I sent a beautiful vintage snowman to a customer and they said I sent a dirty old coffee mug
I sent a beautiful vintage snowman to a buyer and they told me that they did not receive the item even though they received my box and all the packaging that I wrapped in the item in. But they told me that what I did send them was a dirty old yeti coffee mug that had pomegranate juice in it. I have never owned or bought a yeti anything. And I know that I didn't not send a dirty coffee mug. I contacted eBay and they told me to have her return the product and then I can dispute it when the wrong product comes back. I have a feeling I am getting scammed I'm not sure what to do. There was red flags from the beginning of the purchase. I'm not sure what to do
71 comments
pickapaper
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
You need to contact eBay asap. Two of the pictures the buyer shows in her negative left for you show names and addresses and that is a big no-no.
gurlcat
·8 months ago😲What the?!!! I thought you meant 'accidentally' shown in photos, like with the packing in the background of the item. But NO the buyer is outright DOXXING the OP, taking a closeup photo of the real name and address!! This is purely vindictive, and way beyond a no-no.
Thing is, I can't find how to report something like this. They have now winnowed the report reasons down to only 3, and none of them have to do with feedback abuse!
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoNow the buyer has given me a negative feedback stating "Ordered ceramic snowman, what came was a dirty mug with an old pomegranate inside. Contacted seller who denied any mistakes and blamed me. Seller than escalated the issue to ebay". I replied back and said that i sent all pics to ebay and did escalate to ebay. I am not sure if that was the best thing to do or now. but now i have a negative mark. so frustrating.
fern*wood
·8 months agoI’m sure those photos should be removed. Since it sounds like you escalated the return to eBay rather than refund, you probably will receive an unresolved by seller defect. Hopefully you can get something resolved.
spreadlovelikefire
·8 months agoFirst, there are 2 photos that show the label. Per eBay guidelines this should be removable as it has personal information on it. Contact eBay on facebook or twitter and message them something like "I received a negative feedback for an item that I had reported as being fraud. Now they have left me a negative feedback and have included several pictures of personal information. This is directly related to a return case that was escalated to eBay". Also, she mentions it being escalated to eBay, this is also removable per eBay guidelines.
I mentioned in another post and asked what her feedback left for others look like because I suspected she would do this. Have you checked that? My guess is she has a history of this and if you look at her feedback and she has complained to other sellers about receiving incorrect items then eBay may view that as a pattern.
gurlcat
·8 months agoI want to know this too. No way this person has done something like this only once.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoeBay said they cannot take down the comment because comments are on there forever. And they cannot take down the one with the address because it is not my registered address. I'm like what other address do I have lol. I don't feel like it's safe for me to have that on there. I'm not sure what else to do I really wish that she wouldn't have posted my address and hers too
gurlcat
·8 months agoAre you talking about a phone rep who said that? -Yeah they are worthless. You must get a social media rep who has the knowledge and power to do this removal. Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, go to the eBay page and send a private message with your username, the item number, and a brief description of what has gone on so far. I promise they will remove this entire feedback as it breaks numerous policies. -"There forever" (that rep should be fired).
By the way, you never answered how this turned out as far as whether eBay took the refund money from you, or gave the buyer a courtesy refund from their own revenues.
spreadlovelikefire
·8 months agoThis is 100% against eBay policy. Did you message them on facebook or twitter? The phone or chat does not work well. Usually the facebook or twitter reps will do more. She shared a photo of your address and her address and that's a huge no no.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoWow that was crazy. I finally got eBay to remove the pictures from the feedback. It took a few hours of the chatbot help and it actually took me having someone call me from eBay in order to get this resolved. But now the post is gone the pictures are gone thank goodness. I've been doing this for a few years now with reselling and I've never had this experience before. I don't want this experience again. I think all of you for being so awesome though and giving me the directions that I needed in order to complete this.
spreadlovelikefire
·8 months agoDon't let this discourage you. If you sell long enough you will get scammed. I've been selling for a very long time and this is my full time job. I've been scammed a handful of times. It doesn't happen that often but when it does it sucks and stings. I'm glad this ended up being removed. For future, I would do the following.
1.) Don't give up, don't let this discourage you.
2.) Offer either free returns or buyer pays returns for 30 days. This will allow you to not refund the full amount. So in this case you could have just refunded up to half and kept the other half. You would still report and do all the things to try and get eBay to investigate, etc.
3.) Keep it calm, cool, collected. If someone is a scammer it isn't personal to you, we will all get them from time to time. Most sellers lift up other sellers and help them out. Try and keep emotion out of it.
4.) Never use the ebay automatic system when it comes to stuff like this. Always message them on facebook or twitter.
