eBay

ckudika · ‎08-02-2019

Ebay return policy is easily, and frequently, abused. We have all dealt with it. Amazon has previously banned bad buyers for excessive 'borrowing' on the sellers dime. And now they are taking action against the ol'e 'Steal a New One and Return Your Old Broken Garbage for a Full Refund' scam.

A 22 year old in spain has recently been arrested for, and i kid you not, buying stuff on amazon, refilling the boxes with dirt and returning them for a refund, taking advantageof the holes in the return policy that ebay strives to surpass at any expense to sellers. Repeatedly, for $370K worth of goods!

BUT! Amazon paid attention, noticed the trend and used the law to put an end to it.

tisgraphics2u · ‎08-03-2019

You are so right. Buyers get away with everything. Ebay just rubber stamps everything in the buyers favor.

I just had an incident this week. Woman claimed the item was not as described and wanted a refund. Naturally I had to pay for the return shipping. Lady waited until after the deadline to ship (I think she wanted me to just issue a refund without sending the item back). Anyway when she did she send it back it was a a cheap version of something entirely different. Ebay rubber stamped the refund even though I sent in pictures and called customer support 3 times. I did get my money back.

Funny when I was on the phone with Customer support the 3rd time I got a message from her that she made a mistake and what I sent her worked fine. Did Ebay take back their refund - I seriously doubt it.

lighthousevalleycids · ‎08-03-2019

It's one of the things I dislike most about eBay. We have been scammed quite a few times by buyers sending back completely different items to those we sent out. We are forced to refund by eBay despite photographic evidence, and eBay haven't once paid us the money back.

I sometimes wonder if, because we are a charity, scammers think it's a "victimless crime", after all the items were donated, not bought. It's disgusting that we, as sellers, have no protection, in my opinion

jscar59 · ‎08-03-2019

370K And Amazon was paying attention?.....Took a while for them to notice!......

myjunqueyourtreasure · ‎08-03-2019

@jscar59 wrote:
370K And Amazon was paying attention?.....Took a while for them to notice!......

LOL exactly what I was thinking

Reality is the leading cause of stress.

membersinceaug2001 · ‎08-03-2019

@jscar59 wrote:
370K And Amazon was paying attention?.....Took a while for them to notice!......

The article I read said that Amazon doesn't check returns, just doles out the refunds. Returns are thrown in a pile and checked much later.

7606dennis · ‎08-03-2019

Of course, the kid seems to have had a lucrative con game going. Unfortunately for him, he has been caught. I'm not sure but I assume there are many more scams out there that are still going strong. Chalk one up for the good guys on catching this thief.

"It is an intelligent man that is aware of his own ignorance."

hioctane62 · ‎08-03-2019

will ebay take the hint?

Nope… because ebay isn't losing money to the scammers, we are... and they could care less.

luckythewinner · ‎08-03-2019

@ckudika wrote:
BUT! Amazon paid attention, noticed the trend and used the law to put an end to it.
Ebay just bends us over and tells us to lube up!

The difference between Amazon and eBay is that Amazon is the seller and makes the determination based on what was returned to Amazon.

As a third party seller on eBay, eBay has no idea what you shipped or what the buyer returned to you. Comparing eBay to Amazon when it comes to returns is comparing apples to oranges.

If you want the same protection that Amazon gives itself, you simply have to do what Amazon does - start your own website and give yourself the same protection.

clu3 · ‎08-03-2019

Ebay has the "seller metrics" they rely so heavily on when calculating fees. They also have all the buyer data which they hold pretty close. Certainly they could use those same metrics to determine the likelihood of a seller being honest vs. the buyer.

If Ebay doesn't want buyers to receive negative feedback, they should create an internal system. All of these false transactions are too costly for everyone.

@luckythewinner wrote:
@ckudika wrote:
BUT! Amazon paid attention, noticed the trend and used the law to put an end to it.
Ebay just bends us over and tells us to lube up!
The difference between Amazon and eBay is that Amazon is the seller and makes the determination based on what was returned to Amazon.

As a third party seller on eBay, eBay has no idea what you shipped or what the buyer returned to you. Comparing eBay to Amazon when it comes to returns is comparing apples to oranges.

If you want the same protection that Amazon gives itself, you simply have to do what Amazon does - start your own website and give yourself the same protection.

kataggr-44 · ‎08-03-2019

Yes but how about a little common sense applied to long time sellers with excellent history over a brand new buyer or one who has done this many times in the past.

luckythewinner · ‎08-03-2019

@kataggr-44 wrote:
Yes but how about a little common sense applied to long time sellers with excellent history over a brand new buyer

So if a long time seller is facing a dispute from a new buyer, the long time seller should prevail? That seems like a strange policy to attract new buyers. I've been reading this board for a decade, and it is not rare for a seller complaining about a buyr to be completely in the wrong.

All that aside ...

eBay won't do that because they don't have to. No matter what they do, not enough sellers leave to make eBay sit up and take notice.

bigdeals.etc · ‎08-03-2019

No.

kataggr-44 · ‎08-03-2019

No I said past history should be taken into consideration. I would think it rare for a long time seller who has had vast experiences selling on ebay to be suddenly totally wrong about a situation and then not to admit it. There has to be a reason why he built up such a great reputation.

reallynicestamps · ‎08-03-2019

@tisgraphics2u

Lady waited until after the deadline to ship (

That should have killed her claim right there. Unhappy buyers have five days to use the Return Shipping Label.

We do see occasional posts on the Buyer Board with complaints from buyers that they are no longer covered by the Money Back Guarantee.

If most of those kicked out of the program are scamming, we would logically only see the honestly scammed and the terminally entitled with such complaints and, anecdotally, that does seem to be the case.

Mostly the entitled.