I'm bumping this thread as I am happy to announce the dispute I had opened with DiecastEnvy.com has been fully resolved just now.
First and foremost: Don't buy from DiecastEnvy.com. If you already knew about what they're known for, good for you. Go to bed. For every other collector, don't be tempted by their prices like I was.
I do have a full story logged somewhere else on the internet, but here's the Executive GTP version:
I bought something from DiecastEnvy. Item looked too good to be true. It was. If you're looking for something that hit shelves about 14 years ago and you cannot find it even on eBay for an eye-gouging price, it's probably safe to say you're not going to find one at a webstore at MSRP. But I was greedy and the impulse was kicking at me. My suspicions grew immensely when the Paypal email I was about to give my money to contained "Exoto" in its name. I've heard many stories around buying directly from this company. But I went ahead anyway thinking I could have Paypal cover my ass if anything. Telling you right meow, definitely not worth the trouble. Some collectors in this circle really don't have better things to do as they're regulars to this.
After a few days, I check the order status: "Pending". Still???? I looked at the log of activities since the day I purchased: no action taken; nothing sorted out for shipment, nothing! This isn't looking good.
I need to find this guy to cancel my order. Go to the Contact Us page: no information. 🤬 !!!
I tried sending an email to the email address that sent me the order confirmation as well as the one seen in the paypal recipient's email. No responses. Oh my god!
The owner of Exoto Inc, this horsepoop wienersauce has a notorious record of giving people the runaround of not delivering any items, and playing silent for as long as possible. I feel I'm getting the latter treatment.
4 days later, "Screw it" I said. I wanted something actioned immediately. I didn't think this through, went on Paypal and reported that transaction as an unauthorized transaction, playing on the idea that someone jumped on my computer and made a purchase. Since I wasn't getting response from the seller, I figured that I could get away with this (at the time of writing). Paypal recommended I change my password if someone did actually manage to get on my account, and I did just to be consistent. I'd be truly pee'd if if someone really did jump on my computer and buy something, because that claim got denied and closed in 2 days, with them determining that it was not an unauthorized transaction... not even giving a chance for appeal. Shot myself in the foot.
Moving on, I learned that generally with Paypal, once a dispute is closed on a specific transaction, another one cannot be filed. Things get a little more complicated hereon forth. I run into a technical bug that stops me from advancing further in filing a second dispute on this transaction. So now I'm resorting to sending emails to Paypal to look for help on resolving this bug. The auto-email responses point me to a phone number. I call it, I talk to a bot to try and get as far into the dispute procedure as possible. This ends where the bot reports that there was a previous dispute and that nothing can be done from this point on. 🤬, am I screwed? I can't find someone to talk to. I send another email identifying the issue I'd like addressed while fixing up the site bug that's preventing me from taking further steps. I get the exact same email response; "here, take this number, call it, talk to the bot and go from there".
"Screw it" I said. I'll reply directly to auto-generated response asking how to get in touch with a rep, hoping someone will read it and help direct me to the right place. I get a response from a real person, and the response they give is 90%+ identical to the instructions provided in the auto-response. For god sake, did you even read what I wrote? I'm not getting anywhere with this.
I seek guidance from Paypal's community forum. I am hella grateful a forum mod spoke up and provided some guidance on how to break out of the bot's order of direction and speak with a real person. The voice automation barely ever mentions to say "Agent" to speak with someone, but I 'm guessing this is partly done by design. In any case, if this wasn't going to work, getting VISA to step in was my next course of action.
So I finally got on the queue to speak to an agent, identified the transaction, told the guy the real story hoping he won't turn it down and close the door on me. It gets acknowledged as a case of "Item not received" rather than an "Unauthorized payment", he explains the next steps from all parties; he (Paypal) will reach out to the seller to push them to ship out the item (I actually made it clear to him that I actually want to cancel it entirely which he later corrects himself). If no response is received in 10 days, they will revoke his fundings and reimburse me. The way he was trying to reassure me of the situation really wasn't helping, but maybe that's part of me who's been naive for so long that I conditioned myself to doubt as much as I can. His choice of wording in explaining made him sound simple-minded, using "we" like he and I have this in the bag already.
Anyway, without much left that I can ask to reassure myself that this phone call wasn't meaningless, I get off the phone. I receive the email with the case number as he explained detailing the claim of the re-opened dispute.
In a matter of minutes, the status of my order on the website is refunded. I check my paypal, and the purchase is refunded in full.
You would think he was too busy to be able to respond to customer emails in a 24-hour turnaround time, but he responded to Paypal pretty damn quick. So I got my money back, that's the most important part of this ordeal. Hope that guy suffers excruciating pain.
Moral of the story is: Check websites thoroughly for legitimacy before shopping. Ask questions to test if there's anyone who monitors the site. If there's no contact info, probably best to avoid.
Edit: Proofreading applied.