Abuse of Return Policy

[waterloo_pride]

Will ebay ever figure out a way to better there return policy for trading cards? A customer bought a lot of pokemom cards from me and then put a return in stating they were fake. He also lied and stated they were sent unprotected but then proceeded to take photos showing obvious bubble wrap protection and every card had individual plastic sleeves on them. I don't understand how ebay can't figure out a way to make customers show proof that the cards are fake. I buy many pokemon cards from sellers on ebay and then sell them myself.

Ebay needs to revamp there return policies to make it not so easy for a customer to just return things so easily. Plus when a customer lies saying the cards were not sent protectected and then takes photos showing they were sent protected, that should show ebay the customer is a liar and just trying to use any excuse to get there money back. MAKE IT SO CUSTOMERS NEED TO SHOW PROOF BEFORE BEING ABLE TO GET REFUNDS FOR POKEMON CARDS.

[eburtonlab]

I don't understand how ebay can't figure out a way to make customers show proof that the cards are fake.

eBay has no way to know whether any such "proof" is actually the same card that the seller delivered unless the card has gone through an authentication service before reaching the customer -- something that is typically only done for very high end cards because of the added expense.

Absent such authentication, anyone can find a non-genuine card on the internet (or even just a picture of one) to show such "proof", therefore that is not really proof of anything much at all.

At some point, eBay has to accept one side of the story. If eBay were to take the seller's side, then scammers could advertise one thing and deliver another with impunity, and buyers would abandon the site. eBay does not want that.

So far eBay has been taking the buyer's side in "not as described" cases, and there has been no shortage of sellers willing to sell on eBay, so eBay is unlikely to change the policy to any great extent.

[waterloo_pride]

I understand what you are saying and I may have posted this out of a bit of anger. I just feel the return system for ebay is too easy but I understand what you mean in that Ebay has such a huge selling base. I just feel people like to abuse the return policy and can do it too easily. I appreciate your input and hope you have a grand day

[eburtonlab]

It is certainly frustrating when a buyer can lie to get a refund, and your anger is entirely understandable. Many sellers share your frustration.

Unfortunately there is no easy solution to the fact that once a buyer has sole possession of an item, at that point the buyer can claim anything at all and there is no effective way to counter such a claim absent prior third-party authentication and a verifiable chain of custody.