter The bigger question is How did someone access your PayPal account and make these charges I would directly change your password to prevent another fraudulent charge You say you have two-factor authentication enabled which makes this event even more baffling And by the way if you ever get an email from PayPal asking you to sign into your account don t follow the link from the email Go directly to the site to sign in I ve almost been fooled by one of the PayPal scams making the rounds and if it almost happened to me it could perhaps happen to anyone I contacted PayPal on your behalf It reviewed your episode this time by a human and agreed that your purchase was not consistent with your previous activity and was covered under its fraud protection guarantee We determined that the transaction was conducted on a third-party website and the provided delivery address was a web gift address a representative recounted you in an email Considering that there have been no previous insists or disputes of abusive behavior we accepted the claim and issued a full refund to you Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy https elliottadvocacy org a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems Email him at chris elliott org or get help by contacting him at https elliottadvocacy org help