eBay does not PROTECT its sellers!

[pimpin8ez!]

I am a powerseller with 100% feedback over 20 years. On May 1st a 0 feedback buyer purchased 100% authentic sneakers from me for $815. I shipped them with signature confirmation they were delivered on May 5th. The buyer lied and said that I sent a pair of boots. eBay did not require any proof from the buyer. not even a photo. It told me if I don't accept the return, they will force on me by May 11th and hit my seller rating with a strike and if I escalated they would force the return anyway. I accepted the return due to their threat" I received an empty box with 5lbs of weights in it on May 14th. The return said I had 6 days to refund the buyer from the day the item is received, but that was not true either. They pulled the money from my paypal account within 1 hour. I called customer service, who had 0 knowledge of how to help me. I got transferred 7 different times on this 1 call, and was told I could open an appeal but would likely lose because they can't prove the buyer lied....I appealed with photographs, weights of the packages I shipped and recieved, etc. My appeal was closed with a message stating "sorry I know this is frustrating for you"....so a seller with a perfect record is forced to make a return with 0 proof, not given the 6 days to refund the buyer, am left without my $814 or my item, and got 0 protection from a company that has earned thousands of dollars from over the years. I also got charged for return shipping and did not get the seller fees credited....Now that is exactly how you should treat your loyal sellers of 20 years......you have a complaint at the BBB waiting for you and you have lost a loyal customer because you offer 0 protection for your sellers....I have 0 confidence in this site. Every time I make a sale I feel there is a good chance I am giving my item away for free and will lose the money because if the buyer decides to lie, they can and will get away with it and there is 0 consequences. Is that the feeling you want to instill in your users??? Sellers are also your users and your loyal customers. How come you mitigate ALL of your risk as a company on the sellers and put them on an island. Well I am not willing to deal with that any further. I will be taking my account elsewhere. 

[oldwestgold]

Now there is a truthful post.  BBB is a joke.

[oldwestgold]

Ok here's is the ONLY things you can do that would possibly pan out for you.

#1. Send the buyer an email stating you will be contacting the US Postal Inspection Service for mail fraud which is a felony.  Give them a date to reply and return the stolen merchandise. Provide a course of action with dates that you will be taking and stick to them. Obtain and provide your local Postal Inspection Service address to them.

#2. Send the buyer a date when you will be filing a police report for stolen property.  Let them know that you will be filing a police report with your police AND theirs.  Again provide name and address to them of both police departments. Provide the names and badge numbers of the officers you talk to.

#3. Once they fail to reply or return your merchandise file all of these immediately. Provide them contact names and numbers and let them know that they will be hearing from them shortly.

I did this with a customer on the other side of the country in Washington. I was direct and punctual and followed through on everything I told them I would do. I did file a police report locally.  The police sent the buyer a letter stating they had to return the stolen merchandise immediately or else.  The buyer could not believe I would follow through for a $100 piece of jewelry they stole. I got it back within a week of the letter from the police reaching them.

This may not work all of the time - frankly, it has for me - but it will surely make them wonder.  Good luck.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@on_the_edge_of_forever wrote:
You can block buyers with a "0" feedback.

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No. you can't.  

[castlemagicmemories]

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@pimpin8ez! wrote:
I changed all of my settings after this. 0 feedback bidders can still get through, but I can block anyone who has bought a specific number of items in the last 10 days that do not have at least a specific rating....I just cancel their orders now. A 0 feedback bidder bought a $500 pair of sneakers from me yesterday and I canceled and refunded immediately. I also put in my description that I will not honor any 0 feedback bidders any more. I mean there are some honest buyers out there that are just new, but I have no way of differentiating and it's not worth the risk

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Depending on what reason you used for the cancel, you may have placed your selling privileges in jeopardy.  And your terms that you have added are unenforceable.

[vintagecraze50]

Woo hoo, Great job! Sellers need to take responsibility for this like you did to stop these people from doing stuff like this. This is important information for scammers to know about and that these reports are worth doing and work. Do not sit back and be a victim. ACT.

