Fraudulent Damage Claims

[longhornbs94]

I have been buying and selling on eBay for 21 years, and there of the many issues I have with how eBay governs things, but the one that infuriates me the most is how sellers have no recourse when a buyer purchases an item and fraudulently claims it was damaged on arrival.  I'm a mechanical engineer by education and profession, and I know a few things about packing well and modes of failure (damage).  I pack all items so they are supported only by the strongest parts of the item.  I double box and make sure the item has significant padding around all sides of the inner box to keep it from shifting inside an outer box, but it will allow controlled give in any direction if the outer box suffers an impact such as being dropped.  Sometimes a damage claim is legitimate and the condition of the packing materials supports it; however, I've had at least three instances where this was not the case.  I will use the latest as an example.   A small delicate part on a high-end model train locomotive was broken off according to the buyer, but the packing materials showed no signs of impact or crushing.  The item was protected in the original manufacturer's box (inner box) with a custom designed cradle that does not allow any delicate parts to come into contact with anything other than air as long as the cradle is not deformed in some way.  The photos sent to me by the buyer showed no damage or deformation of the packing materials, so I know the part was not damaged in shipping.  The buyer also waited 6 days to inform me of the damage, which is very suspicious.  I know exactly what is going on here...  The buyer had an identical item that needed parts, so he bought my item for replacement parts or to simply swap one for the other and claim the one I shipped was damaged.  If this pans out like my two previous experiences, FedEx will not accept the damage claim because the packaging doesn't support it having been damaged in shipping.  eBay will force me to accept a return and send the buyer a full refund regardless of my history, feedback, or other facts.  I end up getting a damaged item back that most likely wasn't mine to begin with, and I end up giving a $200+ item away and paying round-trip shipping costs for that experience.  This is infuriating.  eBay abuses sellers by not allowing more protection for what is basically its sales force.  eBay support is among the worst I have experienced - they are of zero help in cases like this.  Does anyone out there know how to get justice in these situations?

[Anonymous]

Unless the claimant has abused the Money Back Guarantee and has opened more cases than his peers, eBay will rule in favor of the buyer with SNAD cases.  In some situations, buyers with excess MBG cases have no protection as a penalty.

[longhornbs94]

Thanks for the response.  I understand that policy and it is the very thing I have a problem with.  That only punishes the offender if they commit this fraudulent activity multiple times in a given period of time, and they are never punished financially.  That does absolutely nothing to help the victims of this.  I'm not a store or business, and as such do not have padding in my sales (reserve) to absorb this like a company does.  This will end up effectively costing me close to $300.  That is significant for an individual in my opinion.  eBay should have a competent, educated, fraud department for situations like this.  They advertise they do in terms of their escalation process, but I spent around 4 or 5 hours on the phone with support over the course of a week the last time this happened (over a year ago).  Each person I spoke with told me I had a case, and they either escalated it or transferred me to someone who was supposedly at a higher level who ended up escalating it.  All of that time and effort made no difference.  eBay's first mistake was to not allow sellers to give buyers negative feedback.  There was surly a better solution to retribution feedback than that.  After 21 years, I think I'm about to jump off this platform and find another way to sell my collections.  Long gone is the eBay I started using in 2001.