eBay

theyesterdayshop · ‎11-07-2020

I'm trying to avoid calling eBay about this situation; would prefer to resolve it myself if possible. What basically happened is that one of our workers accidentally mailed a sold item to the wrong buyer. The buyer who received the item has graciously offered to return it to us but needs a "shipping label" sent to them. We don't get many requests for returns so I'm not acquainted about the correct way to do this. I googled the question and it said that eBay is the one that sends the shipping label? Can someone please help me with this? I'm totally confused on how to proceed. Many thanks for your replies.

duncanvr · ‎11-07-2020

Its not a standard ebay return as the wrong buyer got the item. So get the buyer who received the item by mistake to simply send it back to you tracked without shipping label. They can hand write con note if needed. Offer to pay them the shipping cost. Advise the real buyer what happened and see if they are prepared to wait for the item to reach you. Then if they were okay on the delay you can send it to the correct buyer.

kako_5344 · ‎11-07-2020

@theyesterdayshop wrote:
The buyer who received the item has graciously offered to return it to us but needs a "shipping label" sent to them.

eBay does not sell return labels outright; a return request has to be started.

Instead, buy a shipping label here. It's OK that your address is both the sender and the recipient; just make sure that the buyer's zip code is the "Ship from" to calculate the postage correctly.

Save the label as a PDF file, then email as an email attachment to your buyer. You can ask for your buyer's email address through eBay Messages as the transaction is already paid.

duncanvr · ‎11-07-2020

Please check that hyperlink in the message field its takes you straight to PayPal login page.

shdava0 · ‎11-07-2020

You will want your buyer to open a return request, without that there exist far too many chances for this whole thing going wrong, from the buyer never receiving a refund since they have no way to prove they actually returned something to you receiving a policy violation for conducting an ebay sale offsite when you refund oh...

I almost forgot, I don't think you can issue a refund outside of the sale anyhow.

Not anymore, you'd about have to send them a check or somehow a paypal gift or other some such.

It all gets very complicated if you do not have the buyer open a return request.

Simply tell them to open such a request, it will facilitate the process and enable things to transition smoothly.

lacemaker3 · ‎11-07-2020

@duncanvr wrote:
@kako_5344 wrote:
@theyesterdayshop wrote:
The buyer who received the item has graciously offered to return it to us but needs a "shipping label" sent to them.
eBay does not sell return labels outright; a return request has to be started.

Instead, buy a shipping label here. It's OK that your address is both the sender and the recipient; just make sure that the buyer's zip code is the "Ship from" to calculate the postage correctly.

Save the label as a PDF file, then email as an email attachment to your buyer. You can ask for your buyer's email address through eBay Messages as the transaction is already paid.

Please check that hyperlink in the message field its takes you straight to PayPal login page.

The link is correct. It goes to the PayPal Ship Now page, which anyone can use to purchase shipping labels and pay with PayPal. You have to log in to use Ship Now, so it takes you to the sign in page first (unless you are already logged on).

Here's the direct link: http://paypal.com/shipnow

theyesterdayshop · ‎11-07-2020

I appreciate all your comments. I decided to call eBay to get clarification on this and thought I would share with you what they told me. First of all, I am not supposed to send the buyer who received the wrong merchandise a shipping label to have the item returned to me. The way this is supposed to be handled is I send the buyer the return shipping costs thru PayPal. They then create the label themselves and mail the item back to me by USPS with tracking. If I do not receive the item back in a fair amount of time, they told me I could actually invoice the buyer for the cost of the merchandise they mistakenly received. This really surprised me. I had no idea I could do this. The rep also said to make sure all my contacts with the buyer was done thru eBay messaging so there is a record of our conversations. Wish this had never happened -- it's a REAL hassle. Again, I appreciate your help. Hopefully, I can get this straightened out soon.

pjcdn2005 · ‎11-07-2020

There is no 'right' way to handle the postage but in my opinion it would be easier for the buyer if you purchased the label as described by another poster and sent it to the buyer as a .pdf. As far as billing them for the item if they don't send it back...I'm surprised that cs would say that but I really doubt that they would back you on that if you actually did it.

donsdetour · ‎11-07-2020

@theyesterdayshop wrote:
I appreciate all your comments. I decided to call eBay to get clarification on this and thought I would share with you what they told me. First of all, I am not supposed to send the buyer who received the wrong merchandise a shipping label to have the item returned to me. The way this is supposed to be handled is I send the buyer the return shipping costs thru PayPal. They then create the label themselves and mail the item back to me by USPS with tracking. If I do not receive the item back in a fair amount of time, they told me I could actually invoice the buyer for the cost of the merchandise they mistakenly received. This really surprised me. I had no idea I could do this. The rep also said to make sure all my contacts with the buyer was done thru eBay messaging so there is a record of our conversations. Wish this had never happened -- it's a REAL hassle. Again, I appreciate your help. Hopefully, I can get this straightened out soon.

