Seller wants to refund because shipping costs more than they thought it would

[iluvstartrek]

Hi! 
I bought an item that had free shipping.  The price was $44 for an item that will have to be mailed priority.  In all honesty, I thought the price was low because I estimated it would cost $20 + to mail.  However, the seller has almost 5000 feedbacks and 99% of that is positive.  So I figured they just wanted to get rid of it.  Today they emailed me saying “I have to refund you because it would cost $25 to mail it and  have to pay fees” I replied and said ok and told them they might want to do some research first because I had just did a google search and found out that a seller who refunds, gets an automatic defect from eBay and have to pay the final value fee anyway.  I stressed that I wasn’t threatening or trying to be negative that I was just Informing and that they should get some information before going forward.  This is the reply I got to that: 

”Sorry I'm not going to sell some.thing for 45.and ship for 25 and probally.5 In all fees I'm down to like 15 for it... your in CA I've had this on before the Mail hike this year shipping gets up there on the west.coast....”

My question is can I report this to eBay? It isn’t my fault this person didn’t list the proper prices.  In addition eBay has all kinds of helpful shipping tools.  This person had the shipping set for free.  It is obvious that the item will have to be shipped priority and pretty easy to at least get an idea of cost.  Heck, a large flat rate priority mail box cost close to $20 and non flat rate costs more than that.  I’d really like to do something because I don’t trust this seller now.  It seems very strange to me that someone with almost 5000 feedbacks has a low price on an item that even before the “mail hikes”( that happened probably over six months ago) would cost around $20 to send.

Thank you,

Sherri  

[mrsimba1575]

5,000 feedbacks is just from the people who rated them. Id say about 1/2 never rate from my experience if not way more.  So say he sold about 7,500 times would be an underestimate but close. Yes always message threw eBay. Never try to go around it bites you.

Curious where abouts are you residing ? You said the seller is in Cali? I had issues before but the person(s) is not in the lower 48 states or on a base which kills my costs, so now I put free shipping to 48 states only, no PO boxes or bases.  Puerto Rico, bases and PO Boxes you can only use the Post Office. I have to eat some but I learned and why the disclaimer.  eBay tried to force us sellers for the last few years to include free shipping.

I just open a case that buyer refused to sell. Could inlude the new auction number. They don't like that. Don't think eBay will do much to a high selling seller as that person is making them money. You think they would have learned though.

[iluvstartrek]

I’m in California.  His post says he is in Lansing Michigan.  
I fully understand having grievances about shipping costs.   I have issues with the costs and other things about the USPS.  
I haven’t tried to sell anything on eBay for a couple of years. Them trying to force sellers to do free shipping sounds bad.  I have used PayPal paypal won’t let you list the PayPal fee.  Both are stupid since the seller has to make enough money to make it so they get enough money. It pretty much means the seller and invoice maker put the fees into the cost of the item.  So whether there is a PayPal fee or free shipping on eBay, the final price ends up the same.  It is just some stupid sales tactic.  
I don’t have trouble with sellers charging an accurate shipping fee.  I would do the same thing, I also don’t have trouble with a seller charging whatever price they want.  I’ll shop and if I don’t like the total or can’t afford it, I won’t buy it.  However, this seller is the one who listed his product the way he did.  It was his fault for not charging the right amount.  He should have gone through with the sale, not refund because of his mistake.  Then he goes and lies to eBay and claims I requested a refund so he doesn’t get a default on his account and doesn’t have to pay the final value fee.  That makes me madder than the refund.  He has no right to lie about me and to rip eBay off.  He did it for the same reason as he refunded me-money.  That is cheating and not right.  I know it happens all the time, but when sellers lie and cheat and the buyer does nothing, they become part of the problem.  
I’m now wondering how I can see if eBay is really investigating this guy or not, if there is a case filed against him.   Maybe the customer service gal was just trying to get me off the phone or something.  Like you said, he sells a lot and makes them money.  

[thatisrathernice]

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@nobody*s_perfect wrote:

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@iluvstartrek wrote: .... The hard part will be saying everything I want to say in the allotted number of letters and spaces.  

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Um, how about, "Seller refused to ship because he had undercharged for postage." That's about 65 characters out of the allotted 80.

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@iluvstartrek  ^^^^ This. Exactly. Too much talking gets you in trouble. Just leave the feedback and move on. Also dont let people walk all over you. Its okay to stand up for yourself, your beliefs and what you feel is right. Its a crazy rush and you should try it sometime 🙂

[buyselljack2016]

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@iluvstartrek wrote:

Thank you!  The whole transaction was weird.  It is also weird coming from a seller with over 4800 feedbacks where 99% were positive.  I did tell the seller ok, sorry it didn’t work out, before you refund etc.  I did that because like you said, I didn’t have a choice, but also I was afraid if I forced the issue and some how got this to send it, he would damage the  item on purpose so he could file a USPS claim.  
I didn’t think about the customer service representative not being honest with me.  I really hope this guy is investigated.  eBay should want to because he said I wanted a refund so he didn’t have to pay the fee.  Which makes me seem like a dear beat buyer.  I really dislike greedy, dishonest people like the seller.  Unfortunately, where ever you go, there they are.  
Thank you for your help! 

