I paid someone $300 for work to be done. (that was the downpayment)
he had worked for me in the past, so all seemed fine.
He took the downpayment, and I never heard from him again.
I opened up a dispute at Paypal, and they ruled in my favour!!
Paypal’s message below:
Dear Brian MacKenzie,
We have concluded our investigation into your case and have decided in your favor.
We were able to recover $0.01 USD and this amount has been credited to you.
Please allow five business days for this adjustment to be posted.
If you are due any additional funds, we will make our best effort to recover the balance from the seller.
If the seller’s account has insufficient funds to complete the refund owed to you, please be assured that we will take appropriate action against the seller’s account, which may include limitation of the seller’s account privileges.
I have had a pay dispute with pay-pal once but got all my money back -$10 (I payed $480 for a bike that never arrived) I was quite happy with that and thought it was a pretty decent ending to a negative experience.