I won as a seller in a dispute and get $1050 back (update of my previous post)

[alternative_lab_source]

This is an update of my previous post. Check out the original post to see the full details of what happened earlier (eBay took the side of the buyer again).  Here is the short version of the story. I sold a laboratory vacuum pump for $1000, the buyer claimed that he received some books, which is obviously **bleep**. Despite all the evidence I provided to prove that I sent the pump, Bay ruled in favor of the buyer,  took my money of about $1050, and refunded the buyer. 

Here is the update as to how I got my money back.

After all the appeals through normal means failed (chat, email with eBay reps, etc.), I started preparing a small claim lawsuit against eBay. I first filed a police report because I believed that the buyer was committing fraud. Police came and did some recording. They were frank that they would not do any actual investigation but provided a case number, which is good enough for me. I then sent a Notice of Dispute letter to eBay's litigation department. This is a procedure that you need to complete before actually suing eBay, based on my understanding of the eBay police documents.  After a month of the delivery of the letter, I did not hear from eBay and filed a claim at my local small claim court earlier this week. Today, I received a full refund from eBay. It is not because of my small claim lawsuit, since my local court probably hasn't received the application yet, but as a response to my Notice of Dispute letter. They just moved too slowly. 

Here is my takeaway from this experience. I agree with most sellers's belief that eBay almost always rules in favor of the buyer, but sellers shouldn't give up. In my case, the threat of a lawsuit is enough pressure for eBay to take it seriously. I honestly don't think eBay could win in court, and they probably know it too, so settling outside of the court was probably a business decision. They have to hire a lawyer, and may still lose, then pay the refund if this goes to court. From my experience dealing with various businesses in disputes where they clearly did something wrong, the business often adopts the tactic of ignoring you and hoping that you give up. Honestly, it is not a bad strategy because more often than not, we give up and the business saves money. So it is all business/financial decisions, ruling in favor of the buyer initially or refunding me later. If we want to get our money back, make it so that it makes no business sense for eBay to keep ignoring us. Sure, pursuing takes a lot of time, which is money for any business; I spent a lot of time in this case already. So it is your decision whether your loss is worth the time. I hope that at least my case gives you some confidence that you could win in the end. 

Hope this helps, and hopefully, as more sellers fight for their rights, we can finally get eBay to reevaluate their "buyers always win" practice. 

[stainlessenginecovers]

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@alternative_lab_source wrote:

BUT, It is not bad business until they face a serious threat of a loss in a lawsuit. 

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You're giving this 'lawsuit' thing WAY too much credit. Again, a $7B company is NOT afraid of an $1100 lawsuit, and suit, by the way, that they would NOT have lost since they are

a.) just the middleman

b.) have policies that users agree to that covers such 'returns'

c.) difficult to prove in court as 'small claims' won't let you get as far as you think (weight of package) 

Again, you would be ATTEMPTING to sue the Middleman- the thief was the buyer, most judges would've told you to 'sue the thief/buyer' 

[gurlcat]

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@alternative_lab_source wrote:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Why do you think that eBay could dismiss a legal case?

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Oh I certainly didn't mean to imply that I think that; I said "even if" they could get it dismissed because of their terms of service.   In other words, I don't think the threat of an actual case was the actual reason you got a refund.  As you said yourself, the refund was likely a delayed-response to your Notice letter, not the result of you filing the actual case application, which wouldn't have had time to process yet.  

But I found this part of your message #22 really interesting: "Secondly, the nature of the dispute in my case is not any ordinary buyer-seller disagreement; what we accused of each other is fraud. If you read the seller’s and buyer’s right in the eBay policy, there is no mentioning of fraud, rightfully so because eBay has no right to make a verdict in a civil case, which they did in this case by ruling in favor of the buyer. " 

-I never thought of it quite that way before, now my mind is kinda blown.  And theoretically we might instead say "criminal case" not just civil, because fraud is in fact a crime, which if big enough, a person can go to jail for, not just pay damages.   But it's interesting that lots of small claims cases surely are accusations of fraud, but when the judge (or jury, if requested by the claimant) finds in favor of the claimant, the defendant doesn't go to jail, even if the damages are right up to the state's limitations of "small" claims.  But a person CAN go to jail for shoplifting, which may even be a felony if the dollar amount of theft is above some set amount according to the state ..... even if that set amount is well UNDER the limits for "small" claims. 

I mean, look at the states with the highest-dollar maximums for small claims: DE and TN, $25,000!!  There are brand new cars still available for less than that, and if you stole one you'd be charged with GTA!!!  

[gurlcat]

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

My 2 cents;

ebay gave you a 'courtesy reversal' ONLY because you got a Police Report.

Don't count on it again.

Also note; a 'threat' of an $1100 lawsuit SELDOM scares a $7,000,000,000 company. 

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I'm curious why you think a police report alone would be enough to get the courtesy reversal, since the vast majority of police reports end there, even cases like a home burglary where the police 'theoretically' have the reasonable expectation to find the local person who did it, apprehend them and put them in jail, never mind apprehending people(?) from an internet selling platform with headquarters in another state.  

In other words, why would a police report in the seller's locale spook eBay into giving the reversal?  And have you seen this happen when other sellers filed police reports?

