Ebay helped a buyer steal $300 worth of product. Please assist.
Summary: rococoroasters, a Canadian specialty coffee seller, shared their frustration with eBay's handling of an 'Item Not as Described' case, where a buyer disputed the quality of their coffee due to some broken beans in one bag. Despite assurances from multiple eBay representatives that the buyer's complaint was unreasonable, eBay refunded the buyer without proper seller protection. Other participants emphasized eBay's lack of support for sellers, suggesting that eBay's system often favors buyers regardless of the situation. Some advised rococoroasters to accept returns to mitigate loss, while others recommended using social media to escalate the issue. The discussion highlighted the challenges sellers face with similar disputes and the limitations of existing eBay policies.
I am at the end of my rope with eBay over an outrageous Item Not as Described case, and I genuinely need some intervention because sellers have almost no protection when this system is abused.
We are a Canadian company and have been selling on eBay for about ten years. I have personally been importing, exporting and roasting specialty coffee for 30 years. We offer free shipping on eBay and absorb the shipping and brokerage costs ourselves.
A customer ordered approximately 10 pounds of Jamaican coffee from us, worth roughly $300. This is expensive specialty coffee, and we roast every order specifically for the customer. Nothing sits around in inventory. His coffee was roasted to order and shipped within 24 hours of roasting, exactly as described. After receiving it, he contacted us demanding a refund because some of the coffee beans were broken. He opened ONE 454 gram bag out of the ten bags he received and sent a photograph showing what appeared to be about 5% breakage. Five percent of a 454 gram bag is roughly 24 grams of coffee... 24 grams.
That is what this entire complaint is about. Approximately 24 grams of broken coffee beans in a 454 gram bag, and those beans are going into a grinder anyway. Could you imagine buying a box of crackers or cookies, opening it, finding some crumbs or a few broken pieces at the bottom and saying, “I want a refund because this product is defective”? That is essentially what we are dealing with here.
It is literally impossible to buy a bag of whole bean coffee and expect every single bean to be completely intact. No coffee company in the world can guarantee that. You can walk into Starbucks or any coffee retailer, physically pick up a bag yourself, open it and find some broken beans at the bottom. That is simply the nature of roasted coffee. Now put 10 pounds of coffee through an international FedEx Express shipment, sorting facilities and normal carrier handling. Some breakage is inevitable. In 30 years of importing, exporting and roasting coffee, I have never received a complaint like this. Not once. In roughly ten years of selling this same type of product on eBay, no buyer has ever made this kind of demand either, because most people have common sense and understand that a small amount of breakage in whole bean coffee is NORMAL.
And there is another problem. Once a buyer opens a bag, pours the coffee out or handles it and then photographs broken beans, how is the seller supposed to know exactly what happened after delivery? For all I know, some of those beans could have been broken after the package was opened. I have no way of verifying that. Either way, even if every broken bean shown in the photograph arrived exactly that way, we are still talking about roughly 24 grams of broken coffee in one 454 gram bag. We explained this to him and then he opened a return using “Item Not as Described.” I reported the buyer to ebay, but I'm unsure what they actually do, and I have zero confidence that this helps in any way.
In any case, this is where the real problem begins.... Our coffee is sold as nonreturnable for obvious health and safety reasons. This buyer had already opened the food product. We could never resell it to another customer, nor would we ever do so. On top of that, the coffee was freshly roasted specifically for him. Had we actually made a mistake, sent the wrong coffee, sent the wrong roast or genuinely shipped something that was not as described, we would have replaced or refunded the order without argument. We stand behind what we sell, but that is not what happened here. Instead, the buyer used Item Not as Described as a loophole to bypass our no returns policy.
And based on the circumstances, it is very difficult to believe he did not know exactly what he was doing. He had a perfectly usable product, complained about something completely normal and unavoidable with coffee beans, selected an INAD reason that overrides the seller’s normal return policy, and ultimately ended up with roughly $300 worth of coffee for free.
Could you imagine if every buyer on eBay did this? Any buyer could order hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise, find some normal characteristic of the product, call it “not as described,” open an INAD case and potentially end up with both the merchandise and the refund. That would put sellers like me out of business. Once he selected INAD, eBay essentially gave us two choices: accept the return and refund him, or provide a shipping label and then refund him. Even if we wanted to simply follow that process and take the loss, the return shipping cost from the United States back to Canada on approximately 10 pounds of coffee would be astronomical. There would be no economic sense in paying a huge international return shipping charge to receive opened food that we could not resell anyway. So either way, the seller loses. Where is the seller’s opportunity to submit evidence before that happens?