5.) Be well! This all worked out. It will be okay. My guess is that the buyer is now on eBay's radar considering them posting your personal information on top of sending you rotten fruit.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoI don't know All I know is that she was being investigated. I feel like she has done this before and has gotten away with it. But I hope that it stops now
adamcartwright
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
Your reply was good.
If I were you, I would report this also to the US Postmaster and to IC3.
pickapaper
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
I'm so sorry. I don't know why people do things like that. Returning the mug instead of the snowman is bad enough but why claim it had pomegranate juice in the mug and then send a rotten pomegranate? That's just mean and nasty.
You know, Yeti mugs are expensive and you can buy a replacement lid for it. If it were me, I would buy a replacement lid, clean that baby up and list it on eBay. Even being personalized could be a plus.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoThat would have been a good idea but unfortunately I was so mad after I took the pictures that I just threw it away the whole box and everything stunk. That rotten fruit was really gross. I really hope that eBay does not side with her.
spreadlovelikefire
·8 months agoI would for sure file a report with IC3.gov and with usps for tampering with mail and sending rotting fruit to you. You can try and escalate it through eBay but they will more than likely not do anything, unfortunately. People have been off the chain lately with the scams and weirdness. When she originally emailed you did she say there was an actual piece of fruit with the cup? Or was that just added? We've been wondering how she would know what type of juice it was, this is so bizarre all the way around. Usually people like this will leave horrible feedback for others as well claiming they were sent wrong items. Does her feedback left for others show this at all? Because if it does you could try and bring that up to eBay as well. Like how often does someone claim they receive the wrong item before they are caught? Just a thought, may not go anywhere. I'm so sorry this happened to you.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoIt sucks that people are like this. We work hard as resellers and we don't want this kind of trouble. Thank you everybody for letting me chat about this. I will continue to keep you guys updated
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoActually I was wrong they reimbursed the buyer. Well that made me very angry.
they said they reviewed the case and decided to reimburse the buyer the whole amount. Dang 😖
a_c_green
·8 months agoThey may decide to do that out of their own pocket, not yours. What exactly did the notification say? They may have let the guy get away with it by refunding him themselves, without taking the money back from you. (This doesn't happen routinely, but is sometimes done as a courtesy.)
fern*wood
·8 months agoI'm still not clear what action you took. You stated you filed a report, but did you close out the not as described return by refunding your buyer or did you escalate to ebay to decide the case?
nancyromancy
·8 months agoI had a similar experience where the buyer claimed that instead of a beautiful jacket I had sent she received a pair of shoes. I called ebay immediately. Then she filed for a refund and sent back the pair of shoes with a shipping receipt from what not. I pointed out to ebay that I have 8500 positive feedbacks and would never do this and never had a pair of shoes like this or any transaction with whatnot. I can't believe this happened at the post office. I think it was a scam, Ebay refunded her money but covered the refund from their end, not mine.
There is very little we can do about things like this, except point out that anybody can send back anything and say it was what they received. I hope such people get what they deserve -- and that is not necessarily a refund from ebay.
fern*wood
·8 months agoHow are you getting ebay involved? I would have definitely tried to list that mug.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoI filed the report with eBay and sent them the pictures of the product. And that nasty fruit and how gross it was. Plus I was talking to help line also so I'm hoping that eBay has that to consider and also the chat between me and the customer. I'm sorry I'm really tired. I hope you guys have a good night
pickapaper
·8 months ago@kamolde-26 wrote: "I really hope that eBay does not side with her."
Unfortunately, eBay doesn't know who sent what or what was received or returned so they side with the buyer. Even photos will not be accepted as evidence because they don't know if the photos are actually of the item or if they have been doctored.
Any chance you can retrieve that mug from the trash? Nasty or not, it could be cleaned up and sold to get part of your money back.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoYes that might have to be something I can consider.
animal-house-8
·8 months agoAbsolutely totally acceptable under ebay as I received message saying since we have no idea what is being returned to you we side with the buyer. So it looks like it's more profitable being a buyer.
kamolde-26
OP8 months ago 
 
 This is what she sent back. It was stinky and gross. The fruit was rotten. I am glad that I was wearing gloves when I opened it up.
adamcartwright
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
There are some very deranged people out there.
I wish we could share buyer accounts, because I would BBL this person so fast.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoI know I wish we could too. I would block the people so quickly. But I don't want to get kicked out of eBay for doing that
circuitmaster
·8 months agoUnfortanatly with ebay the customer is always right. I sent a brand new remote in a sealed blister pack. Customer sent back a old beat up remote not even the same model. A new $200 remote. The guy stole it.
gurlcat
·8 months ago@circuitmaster Wait, what kind of remote costs that much??!! Remote for 'what'?
