Buyer Fraud+ Ebay is such a disgrace
Summary: whitepcb shared a situation where a buyer initially failed to return an item, leading eBay to close the case in the seller's favor. However, the buyer appealed and claimed they had shipped the item, resulting in eBay refunding the buyer without the item being returned. Several participants, including albertabrightalberta and zakstreasuretrove, suggested that in similar cases eBay provides refunds from their own funds but confirmed that whitepcb did lose money this time. gurlcat advised contacting eBay through Instagram for resolution. Later, whitepcb updated that eBay returned the deducted money after investigation, and they reported the buyer to prevent future issues.
I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this or knows what I should do next.
A buyer opened a return on one of my items. I accepted the return and provided the buyer with a return shipping label directly through eBay. The buyer never shipped the item back, and there was no return tracking showing it had been sent.
After the return deadline passed, eBay automatically closed the case in my favor because the buyer failed to ship the return. I assumed that was the end of it.
However, TODAY the buyer apparently appealed the case and claimed that they had already shipped the item back. Somehow, the appeal was approved and eBay automatically refunded the buyer.
The problem is that I NEVER received the item back. The original eBay return label/tracking should also show that the return was never delivered to me.
So now the buyer appears to have both the item and the refund, while the case had originally been closed in my favor for failure to return it.
I’ve sold hundreds of items on eBay and am a Top Rated Seller, and I followed the return process exactly as instructed.
Has anyone had this happen before? How can an appeal result in an automatic refund if there is no tracking showing the item was returned? Is there a specific eBay department I should contact to have the appeal reviewed again and get seller protection?
whitepcb
OP1 week ago · EditedUPDATE: Thank you everyone for your comments; Ebay responded back to me and gave me my money back !! Images attached below
I have since reported the buyer and hopefully eBay will investigate this and save other sellers from a headache.
whitepcb
OP1 week agogurlcat
·1 week ago · Edited@whitepcb Your only chance to get this money refunded to you is contacting eBay through Instagram, via private messaging there. An employee will review the case and give you a decision. I would think they'd be willing to do this, if things really went the way you said. -If nothing else, they have more power to make decisions like this than the overseas phone reps do. And if they have to tell you 'no' at least they'll give a real reason why.
mam98031
·1 week ago@whitepcb I completely understand the frustration you must have felt. But is what @albertabrightalberta shared actually what happened. We are all here trying to help you, please provide us with current information.
whitepcb
OP1 week ago · EditedI made 2 post because the images are not going LIVE for some reason: so I removed the images and reposted :
Today is 9/30/2026
9/21 - Case Closed : Buyer never returned Item in time
9/28 : buyer appealed the case and somehow WON
9/28 Money deducted from my account
9/29 Made 2 Post about the situation
9/29 : called Ebay- ebay told me they will investigate the case and told me I shouldn't be liable : HOWEVER: They only told me they will submit a appeal on my behalf and haven't gotten back to me;
Also more than anything: I'm worried if I will receive defect rating and affect seller performance for something that shouldn't be a seller issue to began with.
mam98031
·1 week agoLook at the email you got from Ebay that told you the buyer was being refunded. Look at it carefully. Tell us exactly what it said. You can copy and paste it here and make sure you black out any personal info about you or the buyer before posting.
whitepcb
OP1 week ago · EditedIf you scroll down - someone actually reposted the original images i attached.
"
We decided in favor of the buyer and deducted funds from you
Hi Jaden,
The buyer asked us to review this case again. After our review, we decided in their favor.
We refunded the buyer US $160.00 for their purchase and deducted this amount from your total funds. For more information on how you were charged, see the case details.