I called eBay to help. The first representative was extremely nice, reviewed what happened and expressed disbelief at the complaint. He agreed that expecting every coffee bean in a shipment to arrive completely unbroken was unreasonable. I was told that because the return request was still open, I needed to contact eBay again when it closed on September 3 at approximately 7 p.m. Central and they would make it right.
So I did exactly that.
Call number two.... I had to relay the entire story again. That representative was also wonderful. We were on the phone for close to an hour while she reviewed the case, the buyer’s messages and the photograph he submitted.
She came to the same conclusion. She said the buyer’s complaint was outrageous, that the allegation that the item was “not as described” did not make sense, and that it was completely unrealistic to expect a bag of shipped coffee to contain no broken beans. She told me she was putting the case on hold and said she was putting a sticky note on her screen so she would not forget about me. Her point was that I had already spent so much time on the phone with her that I did not need to stay on the call any longer. She told me she would take care of it after we hung up. I thanked her and thought the issue was finally being handled.
Several days later, I received another message telling me to send the buyer a shipping label, so I called eBay a THIRD time. Once again, I had to repeat the entire story. The third representative reviewed it and again agreed with us. I was told not to worry, that she would have the situation reversed, and that I would not need to call again. The very next day I received an email from eBay saying the money had been taken from our account and refunded to the buyer. So now this customer has approximately $300 worth of freshly roasted Jamaican coffee for free.
Does anyone seriously believe he threw ten pounds of perfectly usable Jamaican coffee in the garbage because roughly 5% of the beans in one bag were broken? Of course not. He is going to grind it and drink it, because that is what coffee beans are for. At that point I called eBay for the FOURTH time. I had to explain the situation yet again to another representative. I told him I wanted to formally appeal the outcome. He reviewed the case and also agreed that what happened did not appear consistent with the circumstances of the return. He told me the appeal could take up to three days. It has now been three days.
I have spent hours on the phone, spoken to four different representatives, repeatedly been told that the buyer’s claim was unreasonable and that the situation would be corrected, and eBay still took our money and handed this customer hundreds of dollars worth of coffee for free. That is not seller protection. From a seller’s perspective, this is theft facilitated by a broken returns system.
The fundamental problem is that eBay allows a buyer to select “Item Not as Described” and immediately puts the seller into a position where the return process moves forward before eBay meaningfully reviews whether the allegation is legitimate. That needs to change. When a buyer selects Item Not as Described or another return reason that overrides a seller’s normal return policy, eBay should give the seller an opportunity to respond and upload evidence BEFORE forcing a refund or return label. Let the buyer submit their claim. Let the seller submit photographs, correspondence, listing information and an explanation. Then have eBay review both sides before deciding whether INAD protection actually applies. Otherwise, “Item Not as Described” becomes a loophole buyers can use to bypass a seller’s return policy.
There also needs to be proper protection for sellers of food, cosmetics and other products that cannot safely be resold once opened or tampered with. A buyer should not be able to open a consumable product, make an unreasonable INAD claim, receive a full refund and effectively keep hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise.
And what is the point of calling eBay support if four separate representatives can review the circumstances, agree that the buyer’s complaint is unreasonable, say that the case will be corrected, and yet the system simply continues until the buyer gets refunded anyway? I have sold online for many years. I understand that legitimate buyer protection is necessary, and I have absolutely no problem refunding a customer when a seller has actually made a mistake. But buyer protection should not mean seller exploitation.
Sellers are customers too. We pay the fees, purchase the shipping, absorb the losses and provide the inventory that makes this marketplace exist.
I want this case reviewed by someone at eBay who actually has the authority to correct it.
And beyond my individual case, eBay seriously needs to redesign the INAD process so sellers have a meaningful opportunity to present evidence BEFORE their money and merchandise are simply handed over to a buyer.
Because if every buyer behaved like this one did, there would eventually be no sellers left to protect.
I would appreciate anyone's help in getting this matter resolved, and ebay sticking to their repeated promises. Thanks.
le-5262
·3 weeks agoOh gosh...that sounds horrible.
I really only remember one story of significant value like that...
when someone tried to use my item to rip off another seller.
Thankfully, the seller traced it back to me.
Otherwise, yes, I agree there should be help with sellers.
