Ebay in favor of the buyer over the seller
I have been selling on Ebay for a little over 4 years now and Ebay has become a fully intergrated part of my life since I have a full time where I work from home so It works out well for me. Learning all of the caviats and nuances has been an adventure for sure. One thing I have learned is what it takes to ensure items get to the buyer in one piece. I recently sold a couple of items a min DV JVC VHS player/recorder, later the buyer claimed that it did not function properly. I have a degree in electrical engineering and computer science and I test and repair everything I sell and I know the unit was functional before I shipped nonetheless I did not refute the buyer and simply asked them to return the item. That was when the buyer informed me of the fact that they had thrown the item into the trash. I responded and explained that they would get a full refund once the item was returned. Some time later the package arrives, packed in an Amazon super flimsy box which had about 8 in of space on each side of the item and literally one wrap of small bubbles bubble wrap which was just loosely placed around it. As you can see from the photos the item was returned in terrible condition. This was the first time I had anything like this happen and I instinctively chose the option on the refund screen that says report a problem which lead me to another screen that had options and one of them was tha the buyer return a different item/ damaged item. I chose this option thinking this was me asking for ebay to provide me with guidance on what to do. So immediately funds are placed on hold and the very next day they are released to the buyer and the response stated that they were unable to determine how the buyer was at fault and snet them a refund and that I now had a defect on my account case closed without seller resolution. I contacted support multiple times and sent appeals and got absolutely no where with it. I did not know that Ebay intends for you to refund the buyer and THEN open a case which from my experience basically means refund the buyer and forget about it because I have never had Ebay help me or side with me not even one time for anything like this. So it appears that they will count any defects that you have for as far back as they need to go to count them against you and it seems that my Top Rated seller status will be taken from me because of this. Another late shipping defect I discovered on my account, stating shipping shows late arrival. The buyer purchased the item on Friday the 19th of Dec, I have a 3 day handling time, and based on my experience I would not have to drop the item off until Mon or Tues but keep in mind this was Dec 24th and the item was going to Hawaii, during transit there were multiple arrival date changes which caused the item to arrive at a later date than expected, but I am still not clear on how this was my fault or what I could have done to prevent this. And once again Ebay informs me that they will keep their origial decision and then send me a list of all of things I need to do to ensure items arrive on time and in the last statement state that they have these things in place to ensure that they have sellers who are willing to provide the buying experience they want their customers to have. It is shocking and demoralizing in an age where buyers can be very malicious and difficult to deal with, dishonest and impossible to please. But what can we do, our hands are tied. The funny thing is that I have tons of feedback from buyers about the fast shipping accurate desciptions and product quality and how happy they are, its ultimately Ebay who has an issue.
ryry-jj
·5 months agoYes, the buyer will win. eBay is all about the buying experience from start to finish. Sellers are ebay's product, and a lot of product gets stolen, damaged and discarded
ezstocklocker
OP5 months agoSo ultimately it boils down to this. You either accept that you will be completely screwed over buy buyers at their whim OR ebay will make this very difficult on you.
bonanza125
·5 months agoWhich is why for an item like this I would list it locally and have a potential buyer pick it up. When buying and selling online which requires shipping there is always some sort of risk that factors into play. A buyer returning an item damaged is a risk. It happens and it's unfortunate to the seller as in yourself. You now have a damaged item which isn't sellable so what you now need to do is chalk it up as a loss, write it off and move forward. Yes Ebay will be in favor of buyers and yes challenging a return will most likely lead you nowhere.
soh.maryl
·5 months agoYes, we've pretty much acknowledged that eBay does favor the buyer over the seller.
But there are ways to minimize that per christworks' reply to you.
meme6253
·5 months agoUnfortunately this is a complete loss for you, All I can say is take it to a Best Buy they recycle small electronics.
christworks
·5 months ago@ezstocklocker One huge block of text without any spacing. Are you serious? Do you realize how difficult all of that is to read? Please, if you post again, do not write a big block of text. It is hard for people who want to help you to be able to read it. Please edit your post and fix that so others don't pass your post by.
First, I don't care how much you know about electronics, what you test, etc. Vintage electronics; such as, the VCR/Recorder, get jostled in shipping. When that happens, it is easy for a part to shift, like a gear. There are a multitude of components that can get misaligned. It can make it to the buyer fine, but they use it for an hour and it stops working. It is just one of those things you cannot predict.
Anyway, taking the return back is what you were supposed to do. What you were not supposed to do is to reach out to eBay to figure out what to do from there. eBay has firm policies in place. You get a return back, you refund the buyer, then you report them after you refund. There are some seller protections in place when you follow that order. If you ask eBay to step in, they are going to refund the buyer from your funds and give you a defect. You are a Top Rated Seller. Why you didn't simply deduct 50% of the refund I don't know. That should have been enough to at least keep the sale from being a complete loss.
A while back I had a buyer who returned a player poorly packaged. It was not wrapped up, but instead was sitting on the packing materials I had it wrapped up in. I was stunned it made it came back to me in one piece. Thankfully they used the box I sent it out in. Had it been an Amazon box, which I NEVER use for anything like that, it would have looked like yours. Even though it came back fine, I still took 50% of the buyer's refund on the basis that it was poorly packaged and I don't know what may have happened during shipping that won't show up until later. What I did not do was involve eBay in the return process. I did report the buyer for return abuse.
On the handling time. You have a 3 day handling time. An item bought on December 19 did not have to be shipped until December 24. Now, the question for you is, did you get an acceptance scan when you took it to the carrier? Or, did you drop it off and trust them to scan it? You'll have to provide more details about this.