AGI AI818-43 2TB NVMe M.2 2280 PCIE GEN4.0x4 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Order number:
02-15011-82858
Buyer:
bgthedeb
Quantity:
1
Case #:
5387236552
Case opened:
Sep 21, 2026
Case closed:
Sep 21, 2026
Mon, Sep 28, 1:30 PM (2 days ago)"
gurlcat
·1 week agoWell if they closed the case on the 21st, I don't understand why they waited 7 days to tell you. That is just weird!
whitepcb
OP1 week agoThe case was closed in my favor on the 21st- THEN on 28th Buyer Appealed the case and the case got reclosed in Buyer favor- They did not wait 7 days to tell me
whitepcb
OP1 week agoI apologize- I haven't check eBay forums- and my first post went up for nearly 10 hours with 0 response so i figured no one cared enough to respond.
mam98031
·1 week agoNo likely most of us were sleeping or something. Not everyone is here 24/7. We are just members like you are and not always available to be on the threads. 10 hours ago would have been the middle of the night for me.
gurlcat
·1 week agoOkay I don't even know where to start here, and not sure whether it's worth the bother anyway, since you haven't replied to anyone who took the time to read your post and respond @whitepcb
It appears you made 2 nearly identical posts about this yesterday. I think I know why, but don't do that. If you have a post not getting any attention you can just 'bump' it by writing a reply to it, rather than posting it all over again.
Anyway since you didn't include the screenshots in this second one, everybody assumed your buyer was given a courtesy refund. But I can see from your first post that eBay did find in your buyer's favor, upon their appeal, and took the funds from YOU.
Here's where I'm confused though. In these side-by-side screenshots you presented, did the one on the right actually occur first? Also in your post (both versions) you say "TODAY" the buyer appealed and won .... but both of these^ case detail screenshots are dated Sept. 21st ..... eight days before you posted.
Maybe you only discovered it yesterday, but if it really happened that long ago, it might be too late for you to get eBay to refund you (essentially give you a courtesy refund). I'm not sure though, maybe someone else can chime in.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 week agoEbay didn't charge you.
It was a 'courtesy' refund because the buyer babbled some bs.
Don't worry about it. Didn't affect you.
gurlcat
·1 week agoNope they took the OP's money, see my comment.
whitepcb
OP1 week agoThe picture on the left in White was a email sent to me on September 28th 2026- the email in Black on the right was on the 21st-
whitepcb
OP1 week agoIt was automatically closed on 21st then on 28th buyer asked ebay to refund - EBAY DID infact take my money away again
vintage-camerastuff
·1 week agoHappened to me also. But ebay refunded out of there own pocket and not mine. I guess ebay is trying to keep everyone happy, especially the buyers.
schludershots
·1 week agoJust wait till you get empty boxes back as your return and Ebay refunds the buyers money as the return being delivered! There needs to be a better way to screen buyers and who they let shop on this platform.
shire123
·1 week agoThe only screening that might work is for the sellers to actually report those buyers. Unless a buyer is continually changing user names their dishonesty will eventually catch up with them.
yeswayrecords
·1 week ago@schludershots @shire123
If you do get a fraudulent return, be sure to add the buyer to your BBL in addition to reporting them to ebay.
That way they can't repeat the same process with another of your listings.
schludershots
·1 week agoThanks for the advise. That's all been done. The way feedback works, there is no way for another seller to know they have pulled this scam.
albertabrightalberta
·1 week agoAre you sure the appeal was actually granted and that you were charged? Ebay may have given the buyer a courtesy refund while letting you keep the funds.
I've had a couple of cases that have closed in my favor.
In one case, the buyer never returned the item so a day or 2 past the last date they had to ship it, I went back to the case and asked ebay to step in. I stated that the buyer never used the return label and tracking showed no movement. That case was closed in my favor.
I had a case in which the buyer claimed non-receipt. I responded to the INR with tracking showing delivery. That case closed in my favor.
A few days later, I got a notification from ebay that the buyer appealed and ebay gave them a refund from their coffers. The notice said I wasn't responsible for the buyer's refund.
zakstreasuretrove
·1 week agoI've had that happen to me too. They refunded the buyer, but I wasn't charged because they sided with me. Kind of bizarre, but "Thanks for the win????"
gurlcat
·1 week agoNope they took the OP's money, see my comment.
whitepcb
OP1 week agoBuyer never shipped the item to began with- The label was never scanned for nearly 20 days- I reached out yesterday and today- 0 Response from buyer.
SO it looks clear to me, they have done this before to exploit ebay system;
I am just in aw on why eBay thinks its a good idea to refund the buyer when the tracking shows 0 attempted return; I wouldn't even be surprised if buyer shipped a empty box then case got closed in buyer favor. However this buyer made 0 attempts to return item.