I miss the world where you can call up and get some competent help from a person.
I don't know...
I would have made it go through as a regular return process
and used what little protection I did have to receive my item back.
call the bluff.
not argued it at all. Common knowledge that escalating as a seller is most assuredly not going to go in your favor most of the time.
...and, if I didn't get my stuff back the way it was sent...
I would have at least gotten a break for being that top seller thing.
cordell1
·3 weeks agoThis has happened twice this week for me. As others have said, you should have accepted the return as buyer most likely would not have shipped the item back (I have had this happen a couple of times) as buyer really wants the item but thinks they can extort the seller for money back. When you ask for product back they simply keep it and the time for return runs out and your money is released. This happened several times to me. I refused to let buyer keep product and money. Your loss would have only been shipping cost instead of shipping cost and product. You can't sell the product but buyer does not get product and money back. I hope you have blocked this buyer. I usually report buyer, get my product back, refund and block. I have had success in calling ebay and having the shipping return as it is a blatant false claim of return and Ebay did give me the credit for shipping back.
rococoroasters
OP3 weeks agoWe cannot accept the return for 3 reasons:
Our product is a food. It's a health and safety issue;
Our listings all have a no return policy on them;
We are in another country. Shipping and brokerage costs would be astronomical, and carriers don't issue return labels on for international destinations. It has to be within the same country.
Good to know that anyone can lie on eBay and get free product. We sell on Amazon and if, in the rare occasion, we receive an A to Z claim, Amazon provides sellers with the opportunity to submit their evidence. If eBay wants to override a listing that has a "no return" policy, because it's a food item, then they should provide sellers the same opportunity before slapping a strike on their performance metrics and swipe their money.
Where is the seller protection they speak of???
kensgiftshop
·3 weeks agoEbay doesn't care about your reasons for not wanting to accept returns.
The MBG says they can return for a refund.
papayas2
·3 weeks agoHi rococoroasters!
I had the same miserable experience ver 10 years ago. My buyer won! eBay would NOT stick up for me even though my customer was such a dishonest person. She returned the item, and when I opened it I almost fell over literally from the intense wreaking smell of a severe tobacco addict.
It really hurt my feelings when eBay would NOT stick up for me. The customer claimed "not as described" because "the color was not as the photos shown on eBay." That was so petty and ridiculous. I wrote a long letter to eBay Headquarters addressing it to the current President and all the other officials. I got no response from any of them. Also, I could never resale it damaged from the smell of cigarette smoking. It was a new product, so washing it would have devalued it.
Unfortunately, you may have to chalk this one up to experience because eBay favors the Buyers (I learned) even when they are crooked. They must assume the majority of customers are honest and are good people. I agree, but when someone does to you. what someone did to me, it really does feel bad, especially when someone like you and I go out of their way to provide quality merchandise, extra care to pack it and get it there in pristine shape, but only to end with with savvy dishonest people.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I hope you get lucky and eBay has learned by now when people a head of you, like me, that got scammed.
gone.c-33
·3 weeks agoIf that’s your first dispute in 30 years, consider yourself lucky!
Credit card companies don’t care about no return policies and unsellable product after being opened. If the customer proves that they have asked for a refund and you refused, they will process a refund not processed chargeback.
eBay is just trying to get in front of payment disputes (which come with a $20+ dispute fee).
mr_lincoln
·3 weeks agoHi @rococoroasters
You ran into a Buyer who knows exactly how to abuse the eBay return system and get away with it, especially on an international shipment. I think even if your listings stated that the dry roasting process occasionally produces some cracked and broken coffee beans the Buyer would have come up with another reason to file a bogus INAD return ... like maybe the coffee tasted like Columbian instead of Jamaican or they ordered Medium roast but got Dark roast. It is also possible that your particular Buyer owns or operates a coffee shop and just got $ 300 worth of free inventory to sell for their own profit.
As others have posted, eBay phone reps and their advice and promises are unreliable.
duffy4444
·3 weeks ago · EditedGreetings,
I usually don't do this, but I read every word you wrote because of being so well-presented with great writing skill in the use of the English language.
Over the past few years, It has become evident that eBay will do NOTHING to increase seller protections in cases like this. To top it off, eBay's adoption of AI simply cannot make a value judgment in similar cases. Because eBay management has mostly turned over case judgment results to be decided by inherently stupid AI, there are much fewer actual human beings on staff to handle common sense case judgments (which most cases are, IMHO). Hence, things are getting much worse, not better. This also includes the refusal to remove negative feedback that should have never been allowed to be given.