[monster-deals]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

So this happened 

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More likely the OP is confusing causality with correlation

[alternative_lab_source]

They should be just a middleman, not a judge deciding fraud cases. They want to cover fraudulent returns, cover at their expense. I don't have to prove that I am right and the buyer is wrong. I just need to argue that eBay should not do what our court systems do. 

[alternative_lab_source]

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Oh I certainly didn't mean to imply that I think that; I said "even if" they could get it dismissed because of their terms of service.   In other words, I don't think the threat of an actual case was the actual reason you got a refund.  As you said yourself, the refund was likely a delayed-response to your Notice letter, not the result of you filing the actual case application, which wouldn't have had time to process yet.  

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The purpose of the Notice of dispute is to give them last notice before I pursue a lawsuit, and I was clear that I was going to if they did not respond. 

I don't know whether the fraud would have been civil or criminal. Still, hypothetically, if the police somehow found evidence that the buyer was lying, for example, going to his lab and finding the pump, the buyer could go to jail. That is why I filed a police report and why I don't think eBay should settle the dispute. 

[dbfolks166mt]

You ARE correct. You CAN sue eBay on an individual basis, NOT on a class action basis. People have before, and will likely continue to. 

      You can also sue eBay through a class action law suit. Following is one eBay lost and in fact settled rather than go to litigation. 

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/closed-settlements/ebay-buy-it-now-class-action-sett... 

eBay also has an arbitration process, which it allows sellers to use as an option, but there is reports that they ignore those requests for arbitration because eBay has to be the one to pony up the fee to the arbitrators. 

Sooner or later, my bet is eBay gets themselves in some legal hot water over not following their own policy/rules, and some judge may consider the user agreement null and void, opening them up to class action suits. You must make good on your end of the contract for it to be valid. If you break your own contract, it can easily be ruled as invalid, since you are not holding up your own end of the contract. 

It will be interesting to see how the DOJ lawsuit turns out. 

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-sues-ebay-over-sale-aftermarket-motor-vehicle-products-2023-09-27/ 

[farmalljr]

I hope eBay gets a nice fat fine. They can pull any listing at any time. Even if the items are not on a "list" of products not allowed here. They seem to make stuff up all the time without giving notice to sellers. However, eBay was warned more than once to stop allowing the sale of EPA rules busting diesel motor products. Now, why would eBay ignore that? Well, we know it's because the fees on that stuff was significant. 

I've heard debate the fine will not end up being a billion dollars. I hope it's enough the investors clean house for once. 

I HOPE with all that has transpired over the last few years, that SOMEONE finally takes the company to task and MAKES them run the business properly. Maybe this will open a deeper investigation of the goings on in the company and how it runs. 

[stainlessenginecovers]

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@gurlcat wrote:

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

My 2 cents;

ebay gave you a 'courtesy reversal' ONLY because you got a Police Report.

Don't count on it again.

Also note; a 'threat' of an $1100 lawsuit SELDOM scares a $7,000,000,000 company. 

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I'm curious why you think a police report alone would be enough to get the courtesy reversal, since the vast majority of police reports end there, even cases like a home burglary where the police 'theoretically' have the reasonable expectation to find the local person who did it, apprehend them and put them in jail, never mind apprehending people(?) from an internet selling platform with headquarters in another state.  

In other words, why would a police report in the seller's locale spook eBay into giving the reversal?  And have you seen this happen when other sellers filed police reports?

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@gurlcat Because I've seen others post about the same thing. When 'appealing'; many are told to 'get a police report' and 'get a letter from USPS stating blah blah'. 

[gurlcat]

Yeah I've seen lots of people advised to file a police report too, but usually in response to postal shenanegans.  You're saying that EBAY folded because of it, and I can't imagine why you think they'd be scared of whatever the OP's local police force is.  

[stainlessenginecovers]

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@gurlcat wrote:

Yeah I've seen lots of people advised to file a police report too, but usually in response to postal shenanegans.  You're saying that EBAY folded because of it, and I can't imagine why you think they'd be scared of whatever the OP's local police force is.  

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I NEVER said they were 'scared'...in fact, I said they were NOT scared of an $1100 lawsuit (which would have went nowhere)

I SAID they did it 'as a courtesy'........

[downunder-61]

The only thing that annoys me with this outcome, the buyer did not have to return the money, eBay comped it.

So this useless excuse of a buyer will carry on unharmed, having no idea the seller was reimbursed and thinking how clever he was to get away with it. 

My high school self would want to message them - Na nana na na - luckily my old lady brain is better trained now.

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

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@downunder-61 wrote:

The only thing that annoys me with this outcome, the buyer did not have to return the money, eBay comped it.

So this useless excuse of a buyer will carry on unharmed, having no idea the seller was reimbursed and thinking how clever he was to get away with it. 

My high school self would want to message them - Na nana na na - luckily my old lady brain is better trained now.

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Exactly right.  Its no victory when the defrauding consumer got away with it.  It's no victory when the point of sale by which a seller makes money has to pay for a perpetrators fraud be that a buyer or seller.  Two wrongs never make a right more or less three.

[lazer*lightning]

I don't think that's accurate. When I was in San Francisco in I think, 2015 I had some small items stolen from me and I was told I could only file the report online as I was out of the area by then.

[lazer*lightning]

Be sure to block that buyer too if you haven't already.