I had a non-ebay Paypal transaction go awry with a vendor who has subsequently been festooned on this forum for bad service to most customers, myself included. They refused to respond to any emails after my original order (I had contacted them before the order to make sure the item was in stock and they responded promptly at the same address several times before the sale), which went into "obtaining stock" status the day after I made it (they were obviously lying about their stock status). After four weeks of being ignored and not updated on the status of my order I cancelled it officially online, then contacted Paypal about filing a grievance, which after a couple weeks turned in my favor and I got my refund back through them. I guess the vendor never responded to their requests for information about the transaction either. I had already called my credit card, which Paypal uses to pay off my Paypal purchases, and they told me that if I did not get satisfaction from Paypal to call the credit card customer relations department directly and file a complaint with the credit card company against Paypal, so that they could also investigate it. They had no issues with potentially duking it out with Paypal in order to get me satisfaction in the end. Luckily they did not have to be involved since Paypal did a good job.

Once you get your refund and are satisfied with the outcome of the transaction I would look for opportunities to register a poor rating with the vendor on the many online search engines, as well as here on xmarks so the rest of your kilted brethren (and sisters) can benefit from your knowledge. I would ignore their demands for an apology---they have obviously forgotten the first rule of retail--the customer is always right.

jeff