Does PayPal cover my purchase if there's a problem?

Our Buyer Protection covers all eligible PayPal transactions. 

To avail of our Buyer Protection, we require that your PayPal account is kept in good standing and that you open a dispute within the correct dispute-filing timeframe.

Go to your Resolution Centre and click Report a Problem.

In a dispute, you can exchange messages with the other party in your Resolution Centre to try to solve the problem.

If you’re unable to settle the dispute, you can escalate it to a claim. To escalate a dispute, we often require that at least 7 days have passed since the payment date.

By escalating a dispute to a claim, you’re asking PayPal to investigate and decide the outcome. A dispute will automatically close after 20 days unless it’s been escalated. Closed disputes cannot be reopened or escalated to a claim.

We’ll review the case and decide if you're eligible for a refund. If we decide the claim in your favour, we’ll reimburse you for the full purchase price and original shipping costs.    

Some items aren’t eligible for our Buyer Protection such as: 

  • Motor vehicles 
  • Industrial machinery 
  • Real estate 
  • Prepaid cards 
  • Items that violate our policies
  • Friends and Family payments
  • Pending authorisations
  • Money requests or invoice requests that have not been paid by customers
  • Significantly Not as Described claims for wholly or partly custom-made items
  • Items intended for resale, including single item transactions or transactions that include multiple items

More ways we can help

If you accept cookies, we'll use them to improve and customise your experience and enable our partners to show you personalised PayPal ads when you visit other sites. Manage cookies and learn more