The sheer numbers of buyers and sellers over the years also exacerbates INAD cases. I believe eBay has become too big to be able to handle the rise in scams and otherwise common-sense INAD cases as they arise. So eBay has in effect shot themselves in the foot by getting rid of reliable human customer service and embracing AI to handle INAD cases. Amazon and other online sales venues have also. A further insult is the joke of those outsourced live eBay CS phone "agents" with no authority to solve issues, and who will lie and tell you anything just to get you off the phone. A sticky note on a screen? Yeah right. That's a perfect example of the decline in eBay's CS and a lot of justifiably angry sellers.
I've been quite successfully selling here for over 28 years, and decades ago eBay never treated slam-dunk scam INAD cases against sellers as badly as they're doing now. As recently as 10-15 years ago I could get a simple common sense INAD case solved in a manner of minutes after contacting a real live eBay Customer Service Rep employee who had the authority to make a judgment and solve an issue one way or the other, sometimes immediately. Today, this CS has turned into "Customer-No-Service" and has evolved into us sellers taking it in the shorts and forced to consider such large (and small) losses as a "cost of doing business".
I've had to change my eBay business model to limit and list items in only certain categories that so far don't seem to have the danger of scammers. I'm also sure to dot every "i" and cross every "t" in my extensive item descriptions, and to not list anything over a certain dollar amount in order to cover my tush over possible INAD scam losses. So far I've been fortunate to avoid scams by not selling items in scam-heavy categories, but I no longer list high-value items. I lose out on larger profits, but so does eBay, whose bottom line could be a windfall of increased seller fee profits from high-value sales that I and many other sellers now refuse to list.
Partly because of eBay's embrace of AI making a mockery of otherwise common-sense INAD judgments like yours should be, I see the handwriting on the wall. So I'm slowly winding my store down to zero over the next few years until it eventually dies with a whimper. Then it's a donation to a hospice or ASPCA thrift store or two. I'm getting too old to continue doing this anyway.
It seems you have a great product to sell, and I could smell the coffee you're roasting. I wish you the best of luck with any changes in your business model, and hope you can brace yourself and get over the $300 loss soon.
Cheers, Duffy
tobaccocardyahoo
·3 weeks agoLimiting the number of items which can be purchased in a single order also can help.
All of what you say were probably good practices in the past as well as now, and the thought process they require probably should have been part of the process forever.
Retail sales have shrinkage, sometimes due to bad actors. Expecting otherwise is leaving yourself undefended. Ebay was never going to defend you, that is your job. They do not know how to do your job.
inhawaii
·3 weeks ago · EditedTo say ebay "helped" a buyer steal $300 from you is wrong and ridiculous. When ebay finds in favor of the buyer in a dispute, that's not them steal from you. If a Judge finds in favor of the plaintiff, is that Judge helping the plaintiff steal from the defendant? Again, ridicluous.
duffy4444
·3 weeks agoI agree. "Passively enabled" is much more accurate than "helped".
Cheers, Duffy
rococoroasters
OP3 weeks agoOh really, then who did they help? Me or the thief? I am sorry, but I really don't care to sugarcoat facts.
chapeau-noir
·3 weeks agoYour prices are really good! I've paid about $40/lb USD for Jamaican (once paid $65 for a pound of Jamaican peaberry from an 18th century plantation - but that was a birthday gift to myself). It's too bad I'm only one and it takes too long to get through 5 lb coffee for peak freshness.
Your buyer really is heinous.
mamacassidy
·3 weeks ago · EditedThe call center reps are notorious for not giving correct information and/ or just telling you what you want to hear to get you off the phone.
There is no one here who can escalate this to a supervisor or anyone higher up with ebay.
Your best bet is to contact a rep via Instagram. You may or may not be able to speak to a real human there who can assess your situation.
But honestly, as unfair as it is, this is one you will probably lose. The ebay Money Back Guarantee allows buyers to claim any item is Not As Described or Damaged for a full refund. Almost every seller on here has had to deal with a fake return of this nature at one time or another.
You state that there should be "a meaningful opportunity to present evidence BEFORE their money and merchandise are simply handed over to a buyer." But there are millions of transactions on ebay everyday, and there is just no way that ebay can look at every return that is opened to determine who is telling the truth.
