Paypal

Or really known as why I prefer to use Paypal than Credit cards when buying online... This probably only really applies to Singapore or maybe other SEA countries. 

Okay, let me preface this by saying I buy a lot online. In fact, one might say I buy MOST of my entertainment related stuff online. And in general, there have been instances where I've been hit by fraud or by sellers being jackasses in general. *coughbrokeneggs* *coughadvancedeployment* and in general, between my experiences in trying to get the bank to help me do a refund on the purchase amount and trying to get Paypal to do it for me, I infinitely prefer Paypal. 

Let's list out why.

1. Local banks have a 30 day window in which to dispute any transactions. Once this 30 day window is gone, it's gone. Paypal however has a 45 day window to dispute transactions. This is an extra 15 days, which can be important if you remember that you're shipping things from overseas and delivery; let alone production/stock time, can take a week or more. Or even several weeks. 
2. Paypal notifies you whenever you charge any sum to your card. I have yet to see any of my banks do this. 
3. You can file a dispute online in Paypal. Local banks require you to personally go down and sign a form. Just for ease of convenience alone, this wins. 
4. Paypal actually tries to help you get your money back. I don't know if it's just my bank or whatnot *coughstanchartcough* but I found their service pretty lackluster the one time I tried to do a chargeback. They said they would contact me, called me while I was in Germany, hung up once they realised it was an international call and then basically swept the whole thing under the carpet cause they couldn't get me while I was overseas. Thanks, I'm still bitter about that btw. 

Just recently, I had a case where I bought something from qoo10 and it hadn't shipped after 3 weeks. And this was from a LOCAL seller. I tried messaging the seller as well as qoo10 itself but in general, I got no response. Lodged a complaint with paypal since I paid an extra $0.50 for using paypal and suddenly, I was getting a message from the company. 

 

 As Qoo10, we would like to kindly remind you that Qoo10 is not a Seller, nor holding any similar positions representing the seller. However, we do like to help our customers to facilitate their online business experience with Qoo10. In order to facilitate this process, we need more information regarding your claim, and we would be happy to hear your side of the story with a short history of the dispute. We will then contact the seller and be able to advise you on how to proceed with this matter further. Please note that any information provided by you in connection with this claim may be forwarded to the Seller in order to facilitate this process. We appreciate your cooperation in helping resolve this matter and look forward to receiving your reply. Thank you for choosing Qoo10!

Granted, it was a pretty shitty form letter, but at least it got a response. Nonetheless, I told them where they could politely go stuff it and I was waiting for either the item or the charge to be reversed. And suddenly, the next day I had the item. 

In the end, I just honestly prefer how Paypal works when it comes to claim resolution than I do the local banks. Of course this may not apply in Europe or even America since they have much stricter consumer protection laws than we do here in Singapore. So this probably wouldn't apply for people living in those countries.

But if you're in Singapore and you're buying from a vendor you've never used before, then paypal is probably the safer way. However, one thing to note is that you should never cancel your dispute before receiving the product, since once you cancel it, you can never raise a dispute for the same transaction EVER again.