Buyer returned product used and damaged?!

[trekol-6]

I sold an item and the buyer decided after using the item for a month that he didn't like it anymore so he claimed that I hadn't sent the item with a cover on it( which I did) anyway eBay did not reach out to me at all and decided to give this guy a full refund and charge my account the amount of the refund so now my account is in the negative. Also when I received the item back it had obviously been used and now has major scratches on the item after the buyer used the item for a month. I contacted ebay about this and they told me that there's nothing that they can do because they can't prove that the item was damaged by the buyer or if it was damaged during the return shipping. Has anybody experienced anything like this? Any suggestions cause I'm seriously contemplating not selling on ebay anymore after being a member for many years. PLEASE HELP!!

[mr_lincoln]

Hi @trekol-6 ,

Below is a link to the Seller Protections section of the eBay Help pages, you can review those to see if anything might apply as well as for your future reference.  I use FREE Returns on my items so if a Buyer does what yours did I would be able to withhold their original shipping and up to 50% of the item's price.  Any less than Positive Feedback would be blocked or removed by eBay.   Over the years I have only had to use the full benefits of that setting a few times so it has been well worth it.

You can certainly try to appeal eBay's decision but it is rare that they reverse decisions in a Seller's favor.  If you sell online (anywhere) long enough this kind of thing can happen ... and that is having a dishonest person purchase from you and pursue a bogus return. 

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-protections?id=4345&st=12&pos=5&query=Sel...

Very sorry this happened ...

Regards,

Mr. L