I'm sorry this has happened to you. When I've been in a similar situation, I just wrote the loss off as a business expense at the end of the year.
chapeau-noir
·3 weeks ago · EditedI actually did read your entire post (it took no more than a few minutes) and unfortunately, I don't think there is any recourse here. eBay does not arbitrate for the simple reason that they don't have the actual merchandise in hand, so it turns into a he says/she says situation. Photos and documentation don't matter - as far as eBay is concerned, anything can be faked. Seller rep doesn't matter, nor does longevity. eBay is a huge multinational that is buyer-centric and operates on rigid rules. Front line CS has little or no power to do anything.
I agree with your feelings about the unfairness of this - the returns system here is a hot mess, but it's a hot mess everywhere online. I wish I had better news.
One thing you can do is contact eBay on Instagram - they may be able to help, and it's worth a try. Don't send your whole post, just a condensed time line (you can refer to the fuller post if needed).
@rococoroasters
kensgiftshop
·3 weeks agoDoes your listing say that some beans might be cracked/broken?
When a buyer files an INAD, you don't have many choices and you don't want to wait and let Ebay decide.
You could have accepted the return and paid return shipping and the buyer would only be left with a refund, if they even shipped them back.
rococoroasters
OP3 weeks agoNo, my listing does not specifically state that an occasional coffee bean may be cracked or broken, because that is a completely normal occurrence with roasted coffee beans. It is no different than opening a box of crackers or cookies and finding a few crumbs or a broken piece inside. That does not make the entire product “not as described.” The listing also does not state, we guarantee 100% unbroken beans. No coffee company in the world can achieve this.
You also suggested that I could simply accept the return, pay the return shipping, and refund the buyer once it came back. As mentioned, this is an opened food product. It has already been handled and tampered with, and it cannot be resold. That is precisely why this situation is not comparable to an ordinary return. I am asking whether anyone has successfully escalated or challenged this type of unreasonable INAD claim involving a consumable product.
kensgiftshop
·3 weeks agoEbay doesn't care about the situation and they treat all items the same as far as an INAD.
As far as Ebay, if your description doesn't mention there could be cracked/broken beans, it isn't as described.
Cover yourself and mention it in the descriptions.
emuestate
·3 weeks agoThis reminds me of a photo of an inscription my sister-in-law once sent me that she discovered on her toilet scrubber. It said, "not for oral use". She couldn't stop laughing, but it wasn't a joke. I'm not sure why we have to lower the level of discourse and act like every scammer is intellectually impaired. What might help is if eBay forces all these scammers to send the item back, and not hand them both a refund and the item. Maybe this will stop if GameStop takes over eBay, and they get some gamers onboard. Obviously, the AI can be gamed!
redmodelt
·3 weeks agoI nor anyone else is going to read that wall of text. If someone opens a not as described return, you ONLY have one option and that is to send a return label and accept the return. Does not matter in the least if they are lying through their teeth, you must accept the return. No if ands or buts. Calling eBay will not change anything. No one here can do anything to resolve this issue, we don't work for eBay and eBay does not read these posts.
rococoroasters
OP3 weeks ago · EditedI understand how an INAD works. That is not the issue here. The issue is that this buyer’s claim violates eBay’s own return policies, and four separate eBay agents have already acknowledged that there is a problem with the claim.
I posted here because I am hoping an eBay Community staff member or moderator can step in, review what happened, or direct this to someone within eBay who actually has the authority to address it properly.
And respectfully, if you are “not going to read that wall of text,” then I’m not sure why you responded to it. The details matter. I was not asking for a generic explanation of how an INAD return normally works. I already know that. I am asking for assistance with a specific situation where eBay’s own policies have been violated
albertabrightalberta
·3 weeks agoWe all understand how NAD works and the fact is that that IS the issue here since that's the claim the buyer made.
Buyers make false NAD claims frequently and the options for the seller are the same and you have 2 options:
Accept the return by supplying and paying for the return shipping label and issuing a full refund after receipt of the return
Issue a full refund without a return, thereby letting the buyer keep the product for free.
If you had a return policy, you would have the opportunity to deduct a percentage from the refund if the item is returned in a different condition than you sent it. But without the policy, you must accept the return and cannot deduct from the refund.
What you can do in addition to accepting the return is to go to the order and report the buyer for abuse of the MBG.
It'll go on the buyer's record and if ebay sees a pattern, the buyer may be restricted or prohibited from returning items.