Buyer open a case as "defective" 1 day later ebay closes in buyer's favor

[mymidwestattic]

I sold an item. The buyer received it and left me positive feedback.

2 weeks and some days later the buyer opens a return case and stating a false reason "defective" in reason she says "wallet doesn't fit"

Since by some weird mistake I had the item labeled as "free return" on pre-owned item, ebay automatically approved her return and I paid for returned postage.

An item arrived at my mail box at 11 p.m.... at 3 a.m. ebay sends me an email "refund the buyer"

I am like "I am not going outside at -15 in pitch dark to get my package it can wait till morning....

At 10:00 a.m. I sent a buyer a question "why did you select "defective as a reason"?? When it was NOT defective?

She told me "it was the only option to choose"... I asked because I don't want dings on my account and I know for a fact the item was NOT defective. So she responded at 11:00 a.m. by 1 p.m. I come home and see that she opened a case on me, the case was closed in "buyer's favor" ebay did not even give me 48 hours to inspect the item back! Seriously??? The sad thing that the buyer is a liar and even my phone 10xs fits into the purse. She just used the purse for 10+ days, abused it and shipped it back. The sad part that she outbid 4 other bidders (indicating how bad she wanted it). The measurements were provided but she saw "free return" so used the item to borrow for an event and returned it for full refund including shipping! But the "OMG" part was how quickly ebay refunded her without even waiting for me to check the item. The item looks much older than before I sold it! Now what can I do?

[mam98031]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@mymidwestattic wrote:
Yes, buyer escalated the case to get forced refund and ebay refunded without my consent. How does this work???

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Ebay doesn't need or even seek a seller's permission / consent to refund a buyer if a case gets escalated.  They don't do that.

But what concerns me here is that you have said it was escalated one day after the case was opened. 

Did you try to deny the claim?  If you told the buyer in the claim that you would not accept the return, then that may have caused this as you can't decline a SNAD.

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@Anonymous 

tyler@ebay 

Can someone shed some light on under what circumstances Ebay would allow an INR to be escalated to Ebay after only being opened for 1 day please.

[mam98031]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@mymidwestattic wrote:
Yes, buyer escalated the case to get forced refund and ebay refunded without my consent. How does this work???

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Ebay doesn't need or even seek a seller's permission / consent to refund a buyer if a case gets escalated.  They don't do that.

But what concerns me here is that you have said it was escalated one day after the case was opened. 

Did you try to deny the claim?  If you told the buyer in the claim that you would not accept the return, then that may have caused this as you can't decline a SNAD.

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@Anonymous 

tyler@ebay 

Can someone shed some light on under what circumstances Ebay would allow an INR to be escalated to Ebay after only being opened for 1 day please.

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I mis-spoke.  It isn't an INR but a SNAD.  Sorry.

[Anonymous]

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@mymidwestattic wrote:

I sold an item. The buyer received it and left me positive feedback.

2 weeks and some days later the buyer opens a return case and stating a false reason "defective" in reason she says "wallet doesn't fit"

Since by some weird mistake I had the item labeled as "free return" on pre-owned item, ebay automatically approved her return and I paid for returned postage.

An item arrived at my mail box at 11 p.m.... at 3 a.m. ebay sends me an email "refund the buyer"

I am like "I am not going outside at -15 in pitch dark to get my package it can wait till morning....

At 10:00 a.m. I sent a buyer a question "why did you select "defective as a reason"?? When it was NOT defective?

She told me "it was the only option to choose"... I asked because I don't want dings on my account and I know for a fact the item was NOT defective. So she responded at 11:00 a.m. by 1 p.m. I come home and see that she opened a case on me, the case was closed in "buyer's favor" ebay did not even give me 48 hours to inspect the item back! Seriously??? The sad thing that the buyer is a liar and even my phone 10xs fits into the purse. She just used the purse for 10+ days, abused it and shipped it back. The sad part that she outbid 4 other bidders (indicating how bad she wanted it). The measurements were provided but she saw "free return" so used the item to borrow for an event and returned it for full refund including shipping! But the "OMG" part was how quickly ebay refunded her without even waiting for me to check the item. The item looks much older than before I sold it! Now what can I do?

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Hi @mymidwestattic, it looks like we sent a notification of return delivery two days prior to the refund being issued. I recommend you double check your emails and ensure that nothing is being routed to a spam folder as well as review your eBay messages. I recommend that you work with Customer Service to discuss the details of this return and review for a potential appeal.

[mam98031]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@mymidwestattic wrote:

I sold an item. The buyer received it and left me positive feedback.

2 weeks and some days later the buyer opens a return case and stating a false reason "defective" in reason she says "wallet doesn't fit"

Since by some weird mistake I had the item labeled as "free return" on pre-owned item, ebay automatically approved her return and I paid for returned postage.

An item arrived at my mail box at 11 p.m.... at 3 a.m. ebay sends me an email "refund the buyer"

I am like "I am not going outside at -15 in pitch dark to get my package it can wait till morning....