[vintagecraze50]

Sharing this info on as many forums as possible could work just the opposite and give the heads up to 10,000 more scammers who look at this stuff and say. Yahoo, go for the theft on Ebay. Just a thought and it aint pretty.

[orangehound]

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@vintagecraze50 wrote:

Sharing this info on as many forums as possible could work just the opposite and give the heads up to 10,000 more scammers who look at this stuff and say. Yahoo, go for the theft on Ebay. Just a thought and it aint pretty.

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Scammers and thieves have their own networks where they share this information ... that is one of the reasons why we have been seeing this problem skyrocket over the last two years.

But, it is the eBay sellers who are unaware of this loophole/defect in the eBay policies, and in particular new sellers who are deceived into thinking that eBay is a safe environment to sell their iPad since eBay loves to talk about "Seller Protection", as if it had any teeth to it.

 eBay sellers need to know the risk before they list.

eBay could fix their problem in myriad ways, but they choose to ignore it simply because it costs them nothing ... their "Up to 50% protection if you use free return shipping" does not address this problem.

I wonder if this problem became virally known, it would so impact the flow of sellers to this site (and high-profit, expensive goods), that eBay would be forced to finally deal with it.  As is, it is still a dark secret known mostly by thieves.

[kattinsanity]

Did the package come postage due?  Either yourself or ebay had to issue the return label to the buyer so if the buyer returned 5 pounds of weights the label you supplied to the buyer wouldn't be sufficient to ship 5 pounds back to you.

[mritony]

eBay absolutely does not protect sellers! I have been on eBay as a seller for over 17 years with over 6000 positive feedbacks and a power seller. A buyer claims I sold them a “non authentic” item and wished for a refund. The item I sent the buyer was brand new including tags and packaging what I got back was not what I had sent. I immediately contacted eBay. They refunded the buyer their money and said I needed to now file a claim against the buyer and upload photos of what was sent back. They never viewed the photos and denied my claim. So appealed their decision and they basically said “too bad”. So I lost my money and am stuck with an item that is not in new condition. I called them but they have “set” replies to seller questions. They really don’t care about sellers. Very disappointed in their handling of my claim. 

[d-k_treasures]

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@kattinsanity wrote:

Did the package come postage due?  Either yourself or ebay had to issue the return label to the buyer so if the buyer returned 5 pounds of weights the label you supplied to the buyer wouldn't be sufficient to ship 5 pounds back to you.

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Return labels are billed when used - they have no weight or service associated with them.

[clearedge1]

eBay had shot themselves in the foot when they started this policing policy. There is no way they can come up with policy that would protect buyer and seller equally. You can tell that sellers from high theft categories are running away from eBay. Back in the days buying a computer on eBay was a no brainer today you would be very lucky if you find a good price, high quality item.

They removed an option for sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers so feedback on eBay means jack anymore. I understand people where frustrated with retaliation but members who are problematic will surface. There would be no 100% feedback but you would see who is a trouble and who just received an occasional retaliatory negative feedback. Buyers who keeps stealing would not get far. If the feedback would be searchable so you can look up high value items only so they can not hide it by tiny purchases you could easily weed out undesired buyers and choose not to engage with them.

[kattinsanity]

I ship over the counter so I don't print my own labels.  My last return was for an item I sent 1st class.  I had ebay issue the return label and they issued the buyer a priority label costing me around $7.00 instead of a 1st class which would have cost me around $3.00.

[cherryempire]

alan@ebay  doug@ebay karen@ebay tyler@ebay @Anonymous @mypaymentstest

Where is the help from ebay team on this? Should'nt you guys at least reply or comment on this? Are you going to help? All of us sellers are watching.

[Anonymous]

I will say it here in this thread. Sellers need to report buyers who violate the MBG or return process.  Hopefully ebay will slap dishonest buyers with policy violations which you can block in your buyer requirments.

[gramophone-georg]

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@cherryempire wrote:

alan@ebay  doug@ebay karen@ebay tyler@ebay @Anonymous @mypaymentstest

Where is the help from ebay team on this? Should'nt you guys at least reply or comment on this? Are you going to help? All of us sellers are watching.

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They're at Facebook, helping Facebook sell stuff.