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Fraudulent buyer
First time posting here but Ebay customer service was of little help. A buyer claimed I misrepresented one of my items and posted negative feedback before contacting me (my first in 25 years). Buyer had 100% feedback so I thought I might have overlooked something. Sent return label and refund. I didn't realize I was supposed to wait until the item was returned to send a refund. Ebay's explanation of that is not clear, in my opinion, and it seems nearly impossible to contact a human in customer service. After many attempts to contact Ebay I was finally able to get the negative feedback removed after asking Ebay to review the message string. The Buyer has never returned the item after 3 months even with my regular gentle reminders. Is this sort of fraudulent activity common? Ebay said the buyer didn't violate their policies, and surprisingly when I asked if fraud wasn't a violation of their policies, i suddenly had the negative feedback removed and substituted with an "A+" which now doesn't even show up in my feedback profile. This all seems so fishy. Lesson learned.
inceptions
Mentor2 years agoHi @yellowstonejoe
Think about it...where have you ever received a refund without returning the item first?
The process is that you refund when the item is returned (unless you don't want the item back). eBay does tell you this in the return flow. If you refund before the return, the buyer has no legal obligation or incentive to return it. It's not particularly nice, but it's not fraud.
eBay will remove negative feedback if you take case of the buyer's problem when you resolve a case. If eBay removes a feedback, they do not substitute the feedback - they just remove it.
Sellers have been able to leave only positive feedback for buyers since 2008, so you can't evaluate a buyer from looking at the feedback he receives, but the type of feedback he leaves for sellers can be a clue.