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Seller was trying to twist it so that it appears as a "buyer requested" cancel so that they would not get the cancel defect, but as far as the FVF goes, the seller is refunded the fees by eBay no matter who wanted to cancel.

You really could not have forced the seller to ship the item.

As far as the seller damaging the item, shipping it, to do a damage claim goes,  that would not be a good move. 

Well, not a good move If the shipping was done by USPS.  A USPS damage claim does not refund the postage(or insurance fee, if any) paid. It only refunds the proven value of the item if the claim is even approved at all. Postage is refunded when the item is lost, as the service paid for was not provided.

A CSR should not be telling you anything about what that are doing beyond saying they will submit the information. It sounds like the CSR went "off script" .

[iluvstartrek]

Thank you for this great response!  That is a lot of help. I appreciate it and your time! 
I would say she did go off script.  She even gave me his name, which did match the name on the PayPal transaction.  

Sherri 

[b86fiero]

Two observations.

You state in your response to the seller wanting to refund you "I replied and said ok ..."  which could be viewed by eBay as you agreed to the cancellation.  One never knows how eBay handles these type of disputes but if you did indeed respond "ok" to the seller it may mitigate any potential defects to the seller's account.

Your feedback left for the seller states "undercharged for shipping" however you said the item was offered with free shipping.  Seller may be able to get your negative removed based on those words.  Depends upon the customer service rep who answers the call - free shipping in listing vs undercharged for shipping in feedback.

Sorry you are dealing with this drama.

[nobody*s_perfect]

We can only hope that the CS rep understands that free shipping isn't really free.

[mesodude]

We think alike. My impression is that the OP only considered reporting the seller after her advice was negatively received. It's possible someone reading the exchange between the OP and the seller could perceive the OP as being retaliatory. Not saying that the OP's feelings are unjustified. Just that the fact that she was apparently willing to let it go initially could be something for which she has to answer.

[iluvstartrek]

Second update 1/22/20. Called eBay and verified that I did report the seller properly yesterday.  This agent was able to see it. I guess it is being investigated.  I don’t think it is a defect yet, which seems weird, but it can contribute toward a pattern and after some accumulation of him doing wrong things, bad things happen for him. his items won’t show up in searches is on thing that can happen, and they can suspend him too.  They will look at other transactions and see if he has done it before. If he does it again, this time will be added to that and eventually will be a negative to his account.   

Then I asked about why I haven’t received the refund yet and found out that while the seller did cancel the order, he hasn’t actually sent the money back.  The agent filed a claim/request for the money back for me. The seller has until next Tuesday to send the money.  According to the agent it is another negative for him  to have not refunded me.  If the seller doesn’t pay me back by Tuesday 1/28/20, I can call eBay and have them step in.  Ebay refunds me and then gets the money from the seller.  The customer service agent described to me the steps, but I didn’t write them down and can’t remember them all.  This is when it would be a defect on his account, if I understood the customer service agent right (I misunderstand people so I’m not saying anything negative about the agent, but about myself). If I am understanding the customer service agent right, his refunding me and not shipping because he didn’t charge enough for shipping isn’t a defect on his account.  I’m hoping I got that wrong because it should.  The sellers lying to eBay and saying I requested the refund should count toward a defect.  I have email proof via messaging through eBay that the seller lied. The lying is worse than the refusing to ship.  When someone lies, that is a bad character flaw which means they aren’t to be trusted in anything. 

Thank you to everyone who helped me out!  I will wait until I have the money refunded and then close this board. 

Sherri 

[iluvstartrek]

Third and final update.  
When the customer service agent filed a claim because the seller had canceled the order and refused to ship due to not making enough money but didn’t actually send the money.  A short while later I got an email from eBay saying seller had contacted eBay and asked them to review the case and make final decision.  (That seems strange to me because the seller is the one that canceled the order, not me, but oh well.) Twenty four minutes later I got an email saying I had a refund.  Then I got an email from eBay saying the seller had canceled the order because the buyer requested it. (I really despise people lie.  You can’t trust them at all and it is a huge character flaw.) I talked to eBay again and found out that my complaint isn’t a default and nothing specific will be done to this seller because of my provable via emailing through eBay complaint.  However, this man has been reported multiple times and my report is flagged high priority.  They told me that reports and other negative things is an accumulation thing. So multiple people have to report this seller before they will take action.   
That does make sense to me because I had a buyer totally lie about me before.  I do wish they would at least send him an email letting him know that they know and have proof that he lied and that this report is on his record.  It is also a good reason to take action and do my part.  If I had just let him walk over me and not done anything, that would be one less report on his record.  
I hope they don’t erase my negative feedback though. I didn’t know what to say in such a short amount of space, so I took the advice of two others that commented on this board and said what they suggested.  I don’t know if that was right now, because I mentioned shipping cost and he officially charged no shipping. To me, every one everywhere charges shipping. The difference is that it is either listed separately or included in the price of the item.  

