Activity on your account isn’t following policy: Abusive buyer policy

[grenierc]

eBay sent me a message saying this:

"Activity on your account didn't follow our Abusive buyer policy. Buyers may not misuse our feedback, returns, or buyer protection programs.

What activity didn't follow the policy - Filing excessive returns claiming the item is not as described when the seller described it accurately."

I have returned THREE items recently, but multiple days apart. I think I do know which item it may be.

I bought a 3.5” Solid State Drive off a seller. I put it into my Mac Pro (cheese grater tower) and it says Initialize Disk. Well, the disk wouldn’t initialize. I kept getting errors in Disk Utility in macOS. So I run Disk Drill and it finds more errors. I return the item since I can’t get it to work and just as I get the refund I get a message saying “Activity on your account isn’t following policy: Abusive buyer policy.” 

Excuse me? What did I do wrong? Is there something I am not noticing?

I DID NOT make a false claim, I did not damage the item, I packed it the same as I got it and sent it back.

I also bought a graphics card (GTX 680 nVidia). I installed the drivers for it (I tried it in a PC) and couldn’t get it to work even though I hooked up 2x 6 pin cables to it. I kept getting “No signal” on my monitor. I spent 3 hours fiddling with it in my PC but I could not get it to show anything on the display. So I returned that too, but I wonder if it is because of that. I did NOT misuse the policy once. 

AND then, I also ordered a DVD IDE drive 5.25” for my Mac Pro but it was not being detected when I plugged it in. I tried several solutions but NOTHING worked, so I returned that.

It turns out that my tower was having motherboard issues, I had corroded cables and it had severe water damage on it. I got rid of the junk Mac Pro since it wasn’t working… now that I knew it was broken. But why did I get this message?

Now I look like an absolute fool; but I did nothing to abuse the policy as all I was doing was returning the items I bought since they didn’t work.

I did not try to cause any harm/bad things to any of the sellers.

Why did eBay send me this warning?

I am confused… Can someone help me figure this out? 

Thank you!

-C

[ebe001]

I totally agree.  There may be some 'bad' buyers out there, but some of these sellers responding here seem to want to tar all of us with the same brush!

I too have had this message on both occasions I had to return a defective item.  I complained to ebay and threatened to leave.  They apologised in writing and said it was their software.  To that I told them to bin their algorithm and get in the real world.

In a market place flooded with fakes, cheap knock-offs and other junk , is it any wonder innocent buyers are returning more items? 

I am in the process of returning something now and the message has come up - I'm totally ignoring it.  Some rubber feet were so weak (as in like made of jelly) that the screws have gone right through so they don't hold the feet on the board.  I don't care that it's only £5, it's the principle.  If you sell junk, expect to get it returned.

Failing a refund from the seller I will simple make a credit card claim the relevant party.

Genuine buyers need to stick together these days as prices have shot up but quality is at an all time low.

[mudshark61369]

@ebe001,

You have replied to a topic that is over a year old, on the U.S. based boards, and offered a suggestion that could speed the process for buyers having MBG limits, account suspension or worse.

Those who have read the terms of the Money Back Guarantee and follow its time frames do not pay the return shipping cost and do not lose their money, when an item is not as described.  However, if a buyer causes damage to an item, they may lose the dispute.  If the buyer then goes to their card provider to seek redress they may be responsible for returning the item and often a card provider will contact the shop or seller about a claim.  Card providers aren't going to back false claims.

[ebe001]

That's not really relevant to me.  I never mentioned MBG or people who purposefully damage products.

I'm talking about goods that are defective or not fit for the intended purpose - there's a law against that in Europe and the UK that afford protections to us.  Too bad if you don't have that in the US.

As for a US-Based forum, this is the only community forum there is, so I can't see how that's my fault and at the end of the day isn't ebay supposed to be an international market place?

Lastly the thread may be a year old but still relevant and no need to reinvent the wheel if the topic exists and the content is current - which it is.

[stainlessenginecovers]

If you are opening all for 'not as described', that could be the reason. Those hurt sellers. 

A disc drive 'not working' needs a return for the reason of 'ITEM IS DEFECTIVE'. 

SIGNIFICANTLY NOT AS DESCRIBED returns means you buy $100 shoes and they send a $5 bag of oranges. 

[techieglobal]

I too got this email...I'm a buyer since like last 10 years & I have never received any such email from eBay but since the starting of the global pademic, several of my packages are either getting lost or the tracking never worked (fake tracking numbers maybe) or I'm getting different & damaged items...

Email mentioned these two reasons :

"  What activity didn't follow the policy

- Filing excessive returns claiming the item is not as described when the seller described it accurately.
- Filing excessive requests claiming that you didn't receive your items.
"

I have to mostly buy computer parts from Chinese sellers because most computer parts for my laptops can only be found with the Chinese  sellers & these parts are not available in my country & no-one can deny the fact that China is the spare parts King of the world & even most top computer & phone companies get all their parts from China so it's obvious that, many of those spare parts can only be found in China...