At 10:00 a.m. I sent a buyer a question "why did you select "defective as a reason"?? When it was NOT defective?

She told me "it was the only option to choose"... I asked because I don't want dings on my account and I know for a fact the item was NOT defective. So she responded at 11:00 a.m. by 1 p.m. I come home and see that she opened a case on me, the case was closed in "buyer's favor" ebay did not even give me 48 hours to inspect the item back! Seriously??? The sad thing that the buyer is a liar and even my phone 10xs fits into the purse. She just used the purse for 10+ days, abused it and shipped it back. The sad part that she outbid 4 other bidders (indicating how bad she wanted it). The measurements were provided but she saw "free return" so used the item to borrow for an event and returned it for full refund including shipping! But the "OMG" part was how quickly ebay refunded her without even waiting for me to check the item. The item looks much older than before I sold it! Now what can I do?

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Hi @mymidwestattic, it looks like we sent a notification of return delivery two days prior to the refund being issued. I recommend you double check your emails and ensure that nothing is being routed to a spam folder as well as review your eBay messages. I recommend that you work with Customer Service to discuss the details of this return and review for a potential appeal.

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So as I understand your post  it wasn't escalated to Ebay 1 day after the SNAD being filed.  The seller just may have overlooked previous email notifications.

Thank you for popping in.

[castlemagicmemories]

Thank you, Trinton!

[hiend-audio]

I was just scammed close to 5k by fraudualnt buyer and did a post as well.

The ebay buyer protection is flawed and ebay continues to allow scams like this to continue.

Real shame !

[castlemagicmemories]

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@hiend-audio wrote:

I was just scammed close to 5k by fraudualnt buyer and did a post as well.

The ebay buyer protection is flawed and ebay continues to allow scams like this to continue.

Real shame !

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That's quite a loss; so sorry.

[jason_incognito]

this is what eBay does.

I had a woman want to return a gift card that had no money on it. 

I took a deep breath, bit my tongue and apologized. Told her it must be my fault.... I don't know how I managed to send you a card with no money.....

Whatever. 

I sent a label. That label had tracking. I was on vacation, but I watched the label tracking number and it never showed up.

I get a series of emails from eBay. In the course of a couple of hours.

Buyer has opened a case.

Buyer won case. 
Buyer has been refunded.

She couldn't figure out the label i sent her, so she went to the post office and did it the old fashioned way, never told me or gave me the tracking number. She checked and it said it was delivered, I told her it wasn't.... She ran to eBay and gave them her tracking number and they found in her favor. I got the ding for the case being opened without seller resolution. I appealed. eBay said, no it was handled properly. You should have refunded her on her word that there was no money on the card. 

I got a card returned that was still in it's packaging. The redemption code had never been scratched. The same person that couldn't figure out how to print a label couldn't understand how to redeem a gift card.

She got her refund, I lost the cost of the label and got a ding. even after an appeal.

[buyselljack2016]

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@stuff_from_dylan wrote:

@mymidwestattic 

If your "Free Returns" and didn't offer free returning shipping, then I'd call up eBay and tell them to look at your message exchange to prove that they filed under the wrong return request. Otherwise, you're completely responsible as you made a mistake.

Hope it's the former, but sorry if otherwise!

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The "free returns" policy does not have a "didn't offer free return shipping" option.

[buyselljack2016]

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

If tracking shows delivery, and no refund occurred, Ebay will refund the buyer when the case is escalated.

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You are indeed correct. That is what will happen. Here we are talking about the return of an item to the seller.

In the future it seems that you will need to amend/qualify that statement with the disclaimer that the refund will be made by eBay from the sellers wallet, and that there are also instances where eBay will do a courtesy refund from eBay's wallet, but that it may not apply to all situations, and also state all those situations so that there will be no rebuttal to a factual statement.

[jason_incognito]

But the seller needs to be given the opportunity to refund.

[buyselljack2016]

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@jason_incognito wrote:

But the seller needs to be given the opportunity to refund.

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Yes indeed.  Trinton's reply states that was done in the OP's case.

Your situation shows a flaw in the system.  Only + is, you got the card back.

[mam98031]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

If tracking shows delivery, and no refund occurred, Ebay will refund the buyer when the case is escalated.

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This is not always true.  Sometimes on low $$ value items Ebay may do this.  But it is not a guarantee.  It is more likely that if a buyer escalates an INR to Ebay and tracking shows delivered, the case will be closed in the seller's favor with no refund given.  But with that said, it is silly for any seller to allow an INR that has tracking showing delivered to let enough time pass so that the case can be escalated.

The problem with what the OP is describing is the 1 day after the claim was opened it was escalated to Ebay.  That shouldn't happen.  That is not how the system is suppose to work, so there is an issue here.

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@castlemagicmemories 

I do owe you an apology.  I confused myself.  For some reason I thought we were talking about an INR which is not the case.  So while what I said was true for an INR, it is not correct for a SNAD which is what this thread is about.

You were absolutely correct.  Sorry!!