Buyer left neg feedback for "broken" item "sold as broken and tail missing".... BEFORE item arrived

[jetschickens]

Item is not and was not broken.  I sold it in the condition it is listed in my listing (pre-owned, no missing or broken pieces) and I take a ton of pics.  She just got back to me tonight and sent me a pic of one with a broken tail that is missing. 

The item arrived on the 8th per USPS tracking (Monday) and she left the feedback between the 6th and 7th (I reported her as a potential fraud buyer to Ebay and set up a dispute for the neg with the date and tracking number on the 7th so I could prove she was claiming she recieved a broken item when she hadn't yet received it).

I sent her a message explaining that the bottom raccoon was not missing a tail or broke, it is in the stump (scuplt is designed that way) and also listed 3 or 4 other sellers with the same item and what pics to look at on theirs as well to show it was there.  She then has responded to me that it is the top one missing a tail and that is the pic she sent.   All three of my raccoons have their tail.

Again even if it had broken in shipping she could not have left me a negative review for being a bad seller who sent her a broken one with "no tail anywhere in the box" a day or two BEFORE she even received the box from USPS.

She filed for a refund and wants me to send a label to send it back.  It isn't for a lot of money, but for me it is the principal of it all.

What do you guys think I should do about it?  I am unclear how to handle it.  I am assuming at this point it has to be a swap out scam for a non-broken version of something she already owns.

The postal tracking was still "in transit" and over the weekend when she left the neg.  The item was not delivered until Monday.

Edited to add clarification, rereading this I realized I wasn't as clear as I could have been.

[12345jamesstamps]

It's not an expensive item.

 "sent me a pic of one with a broken tail"...it got broken along the way maybe...Buyer was nice to send a pic.

Scanning is crazy these days so I wouldn't go by what it states.

What would I do? I don't want a broken item returned.

I would refund the buyer....bending over backwards with "I am so sorry....blah blah blah"..in an email.

And then send a revision feedback to buyer.

And then block buyer after all this.

I have refunded items in the past...and I hate it too. But we are sellers and usually even though it isn't fair "customers are always right"...here apparently.

And send the refund so you don't get a "ding" for not doing it.

[kitschy*loot]

I don't see any option but to refund in full if a not as described case was opened... eBay will force the refund if you don't do it and you'll get a defect. If you qualify for the seller protection of deducting up to 50% from the refund then you could do that when you get the item back, but if you don't unfortunately your options are very limited or non existent. 

Your reply to the negative is a little odd... why ask the buyer if the item broke in shipping if they're saying it was broken when they opened it? Why ask the buyer how the tail is missing? If they're lying obviously they aren't going to answer those questions and if they aren't... you're the one who shipped it not them.

You didn't mention anything about how they left the negative before they got the item in the reply... that seems strange since your entire stance revolves around that claim.

.

[jetschickens]

When I first saw the neg I hadn't looked to see if it was delivered, I assumed it was so responded asking her a bunch of questions about it since her claim was weird.  I photograph all the items then immediately pack them and seal them for shipping when I list them.  It was super strange to me that she claimed it was sold to her broke and that the tail wasn't present.  

After I left the reply to her negative, I went back to look at the detail listings and saw it was still in transit and hadn't even been delivered yet.

I went ahead and reported her then (night of the 7th) since she was claiming to have received a broken item from me that didn't even have the tail in the box.... but she had not received the box.  I figured that she might be confused so asked her questions (in Ebay messages).  She admitted the shipping box was in great shape and had no damage and just kept repeating that I had sent her a broken item and to give her a return for it.

Thank you for clarifying for me that I will have to honor the return.  I kind of suspected I would have to since Ebay defaults to the mentality the buyer is always right.  I am still going to seek Ebay to do something on my end since I don't think it is right to allow scammers to take advantage of sellers.

[albertabrightalberta]

I have a couple of comments.