Since last 2 years, I had to request returns for several low cost orders because of the before mentioned reasons...Mostly I never got the items even after 4 months & the tracking never worked...

I always try to work things out with the sellers directly but many of these Chinese sellers neither bother responding to messages or they just keep sending same generic replies to every messages like "Please wait for some more time & contact us if you still don't get it"...

Then when I don't get any support from the seller/s, I have to contact eBay to claim the MBG & I think when sellers lose the cases, they simply start reporting the buyers & starts blocking them...And eBay starts sending these emails to the buyers...

I talked to eBay chat support & only got generic replies from them asking me to follow all the buyer policies even after telling them that I did NOT violate any of them...

If I would have been a fraudulent buyer, I would get kicked-out of MBG & would have received that email years ago, not in 2022 when I'm using eBay since 2012...

I called eBay's USA number paying for high international call charges but they seem to have no idea about this email & they kept on transferring me to several deparments...In the end, a lady told me to disregard the email saying it's just a warning email...But everytime I try to create return request, that warning pop-up is bugging me & also there were two lines in that email which I'm copy-pasting below...

" Not following this policy in the future will result in loss of your ability to return items on eBay and possible suspension of your account. "

So, eBay wants me to lose money if I don't get the items or they come defective or damaged ?? If I complain to eBay to get my money back becase the seller is not helping me, instead of taking action against the unethical sellers, eBay would threat me that I will lose my MBG & they can suspend my account when it's not at all my fault??

What I'm supposed to do?? Lose my money or stop buying on eBay??

[donsdetour]

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@techieglobal wrote:

I too got this email...I'm a buyer since like last 10 years & I have never received any such email from eBay but since the starting of the global pademic, several of my packages are either getting lost or the tracking never worked (fake tracking numbers maybe) or I'm getting different & damaged items...


What I'm supposed to do?? Lose my money or stop buying on eBay??

---

Both: due to eBay DOES NOT CARE..you are just ar username like me. I know they would toast me just as fast as any other user name.

[techieglobal]

What I'm supposed to do?? Lose my money or stop buying on eBay & throw away my computers & electronic items because I can't get spare parts to repair them??

P.S. The edit time deadline was ended so typed this part in another comment...

[techieglobal]

If the sellers are losing the cases on eBay, why would eBay accept their complaints to warn the buyers?? Does not make any sense at all...If eBay would think that the buyers are fraudulent, then they would naturally close the cases in favor of the sellers...

It's like a thief stolen something & when the victim complained to the Police, police investigated the case & recovered the stolen goods & gave to the owner & then the police sends a warning to the owner/victim asking the victim not to complain again if he faces the same situation again because the thief has complained to the police that it was not his fault...LMAO...

[donsdetour]

Such is a seller can report a buyer for return abuse; Such is that the item was as described was returned: or an item was not even the same as sent etc..or item never returned etc....

eBay for sure is going to check if a user is getting to may returns going on as well.

Their be limits on all of this just as sellers have..

[techieglobal]

I never had to return an item since like 2012 because the sellers always lost the case either because they didn't want to accept the returns or they just didn't bother to reply to the case & after waiting till the deadline, I had to ask eBay to step-in & I won the cases...

Still eBay sent me this email & showing me this pop-up warning whenever I'm trying to return an item...

Buying from Chinese sellers is my only option as the spart parts are only available with them...For an example, my laptop's motherboard is dead now & I had to pay $255 for an used motherboard from a Chinese seller because no other seller is selling that motherboard & my laptop is a gaming laptop which costed me like $3000 & I can' t throw it away because the motherboard died....

[techieglobal]

Also I don't have like thousands of feedbacks & have only 100+ but all of them are +ve Feedbacks...If I would have been taking an unfair advantage of the MBG, why all the sellers would give me positive feedbacks?? This doesn't make any sense at all too...

[donsdetour]

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@techieglobal wrote:

Also I don't have like thousands of feedbacks & have only 100+ but all of them are +ve Feedbacks...If I would have been taking an unfair advantage of the MBG, why all the sellers would give me positive feedbacks?? This doesn't make any sense at all too...

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what all of this means is your  use of the MBG may now be limited or non existent..

Oh and Just saying ( letting you know)  buBBLe : is the BBL part or blocked bidders list.....

Should not have been posted in that manner as it violates the rules of engagement..

[techieglobal]

But I called eBay US today & a lady told me to disregard the email I received even after telling her that I'm getting this warning pop-up everytime whenever I'm trying to place a return request...Maybe from now I will call & place the return request by talking to a human rep instead of doing that via the site...

[techieglobal]

I even send messages to sellers from whom I'm not buying anything at all if I see that they have mistakenly provided a wrong item name which does not match their product photos...I message them asking them to fix their pics, titles or descriptions so that they don't get disputes from the buyers & the sellers fix their listings & message me back with thank you notes for saving them from any possible disputes...

And eBay is blaming me that I'm violating MBG... 😞

[kh-gary]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.