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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

99.9% of buyers I work with are an absolute joy. I just ran into one after 16 years on eBay who was the absolute WORST I've ever encountered. Yee gads.

 

Note that all communication was through eBay's messaging system!

 

Started out with the buyer asking me for a discount on a multi-item purchase. I politely pointed out the items were already on sale, and offered her free shipping.

 

She took the offer ... then paid immediately, before I could invoice her for the free shipping ... and then sent me a message that she was "sad" about having to pay shipping when I'd promised her free.

 

*head desk* I immediately refunded her the shipping.

 

THEN she demanded that I falsify the customs infomation. (International buyer.)

 

Ummm ... no.

 

I sent her a polite note explaining I could not do this, referring her the appropriate page on eBay, and cringed, because I had a feeling this was going to go south.

 

Yup. Entitled buyer felt entitled. She demanded I either falsify the customs info or ship in two package so the $$ amts would be less so she wouldn't have to pay customs fees. Or, she wanted me to cancel the order and refund her money. She also complained about the GAS and time needed to pick the items up at her post office, as if this was my fault and something I should refund her for. (Basically, she stated that if she was paying "X" amount for shoes, she shouldn't have to pay for the gas to go get them, too.)

 

Yeaaaaah. I refunded her order and sent her a cancel transaction request.

 

Cue immediate threats to leave me negative feedback if I didn't ship her the order RIGHT NOW and ranting that I just didn't understand. (Note: I've refunded her at this point!.)

 

2 1/2 hours of hold time later, I managed to get somebody at eBay who spoke passable English, and filed a report with Trust and Safety. While I was on hold, the buyer sent me a message indicating she'd reported me to eBay and they said I had to ship to her and demanding again I ship in two packages. (Though this time she offered to pay for shipping, implying that she'd planned on that from the beginning. We'd initially agreed to free shipping. In any case, I've been told by Trust and Safety as a friendly warning in the past that splitting an order into multiple packages is still considered customs fraud if the purpose is to avoid fees.)

 

I had already blocked the buyer, but informed her she was blocked, and told her to never buy from me again, and reminded her that her money was refunded. I suggested she find another seller(s) with the same items, and buy at different times or buy from two different sellers, if she wanted to keep the cost below the point at which she would be assessed a customs fee. 

 

Buyer's response was so profanity laden I couldn't post it here without getting banned from the boards myself, and it wouldn't make much sense if I redacted the profanity. Suffice to say she wants me to go somewhere hot, and also feels I'm a deveil, whatever that is. She also threatened to have all her friends buy from me and leave me negs. I reported her for the abusive language and threats. I resisted the temptation to respond with something along the lines of, "Do you mean devil, dummKopf?" (Really, if you're going to curse at someone, at least learn to spell the words correctly.)

 

I blocked all of Germany.

 

Then she purchased two of the SAME items from me, using a different ID ... with the same last name, mailing address, and paypal account. (Dunno how that happened as I had her entire country blocked, unless a block takes a few minutes to take effect.) What, she thought I was going to ship them to her AFTER she threatened to have all her friends neg me into oblivion, threatened me with a neg for refusing to falsify customs info, and also told me she'd reported me to eBay? Entitled dummKopf is a dummKopf.

 

I then called eBay and reported her for being an unwanted bidder and using a second account to circumvent my block.
I refunded her money, and sent a cancel transaction request, which I figured she wouldn't accept, but at least I could close it after seven days.

 

Buyer denied the cancel transaction request.

 

I called eBay AGAIN and, to eBay's credit, the rep was able to credit me my fees and assured me she was bumping this issue up to her supervisor for immediate review. I expect the buyer will be NARU'd very quickly.

 

I'm just ... boggled, however. She's not a newbie (2006 account), she's a competing seller, she's not a child based on her profile photo, and ... what, I caught her on a bad hair day? My first thought was that I was dealing with somebody's self-entitled 13 year old brat, but the account's been around since 2006 and she didn't buy things I would expect a kid to buy. She bought vintage Barbie shoes.

 

O've been on eBay since 1998.  For sheer irrationality, she was my Worst. Buyer. Ever.

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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

I have a perfect 100% rating after 425 transactions in a recent sale my buyer received the item damaged due to postal shipping and now ebay wants me to reimburse him fully for the item rather than him go through the postal service I am done with eBay furthermore they hijack your PayPal account against your wishes and they make you do what they want either way
Message 61 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

I know how you feel. I recently sold a watch to a buyer in Japan this buyer received said watch and said that the package had been severely damaged in shipping and thus the watch suffered a scratch as a result of this they felt I should reimburse them parsley I declined telling them to contact the postal service after numerous correspondences back and forth the buyer elected to contact eBay and request a full refund for the watch that was damaged in shipping they opened a dispute and thus Ebay always being on the buyer side found on their behalf in subsequently deducted the funds from my PayPal account I feel as though I live in a communist state these people do as they will with no repercussions I strongly suggest we the people of the world band together and send a signal to ebay that it won't be tolerated I have since then notified both eBay and PayPal to close my accounts and recorded all conversations
Message 62 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

I've been an eBay buyer and seller since the very begining with multiple accounts, but eBay has really drawn close to the line of no longer being of any value for sellers. In particular there truly is no seller protection like they would have you believe and itappears to be open season on sellers now!

