G'day all. I do quite a bit of buying online, both in Australia and from overseas. One thing I learned early on was to use PayPal for all purchases. If a vendor does not offer PayPal, especially overseas vendors, then I will not buy.
PayPal has an excellent disputes system which I've had to use a few times. Each time I have received a 100% refund, including shipping. When I haven't used PayPal, I've found it almost impossible to negotiate with overseas business's, especially Chinese. When using a credit card to purchase, I've had instances of fraudulent use of my card. I have been lucky enough to get that money back from my bank.
It costs nothing to have a PayPal account unless you are the seller. So why waste hours trying to negotiate overseas or get your bank to refund fraudulent use of your credit card, when I have a secure method with PayPal, and your card details are never given to the seller. Cheers