Buyer Beware: Target and PayPal. No cash refund if you pay with PayPal

Yesterday I stopped into my local Target to do a return of a Webster top I ordered from Target.com using my PayPal account.  What a debacle.  I wish I’d read Consumerist before I bought anything from Target using my PayPal account.  If case you haven’t read Target’s policies lately, because I haven’t seen them clearly posted on Target’s website, Target accepts cash from consumers via PayPal on their website, however, they won’t refund in cash if you return the item you bought using PayPal.  That’s right.  Instead of a cash refund, or credit back to your account, you get a Target gift card.  Yesterday, I discovered the full horror of this consumer nightmare.  I received a gift card at Target when I returned the item, then I went to buy some groceries thinking I could apply my new gift card to my purchase.  Wrong.  When the Target clerk tried to apply the gift card to my purchase, it showed that there was NO balance on the card, even though I had received it just 10 minutes before at the store.  The clerk then asked me for the gift card receipt, which I produced. The clerk scanned the receipt, and again, the computer did not recognize the scan.

Pictured: PayPal as a payment option on Target.com is placed higher than credit card payment options at checkout

What followed was one of the biggest wastes of my time at a retail store that I have ever experienced.  The manager of the store was called.   She could not do anything with the gift card.  She had to call a Target customer service number on the back of the gift card to try to get Target corporate to restore the card.  It took 15 minutes of back and forth on the phone.  Needless to stay, I wasn’t very happy with Target.  The store manager even asked me, “Why didn’t you buy with a credit card?” Well, if I ever order from Target’s dodgy website again, I will use a credit card.  I told her, “I used Paypal because it’s one of the options your website provides.  It’s not my fault that I chose that and that you can’t give me a refund because I chose it from the payment options provided.”  Look at the screen shot from Target.com above, you can see PayPal is prominently placed on the checkout screen as a payment option.  It’s place higher on the page, than paying with a credit card!

Bottom line, buyer beware.  I finally got the missing cash amount restored to my gift card, but it took a long time and I left Target in disgust. Word to Target, don’t offer PayPal as a payment options if you can’t offer a refund to consumers like you would with any other payment method.