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A buyer is trying to scam me by returning a different item. Is there any help?!
The scam he's pulling is i sold him a VERY WELL PACKED gameboy cartridge that's distinctively grimey and yellow. He took a picture of a bootleg one and cracked it and claimed he received it broken. It's clearly not the same cartridge. So he's taking my item and he's asking to return a fake.
The ebay help page is utterly useless. The only return options for the return are to pay more of MY money on a shipping label and accept the return so he scams me further, offer a full refund, offer a partial refund (I offered one cent which he declined.), or send him a message which he's not answered.
The help page gives several places to contact a person from ebay, none of them appear to work. Their fraud phone line just offers to send a link to the same useless help page, none of this is clear and there's no way to decline an obvious return scam.
Do i have to go through with the return in order to contest it once i receive the fake item? Beyond just generically reporting a seller what is the proper procedure for protecting myself from this scam? The help page has nothing.
Since i can't just...ask somebody at ebay what on earth i'm supposed to do like any business would allow I guess I have to ask you guys so any help would be appreciated.
lady_madonna
Mentor2 years ago@empso-93
If the buyer filed a Return Request stating "Doesn't match description" or "defective", you will be obligated to approve the return and provide a prepaid return shipping label.
If the returned item is not in the same condition as when you shipped it, you can deduct a portion of the refund if eligible.
Read this: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/managing-returns-refunds/handle-return-request-seller?id=4115#section4
empso-93
OP2 years agoThank you for answering but that doesn't really answer my question. He's trying to scam me. He's returning a different item than i sold him...that still entitles him to a portion of my money and on top of that I have to pay to return shipping, basically paying for the privilege of being scammed?
If i could get a human being to simply look at the item he took pictures of they could see that it's not the same one and that he's just scamming me.
Surely there's some recourse and ebay doesn't just....require me to be scammed by this guy?
lady_madonna
Mentor2 years ago@empso-93
You cannot dispute it until the buyer returns the item and upon your inspection, you find it is not as you shipped it.
If you prefer to speak with an Ebay Customer Service agent,
you can use the following link to request a call back from a CS rep or to chat online with an agent:
https://www.ebay.com/help/eua?id=5275&mkpid
Available 5:00 am to 09:30 pm Pacific Time.
Good luck!
empso-93
OP2 years agoThank you so much. It is WILD how well they buried that link to actually contact somebody. I looked for an hour for it. When i clicked on contact them all it took me to was an automated chat that couldn't answer any question and couldn't connect me to a live person, and just more links that don't answer any of these questions.
Depending on whether ebay screws me here (From the sound of it, almost guaranteed) i'm probably done with this absolutely abysmal company.