Ebay solving buyer issues?

treeman

treeman

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Anyone ever had to let eBay step in to resolve an issue with a buyer unhappy about he condition of their purchase?

Just wonder how eBay work this, Sounds like my buyer has swapped the item i sent for a damaged one and is now saying I sent the damaged one, wonder how eBay can prove either way?

Anyone any ideas?
 
As Danny said above, i've not been on the seller side but have had to use ebay to make judgements on a number of genuine cases and every time got the judgement my way as a buyer. Usually it's pretty much instant once you click the "escalate to ebay" button once the time limit has passed to resolve things. Whether ebay take the hit directly or it's passed on to the seller i don't know.
 
Hmm I had a feeling that might be the way. Fortunately I did empty my Paypal account so now it just shows minus balance whilst they put a stop on the funds. Just can't see how they can resolve it, his word against mine?
 
Had pretty much the same experience the other week,

Sold an item as faulty, buyer buys it, phones up, it's faulty I want to send it back, it was sold as faulty "spares repairs in title" spares repairs in title, and condition "spares or repairs", give me refund or I'll leave negative feedback. Buyer submits claim on eBay "wrong item supplied" and claims different item sent.

I had documented proof of item I sent to buyer, they claimed I'd sent them something else, he just sat in a corner going "liar liar liar", denies phone call etc. Buyer tried returning item, I refused it, and apparently because of this when buyer escalated it they sided with him and refunded him.

Tried to dispute this with eBay and they said tough, asked what I'm meant to do to protect myself against this "we'll protect you" when clearly they don't. Hung up after banging me head against the wall for 10 mins.

Next day got an email saying I'd been refunded too, and a day or two later the negative feedback disappeared too.
 
In my experience they always side with the buyer, simple solution, don't sell on ebay, a bit cynical i know, but that site unfortunately is full of scammers.
 
Serial number? Some distinctive mark that showed in the eBay photo?
 
Sorry to hear you at going through this. its my main concern that the buyer could do this. Even if you show serial number photos etc they could still claim you did not send that item to them. I have heard people video themselves boxing up an item but even then they could claim you repacked it with a faulty item.

Like others have said ebay seems to always side with the buyer. I have bought items before where they have had issues and needed to be returned. I now wouldn't sell on ebay as not everyone on there is honest, I much prefer to buy/sell on here or via 2nd hand places like MPB. It would be interesting to see if the buyer had claimed this before.
 
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treeman said:
Anyone ever had to let eBay step in to resolve an issue with a buyer unhappy about he condition of their purchase?

Just wonder how eBay work this, Sounds like my buyer has swapped the item i sent for a damaged one and is now saying I sent the damaged one, wonder how eBay can prove either way?

Anyone any ideas?
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Yup, you tell them, and eBay, that you will be reporting the matter to the police as a potential fraud

I have done this twice in the past and each time the buyer has suddenly changed there mind
 
I got stung with this when I sold a camera on there, it left me in excellent condition and the buyer reported it for being not as described claiming it was faulty. It wasn't but without even contacting me ebay sided with them and took the money from my PayPal account. I contested the case obviously as I knew the camera was fine when I sent it and I finally managed to get the camera sent back to me (eBay told the buyer to bin it). Funnily enough though the damaged camera I received had a completely different serial number.
I went back to arguing with eBay and they basically said tough. Even when I said that I would report it to the police as fraud they weren't interested, and unfortunately for me neither were the police despite me having evidence of what camera I'd sent in what condition and what I'd received.
 
Mandoo said:
I got stung with this when I sold a camera on there, it left me in excellent condition and the buyer reported it for being not as described claiming it was faulty. It wasn't but without even contacting me ebay sided with them and took the money from my PayPal account. I contested the case obviously as I knew the camera was fine when I sent it and I finally managed to get the camera sent back to me (eBay told the buyer to bin it). Funnily enough though the damaged camera I received had a completely different serial number.
I went back to arguing with eBay and they basically said tough. Even when I said that I would report it to the police as fraud they weren't interested, and unfortunately for me neither were the police despite me having evidence of what camera I'd sent in what condition and what I'd received.
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Stories like this make me never plan to sell on ebay. I wonder if ebay would change their mind if it ended up affecting their profit. No sellers means no selling fees = lost profit for ebay
 
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rob-nikon said:
Stories like this make me never plan yo sell on ebay. I wonder if ebay would change their mind if it ended up affecting their profit. No sellers means no selling fees = lost profit for ebay
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They don't care about sellers like us, because we're not where the money is. About 5 or so years ago eBay set out to be the next Amazon, business sellers selling thousand of items a day is where their business plan is, who again who can stand the odd buyer being a bit of a twunt.
 
Mandoo said:
... despite me having evidence of what camera I'd sent in what condition and what I'd received.
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Sorry, but I bet you didn't have any evidence of what you'd actually sent.

You might have had evidence that you owned a particular camera, but what was your evidence that you had sent that particular camera to the buyer?
 
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I have people claim damaged goods when i sold them as fully functional.

I took pictures of it in its condition very carefully and list all the defects i could find with links to the flickr pictures in the listing usually big resolutions.

also i would record its serial number or anything that can uniquely identify the product. I even thought about using invisible markers to mark the item in case such problems but didn't bother with it. if the product's inners can be revealed then i would take pictures of those as well to show the condition and the state of play - working. you need to keep the records of these for at least the time of the ebay buyer protection period as buyer can come back to you with a claim at any given time during that period. the ones trying to con you usually make the claim the day before the period is about to expire.

I had 3 cases successfully pushed back against false claims from buyers.
 
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Although I have a 1300 plus 100% record on there ,whenever I sell anything my first step is to transfer the money directly to a bank account that I keep just for e.bay / PayPal payments ,it's then transferred to a different account immediately which is then drawn out as cash the next day . These days you have to keep the playing field level .touch wood I have never had a problem but I don't trust anybody these days
 
Update:

As predicted Ebay have sided with the buyer and given him a full refund, however they have decided it was not my fault either so I still get the purchase price.

I'm not sure whether Ebay have asked him to return the item to them, or if he gets to keep it, if he does, its an unbelievable deal, £2.5k's worth of lighting for nothing!!!!
 
treeman said:
Update:

As predicted Ebay have sided with the buyer and given him a full refund, however they have decided it was not my fault either so I still get the purchase price.

I'm not sure whether Ebay have asked him to return the item to them, or if he gets to keep it, if he does, its an unbelievable deal, £2.5k's worth of lighting for nothing!!!!
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Ouch! At least you aren't out of pocket but it's galling as noted he'll get to keep the 'damaged' kit.
 
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