1. Sometimes items are delivered before tracking catches up. 

2. Your reply to the feedback (which, BTW isn't the way to resolve a complaint) mentions possible breakage during shipping. If that's the case, that's on you since you should have packaged it well enough that it shouldn't have broken.

3. In this case, for a <$17 sale (including shipping), I'd just refund the full payment without paying another $8 for return shipping.

[jetschickens]

1.)  True.  I don't believe that would be the case here.  It shows that it was at the regional processing post office from the 6th to the 8th.  Then it left the processing center and it was scanned in at her local PO at 6:12am (the 8th) and delivered to her front door at noon (8th).   

  I sent my request to ebay to fix the feedback and reported the buy on the 7th @ 5:56pm and 5:59pm once I realized her odd feedback made even less sense when I realized she didn't even have it yet.

2.)  I have never had a neg before, sorry about that.   I always try to pack things well, but I figured that breakage could happen since it is a breakable item which is why I asked her a ton of questions because I was really confused and at the time assumed it had been delivered to her.  .... which she also mentioned me refusing a return in her feedback, but she never put one in until today (13th) and she never contacted me.  Which I also don't know if Ebay will look into, but since they can see our messages they will be able to see that I reached out to her first AFTER she left the feedback saying I refused her.

3.) I kind of figured that I would end up losing out on the item and that she would auto get the money back anyway.

[jetschickens · Accepted solution]

Just wanted to update this for anyone who was curious or ends up with a similar situation.

Ebay Customer Service was very kind and I reached out to them on FB and the agent there that helped me took about an hour or so to look over everything and then closed the return case out for me and I got to keep the funds from the sale (they did also let her get a full refund on them because they said they don't take sides).  However the agent told me they can't remove feedback that is a different division and that I should make sure that I specifically point out the tracking timeline in regards to the time & date that she left the feedback claiming to have the item in hand.  The agent also said that Ebay can't do anything with the feedback while a return case is open so to wait for an hour or two for the system to show it as closed.

I waited a day then went through Ebay's feedback removal page (in the help section, NOT the request revision feedback you sent to the buyer) and I send Ebay a request to remove.   The automated system found nothing wrong with her feedback and told me to respect the buyer's opinion (feedback).  So I had to dig a bit on the forums here as there didn't seem to be a way to appeal the bot's auto decision from the feedback removal page.  I ended up going to the Help & Contact page (link at the top mid-left on the Ebay home page when signed in) and then clicking the box for "need more help? contact us"  at very  bottom of the page.  It then took me to the "contact us" page and I selected "returns and refunds" option (not sure it matters as you are simply aiming to get to the page where it will offer the link to talk to someone).

Then on that one's new page I choose "refunding buyers" which then pulled up another page where it listed a bunch of articles to help you learn how to refund buyers on the right side and on the left side it had the link for  "Chat with an automated assistant" 

After the bot greeted me I told it "agent" it said it would connect me and then asked why I needed an agent and when I told it feedback it sent me a bunch of links to go back to the help pages,  I just told it "agent" a second time and it found me an agent to speak to.  The person I spoke to looked over the case details then said they would upchannel it to be reviewed by a specialist.  I got an automated system response later that offered some of the same info that the help page does for feedback removal and it said it came from offline so I wasn't sure if that was another automated decision or it just letting me know no one was working on it since it was afterhours?  So I was able to reply back in Ebay Messages to it and then the next day, I had a response to that from a real person and they removed the negative feedback for me and confirmed that she had actually left the feedback on the 5th and that was impossible since it was delivered on the 8th.

I am very greatful for everyone that offers advice on here as that helped when trying to figure out how to get this resolved and I really, really appreciate all 3 agents I worked with to get both the case and the feedback fixed.  I wanted to list this here so that hopefully no one else gets nailed by a scammer, but if they leave a neg too early and you can document it, it gives you a pretty much open and shut case to get things resolved, but it will still take work on your end.

Thank you everyone who responded to this thread.  Hopefully this helps someone else.