I’m going to close this board now and want to thank everyone for their help.

Sherri 

[nobody*s_perfect]

The listing, with its free shipping showing, will only be available for 90 days after the transaction.

[myangelandmyprincess]

honestly I’d quit calling cs and let it go about reporting you wont be able know if any action is taken.  Along with that  Since you said ok in response to the seller it can be seen by ebay as an agreement to cancel making eBay consider buyer requested as the right choice.   Also making it possible for the seller to call and have the feedback removed based the idea you agreed to cancel    

[iluvstartrek]

Ok, those who talked about my feedback being removed were right.  eBay removed my negative feedback.  To see what I wrote in my feedback, see the comment suggested by someone here and seconded by someone else.  I copy and pasted it. I did not add anything or take away.  I did not call names.  
This really makes me mad.  I now realize that eBay is kind of horrible. I called eBay and there is nothing they can do, so the buyer gets no defect and has no negative comment in his feedback despite four different agents telling me that the seller was in the wrong.  So I’ve been stomped on by the seller and eBay.  The agent I just talked to said that he would be talking to his superiors and they would be talking to this agent who took away the feedback. He said they could have seen all the messages and everything just like he was seeing them and would have seen that the seller said in an email that he was refunding me because shipping was more than he thought and he would only get $15 after shipping and eBay fee.  So the agent that took off my negative feedback also would have seen that the seller lied. He said that the agent would get talked to be their supervisors and the supervisors over them and said that every agent there hates these kind of calls because there nothing they can do.  They can’t put the feedback on and I can’t leave more feedback.  He said that they would also be contacting the seller and mentioned giving him a defect.   I sincerely hope that is true because I really hate it that this horrible seller did wrong and lied yet won everything.  
As a side note, I’m never going to believe feedback again.  This seller had over 4800 feedbacks left and 99% positive.  That means he has sold a lot more because a lot of people don’t leave feedback. So even though this seller is very experienced and it shows a lot of positive feedbacks left, he is not a good seller.  

I still have yet to figure out how to close this board.

Sherri 

[iluvstartrek]

I just made my last phone call to customer service.  Yet another instance of the person who was right getting stomped on by the bad.  Seller refunded because they made a mistake in how much they charged and wasn’t happy making $15 (understandable) then lied to eBay and said I requested a refund.....eBay then not doing much at all and then taking off my negative feedback despite me not swearing or calling names and just sticking to facts.  I would have been ok with the refund but not with blaming me.  I can understand making a mistake, but I hate the lying.  Lesson in all this is don’t trust feedback, even if there is a lot of it and it is almost all positive. (This seller had over 4800 and 99% positive.) 

I definitely learned my lesson on saying ok. I didn’t mean the ok as an agreement but as an acknowledgement of what they were saying.  I didn’t know what else to say because it wasn’t like I had a choice.  If there is a next time, I’m going to say no.  Then call eBay right away to see what they say.  

[northcaro]

A good seller will eat the excess shipping charges. I recently sold a very large vintage game and charged $30 shipping. I had a box for it but should have verified it fit (I know better than just estimating.) unfortunately it didn’t fit and I didn’t have a box that would work due to the awkward size. I tried to cut down a larger box but didn’t feel it was secure. Finally I went to UPS and paid for a box which was almost $20. I shipped it USPS which was approximately $50 plus $20 for the stupid box. Luckily the item sold for $550 so there wasn’t a loss but I was upset with myself for making such a big shipping mistake. Usually we sell small items that go first class or in flat rate boxes but now we always make sure we have boxes on hand for larger items. Obviously I didn’t say anything to the buyer about the shipping costs! Though I did cross my fingers that they’d be happy with the item so there wouldn’t be a return or a chance I’d have to pay return shipping.

Even if I had to take a loss like in the situation described here, I’d send the item.

This seller really doesn’t have an excuse, it sounds like the item is going in a flat rate box which they should know the price of. I think someone already mentioned it,  but the seller can’t leave negative feedback for you (and if they leave positive feedback saying something negative you should report them.) And if they lie about the cancelation reason and say problem with buyers address or buyer asked to cancel, give eBay a heads up.