Totally wrong info:

You ship an unsolicited item to some one with their name on it: they own it.

LAW:

This was done to stop exactly what you were told to do:

Send an item and then charge them for the item.

Old con (SCAM) game. A bait and switch thing.

All that said most but not all buyers will usually return the wrong item.

lacemaker3 · ‎11-07-2020

@theyesterdayshop wrote:
... The way this is supposed to be handled is I send the buyer the return shipping costs thru PayPal. They then create the label themselves and mail the item back to me by USPS with tracking. If I do not receive the item back in a fair amount of time, they told me I could actually invoice the buyer for the cost of the merchandise they mistakenly received. ...

The downside of sending return shipping costs is, you don't really have any recourse if the buyer keeps the money and doesn't use it to return the item. If you purchase the label yourself, then you have up to 5 days I believe to void it if they don't use it. If they do use it to send it back within 2 weeks, then you wouldn't be refunded for it, even if you tried to void it.

You can always send the buyer an invoice through PayPal, but there is no way to enforce the buyer paying you. There's no way to send another invoice through eBay, and eBay won't help you if the buyer doesn't send it back, or pay for it. I'm afraid if you had that impression from the customer service rep, that was a misunderstanding.

southern*sweet*tea · ‎11-07-2020

I know what I'd do.

I'd just mail them the item they bought and let them do whatever they wanted with the one I actually sent. My screw up, my loss to eat.

You could send a return label and when you get the wrong item back send the correct one if this is agreeable to your buyer.

You could have the buyer open a return through Ebay, too. When you got the wrong item back, refund the buyer and they could then repurchase the correct item. This would keep it all "Ebay legal".

The easier you are to offend the easier you are to control.

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did. - Thomas Sowell

nuvistors · ‎11-07-2020

You can always send the buyer an invoice through PayPal, but there is no way to enforce the buyer paying you.

++++++++++++++++++

No you can't ! It is illegal to invoice people for items you have sent to people that did not order them.

bargainnation · ‎11-08-2020

This happened to me once before and this is the way a USPS employee told me to handle it; I did not call eBay. I was told that I should have the person who was shipped the wrong item to refuse the package. That way the package will automatically be returned to me as the sender (no extra shipping cost to pay) and more important, no or minimal inconvenience to the person who the package was mistakenly shipped to. I informed the other buyer of my mistake and they were very understanding as was the buyer who mistakenly received both items.

I had two buyers and shipped one buyer both items in two separate boxes by mistake. Thankfully, it was easy for me to let the buyer know which package to refuse since the packages were vastly different in size.

lacemaker3 · ‎11-12-2020

@nuvistors wrote:
You can always send the buyer an invoice through PayPal, but there is no way to enforce the buyer paying you.
++++++++++++++++++
No you can't ! It is illegal to invoice people for items you have sent to people that did not order them.

An invoice is a "Request for payment". There is no law against making a request. There just isn't any way to enforce it.

The law against billing people for items they did not order applies to deceptive and/or fraudulent marketing practices. It means that the fraudulent company can't charge the buyer's credit card without permission, or use debt-collection to try to collect a payment if the buyer didn't order the item in the first place. It doesn't prevent someone from trying to straighten out an honest mistake.

None of that applies in this situation. In this case, the buyer who received the item by mistake, wants to cooperate with the seller to fix the problem. Kudos to them for being honest, and trying to do the right thing.

When this happened to me and I received someone else's purchase (the seller had printed two copies of my shipping label, and put the second one on someone else's package), I couldn't refuse the package to USPS because it had already been opened. The seller wanted me to ship it to their buyer, so I figured out how much that would cost, and the seller sent me the money through PayPal. I bought the shipping label (using the seller's return address, and the correct ship-from zip code so the shipping cost was correct), put the new shipping label onto the package, and sent it on to the correct buyer.

lacemaker3 · ‎11-12-2020

@nuvistors wrote:
You can always send the buyer an invoice through PayPal, but there is no way to enforce the buyer paying you.
++++++++++++++++++
No you can't ! It is illegal to invoice people for items you have sent to people that did not order them.

In any case, I was actually talking about sending an invoice to ask the buyer to return money that had been sent to them, which they had not used as they had agreed to do.

Not invoicing for an item they had not ordered. Completely different situation.