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoOmg I cannot believe that eBay actually sided with me. I didn't expect that at all. Maybe it was because I did contact the help desk and talk to somebody I don't know. But I am excited that they sided with me holy moly. I'm getting a full refund. And my stats are not going to go down because of this either according to them. I am so very happy. This just made my night for real. Thank you everybody for having my back I appreciate you all.
pickapaper
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
When you get the item back, please come back here and let us know what she sent. Will be interesting to know what she returned.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoOh I will for sure. It will be interesting to see what she sends back also.
gurlcat
·8 months agoI almost guarantee it'll be the coffee mug. This is a somewhat sophisticated scammer, as she did 2 premeditated things: 1. Wrote to you, claiming she received the wrong item, to create a documented attempt to "reach out to the seller" before starting the return, and 2. Chose an item of similar size, to support the idea that you must have put the wrong labels on two different packages, also so she can reuse the packing container for the return.
The pomegranate juice thing was a hilarious 'tell' though. If she really received it in a package she would have said "some kind of red residue" or something like that, not the exact fruit juice that B knows she drank from that mug herself. 🤣
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoThe packaging stunk right away. You could tell that that fruit was in there for a long time. I sent detailed pictures to eBay about it. This time it wasn't even juice. It was just a straight up pomegranate or at least I think that's a pomegranate lol
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoNow that person decided to finally return it. So it's in transit right now. I know she's going to send back that stupid dirty cup. I don't know what to do then at that point in time but I have started to take pictures of every single thing I'm sending out. I don't know if any of it will help.
gurlcat
·8 months agoSorry but there's no use taking photos of items you're shipping. From eBay's point of view, any scamming seller could take photos of anything, but then ship something else. There's no way to prove what was actually inside the package when you handed it over to the carrier.
If there's any consolation, it's that this person isn't scamming you on a high-dollar item. Also this is a very rare event, so don't worry about it happening anytime again soon.
But you definitely should report the buyer if the package contains that stupid cup. If you need help with how to report abusive buyer behavior, just ask and we can give instructions.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoI haven't heard anything back from the customer at all. I haven't gotten the snowman back and according to eBay she hasn't even printed off the label or anything. She does have until the 30th however so I am hoping that it gets dropped and the money goes back in my account. This has been a crazy experience.
soh.maryl
·8 months agoYou are hoping that the money goes back into your account?
How will that work?
gurlcat
·8 months agoAs in no longer 'on hold.' It's a seller thing soh.maryl.
12345jamesstamps
·8 months agoA buyer usually gets 30 days to return an item.
Seller sends a return label in an email.
Buyer can go to USPS(if that is the way it is being returned) to get the label.
Buyer I suppose can use the label on day 30 to still send the item.
Does this mean if item is not returned...seller gets the hold on funds lifted?...Usually...didn't work for me...a remorse return that never returned to me and I had to do a refund to close the case(a glitch?)
I am assuming buyer will return something but I doubt it will anything but garbage...
Would I do a return....if buyer lies about the item received...buyer might return something...but I think it would be a waste of a shipping return. I would just block the buyer.
adamcartwright
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
How do they know it's pomegranate juice? Hmmm...
sfau
·8 months agoCan't get past this - dirty old yeti coffee mug that had pomegranate juice in it - was the juice still in it or had been in it? Did they try the juice to make sure it wasn't cranberry? Sorry this sucks, but it made me laugh.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoit def made me frustrated and disgusted.
pickapaper
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
If the buyer files a claim, it will depend on how she files it. She said she did not receive the item (as you said in your opening post) but instead received the mug. If she files an "item not received" claim, the tracking number proves otherwise and this will be in your favor. But if she files an "item not as described", you have to accept the return and issue a label for the return and issue a refund when you receive the item back, regardless of what that item is.
This is one of those instances where many sellers might just issue a refund and let the buyer keep the item because there will be almost as much tied up in postage as what the item cost. But in this case, I would never do that; I would insist on "return for refund" just because I would want to know what she would do next, even if I ended up losing money.
For some reason I get the feeling that she is new to the "how to get free items on eBay" and is testing the waters to see what she can get by with. (She said all internal packaging was there and that the juice was "pomegranate"; these details are a little too explicit, IMO.)
I hope you will return and keep us updated on what is transpiring. I'm curious how she will respond to whatever is put in front of her.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoSo far there has been no tracking number for the return item. I sent her a return envelope but no response as of yet.
I will try to give you guys posted. Thank you so much for your guys's response
fern*wood
·8 months agoI'm glad you provided the return label. I definitely would have done the same. I would want that dirty Yeti mug to clean up and sell.
momtoabeautifuldaughter
·8 months agoShe has I believe 3 weeks to return it.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoThank you so much everyone. I will go by what eBay said for now. I am also thinking about telling them that I am getting USPS involved to see what happened to the snowman. I have a feeling the buyer is going to scam me and there is nothing I can do about it but dispute it.
colfaxstation
·8 months agoImmediately file a complaint that the buyer is requesting something beyond the listing. I've found that this will usually bring a real person into the review process if a INAD is filed.
luckythewinner
·8 months agoI have a feeling I am getting scammed I'm not sure what to do
Generally speaking, any buyer can steal any item from any seller at any time by filing a fraudulent dispute. There is no way to completely prevent this.
