malicious buying from other eBay sellers with the sole intention of returning... | Selling

jeffb2021 · 2023-09-13T14:01:11.756000Z

I'm sure many sellers question the motivation of a buyer opening a return.Sometimes it's justified, but sometimes there may be more to the issue than meets the eye...I had 4 requests for returns in 1 week...all of the items were Golf related, and upon further investigation I noticed that 3 of the buyers were also EBay sellers who sold (you guessed it) golf items. Not all the same person, but the red flag for me was 4 return requests in a week, when up to that point I hadn't had 4 return requests for the whole year ... The other issue was how irrational and unwilling each of the buyers were in resolving their issues....In 2 of the return requests I made arrangements with the manufacturer to exchange the item with a brand-new replacement as they were under warranty. The buyer would be provided a label, and they would ship the item and once the item was received a replacement would be sent whitin 14 days. No matter what I offered nothing was good enough which lead me to believe there was something going on with these buyers...I also wondered why each of those buyers sent messages and proceeded to be irrational when there is no reason to send messages if you're going to just request to return the item...What the point. I can't prove that these were all malicious buying, but when you find that most of these buyers are also ebay sellers of the same type of item you have to wonder if the intention was always to harm their online competion. here's another thing to ponder...ALL of the items that were returned were relisted and sold with NO OTHER PROBLEMS. NONE! Ebay allows people to exploit the return process by claiming "Item not as described" even if the buyer claims a reason that was CLEARLY described in the listing. Reporting the issue to eBay and blocking those buyers is one thing, but anybody can have multiple eBay accounts, or ask friends/family to assist them (you want to tell me this doesn't happen?) When you offer a buyer a brand new replacment (No additional cost to them) and that isn't good enough, you have to start to wonder what their motivation was to begin with...Call me skepticle, but when it's another ebay seller who sells items in the same catagory you have to wonder if this is an attempt to sabotage other sellers. Have any other sellers had this experience, and if so what did you do to protect yourself moving forward?I don't want to assume any ebay seller is also out to cause issues, but when 3 out of 5 return requests come from other ebay resellers you really have to wonder if there is more to the story than meets the eye. Anybody else have thoughts? Ideas? this did cause me to fall below standard in the sporting good catagory for 1 month, and of all the items I sell, the only issues seem to be the one catagory: GOLF!

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malicious buying from other eBay sellers with the sole intention of returning... | Selling | eBay Community