Wow.
So I did what Paypal told me to do – escalate my claim and force a resolution. They resolved it, alright – they denied my claim. The reason they gave me had nothing to do with my original dispute, so I called them up again and asked what the hell. Sorry, they said. You’re out of luck – because you didn’t buy through Ebay, we don’t handle those kinds of disputes. Sorry you were told to escalate; we goofed. You shouldn’t have been told to do that. Nope, there’s nothing we can do. Maybe call your bank? Sucks to be you.
It’s looking very likely that I’m about to be out $143.xx USD because Size Appeal AND Paypal have screwed me the fuck over.
So awesome.
This is the third bad thing, right? I can’t take much more.
delicious juice dot com 
That’s strange. Normally opening and escalating a dispute with a retailer through paypal works – and it usually works because doing this actually puts a hold on the retailer’s paypal account. Meaning they can’t take money out of their account or process new payments until the issue is resolved. We’ve been in this situation at work before as the retailer and it totally sucks because you really need to make the customer happy and fast. Perhaps paypal has changed how they work the dispute process though? Weird.
In any case, if you’re really mad I suggest filing a rip off report http://www.ripoffreport.com. I know the site looks pretty cheesy and scandelous, but the reports filed there get reasonably high search ranking and it’s a great way to let a company know that you’re serious and angry. I suggest filing one then emailing their customer service with the link. They may change their mind about their response.
I really HATE paypal sometimes. All the power is gone, because the credit cards take no responsibility. This doesn’t happen with any other payee, other than paypal. Assholes.