There was red flags from the beginning of the purchase.
Next, time, heed them.
tealt
·8 months ago@kamolde-26
This reply won't be helpful to you (you've already had good advice in the other replies),
but I gotta ask...
How did the buyer know the "juice" in the yeti mug was pomegranate?? Why not cranberry? Or raspberry? Or cherry?
Did they taste it?
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoI'm not sure I was afraid to ask lol
inhawaii
·8 months agoIn the world of online selling these things happen from time to time.
Ebay will believe and side with the buyer.
Accept the return if you want to pay for the mug to be returned to you.
Refund the buyer and let him keep the mug if you don't.
It's as simple as that.
Good luck.
meme6253
·8 months agoA long time ago,so long that I don't remember exactly what I purchased but what I received was no where near what I purchased, & of course the seller did not believe me but my address & the sellers were on the package, They disputed it but I won the case, So the point being things like this can & do happen.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoI understand that there are dishonest people out there but I know for sure that I sent the right item. And I didn't send a dirty yeti mug with mystery juice.
trip98
·8 months agoI had one of those years ago, the buyer said I sent garbage in the box - used sandwich bags and very specific bottle lids. Pretty much responded like @spreadlovelikefire. I added USPS and federal law inforcement takes riffling a package very seriously... Buyer never returned anything and never heard from them again. Of course put on my block list.
grann-4629
·8 months ago'Back in the Day', eBayers would tell us about items shipped in potato chip bags, cereal boxes and all kinds of neat things. I bought an Oud (musical instrument) that came all the way from the Middle East that was wrapped in newspaper with no padding. It arrived in perfect condition after spending almost a month on the road.
We didn't have cell phones with video cameras then so everything was hearsay.
Kinda like it is now, except a little easier to prove 😎
adamcartwright
·8 months ago@grann-4629
Crazy it made the trip.
Do you play the Oud? Not many people know it, but I have a cousin who plays one.
It's a great sound, especially when paired with the duduk.
grann-4629
·8 months agoI did until I had a stroke that wiped out my left side (fretting hand). The hardest thing with this beautiful instrument was tuning the friction pegs.
I also seriously looked at getting a harp guitar, but too many bucks. I still have a few guitars including a custom acoustic that was made for me by a guy in the southern states about 20 years ago - 50 year old Sitka Spruce over Walnut with a Maple strip on the back.
kensgiftshop
·8 months agoOne of the first items I bought on Ebay was shipped in a Macaroni & Cheese box.
spreadlovelikefire
·8 months agoI've had this happen a handful of times over the many years I've sold. And they always end up either never responding or messaging back that they were mistaken and they meant to message a different seller. I always respond like this:
Oh my goodness, that is so strange. First I want to appologize as that is not what I sent. I'd also like to request photos of the box as it would have to have been tampered with for this to happen as I recorded myself packaging the snowman. Either way, please open a return and I will send you a label over. I will also be filing a USPS investigation as this is clearly unacceptable and any additional you may have would be greatly appreciated so I can report it in full detail and get that ball rolling. Rest assured I will get to the bottom of this and you will taken care of!
Then you wait for their response or for them to open a return. If they do open a return and send you back a dirty coffee mug you can report it to IC3.gov and USPS for fraud. You'll get report numbers from each which you can include in your dispute with eBay. I don't know if those help but they certainly won't hurt anything. Once a buyer knows the distance you will go to figure out what happened a lot will just never reply. I did have one over the years that did follow through and I followed through as well and eBay refunded me.
Either way, always have request to return the item. And always include that you will be following up with the shipping provider as USPS does have check points with scans and photos in case it was actually tampered with.
caldreamer
·8 months agoI love your response to the customer. Very polite and yet letting them know there will a USPS investigation (so they will think twice if they are a scammer). Kudos to you!
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoThat's interesting I never knew that. I'll have to reach out to them too and see what happened to it. But I think I understand what happened. I believe that she is scamming me.
fullers_uk
·8 months agoI will also be filing a USPS claim and they may get a local postal marshall to look into the case.
Sounds better.
kensgiftshop
·8 months agoDo what they told you to do.
Disputing the return probably won't make any difference, but it's all you got.
kamolde-26
OP8 months agoThat is true
rschissler
·8 months agoI would say: "It's silly to think I would send a dirty coffee mug. Return the snowman, and when I receive it back, I'll promptly refund you."
dhbookds
·8 months agoDo what ebay told you to do............tell her to return the item..........
If something is wrong with the return, you can then report the buyer............