 

Here's the Readers Digest version of things to come on eBay:

 

Recently sold a brand new, un-used, tested in perfect working and cosmetic condition Homeworx PVR and Remote to a buyer who demanded I send a replacement or refund his money.

 

He refused to talk over the phone to see if something could be done to help him set up the PVR (sometimes technical stuff is confusing).

 

He refused and I told him to open a dispute.

 

I authorized the return and he sent back his old non-functional equipement and just kept the brand new equipment I sent him!

 

I followed each of the eBay processes and spent hours on the phone with eBay in the Philipines with the end result being no justice for me the seller.

 

The eBay rules are that so long as the return tracking shows that the buyer sent back "something" and it was delivered to back to the seller, eBay will refund the buyers money and the seller gets defrauded!

 

So in short, don't sell anything of any significant value on eBay any longer. Buyers who get wind of this weakness in policy will start buying your goods, opening up disputes, and sending back either empty boxes or boxes of "whatever" and end up getting their money back.

 

Nice move eBay, your future looks brighter than ever...

Message 63 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

Thé same **bleep** thing happened to me from frugelseller2014.

Message 64 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

Just had a similar story.  Sold a used Canon DSLR in great condition to a buyer who grabbed it at the "buy it now" price rather than go through the auction process.  After a week I get an email message that the auto-focus was not working followed by a return request.  I had changed a custom setting so that AF was activated by a different button than the factory settings.  I told him this and asked that he test it the way I had it set up or reset the custom functions.  I also gave him my phone # to discuss.  He refused to cooperate in any way and insisted that I misrepresented the camera and it was defective.  But, he would keep the camera if I gave him an $80 discount.  Funny, why would he want a defective camera at any price?  After discussing with Ebay and hearing them say I'd be better to negotiate out a discount rather than risk a return that comes back in worse shape than I sent it I did negotiate a deal.  Nice scam - buy something at a price and then due to the fact that sellers can win these arguments on Ebay leverage the seller into a better price!  This is **bleep**.

Message 65 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

nvm

Message 66 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

Thanks for sharing the truly bad details. I have a similar story of a bad Buyer who sent me insults in capital letters on ebay email. Blocked does not stop all emails until 60 days of no responding from the Seller. Good thing there are great easy Buyers to overshadow the worst. 

Message 67 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

Those who open false SNAD cases are the worst. As I attempt to find out what the problem is, I will ask  many questions and ask for photos, and nine times out of ten, the buyer says something that will void their MBG, or they will just go away.

Another peeve is when they want to return something for whatever reason and they do not follow SIMPLE RETURN INSTRUCTIONS.

 

So frustrating!!! 

Message 68 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

Hopefully sellers who have a or scam buyer know that they can Report Problems With The Buyer when trying to resolve a dispute.  This helps in protecting you, and it also helps eBay identify scammers and they do, on occasion, suspend those accounts indefinitely, and if they are really bad, eBay will even go a step further and suspend any accounts that are linked to the original account in some way. But if you do not report them, eBay has no way to know. 

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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

It is the same story every one what’s a free ride. I can no longer sell on eBay it is so stressful I only have a fifty fifty chance of not being scammed. And eBay sides with the buyers every time you have to give refunds for an item you know they signed for and then you get no money and lose your item. Total scam I would not advise anyone to sell on eBay it’s such a gamble
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

We have pet rats. Maybe she does too??



No Exceptions

Message 71 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

You can contact the magistrate in her county and put out a warrant for misdemeanor theft, or sue her in small claims court. I worked for a lawyer, and was a paralegal, many years ago. I can make a letter or "notice" look and sound very official.



No Exceptions

Message 72 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

Hello, no matter the horror story we can't tell about bad buyers, the problem is eBay and PayPal policies ALWAYS defend and support those bad buyers. Sellers don't have any kind of protection, if a buyer says the item didn't arrive, of course eBay and PayPal defend and support the buyer, if buyer claims item isn't as described, eBay and PayPal defend and support the buyers. For eBay and PayPal sellers are real delinquents, the buyers always say the truth. No matter what you can prove. Real horror stories don't come with buyers, they come with the policy of eBay and PayPal: buyers ALWAYS say the truth, sellers are delinquents and ALWAYS have to pay... And "that's how it goes and everybody knows"...

Message 73 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

I had a guy who bought a game from me for about $16, but only had it as a reserve price. So as per eBay standard, I told him I wouldn’t ship until I got paid within 48 hours. I sent him at least one message everyday telling him that if he didn’t pay, I’d cancel his order with the last message being saying if it wasn’t paid for in full by the next day, I’d cancel.

 

He never paid, so I canceled his order and put the game back up on my page. This guys response was to give me unfairly negative feedback and claim I cancelled his order “at his request” and that it was “false” even though I outright told him if he didn’t pay I’d cancel, yet he thinks he’s justified in giving me bad feedback?

DJ
Message 74 of 85
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Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

amen!! eBay doesn't give two shieets about sellers

Message 75 of 85
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