Paypal is definitely protecting scammers. I had two transactions recently that I sought a refund on. Both times the seller turned out to be a Chinese scammer. I submitted all the evidence to Paypal, including pre-existing reports to Scamwatch and police. They didn't even bother to read my complaint, let alone look at any of the attachments I sent. I pushed things further, providing more evidence not just of how I'd been scammed, but also how this particular seller was operating dozens of fraudulent businesses in Australia. Paypal ignored that too. They've also refused refunds on faulty goods, goods that were nothing like what I ordered, and goods that never arrived. Paypal definitely don't protect the customer and actually make it deliberately hard to seek a refund. On top of that, they charge an extra 10c in every dollar on top of the current exchange rate from AUD to USD (and other currencies). That's not fees and charges which are additional, but them deciding what the exchange rate is and setting it 10c higher than the actual exchange rate, and then they prevent you from having the currency exchange handled by your bank or another institution. Paypal collects that extra money. And then there's their policy of holding on to your money (when you've been paid) so you can't access it, sometimes for weeks. Their customer service is non-existent and I'm doubtful that any complaint is handled by anything other than a bot issuing form-responses. So as well as not standing by their own, much-advertised customer protection policy, they actively support scammers and are themselves defrauding customers. Maybe it's time all the disgruntled customers got together and started a class action against Paypal?