Buyer threatening feedback if I don't accept return/partial refund of used shoes

[ysl4lyfe]

Buyer sent me this today:

"I've had these shoes on for less than a hour and there already creases. I paid a 120 for a pair of shoes I will never put on my feet again. There trash. Not worth over a $100.". 

I politely replied that I'm not in control of the quality of the product (it was a Nike shoe) and that I will forward their feedback to Nike. Now, they've replied with this: "They should of cost me 90. I want a 30 refunded or I need to send them back to get a full refund. I should anyway. There trash. My feefback will be left according to my experience." 

What should I do?

[vintagecraze50]

Tell them return for refund and if they really do not like the shoes they will come back. If they are doing a partial refund scam attempt they probably wont. I totally dislike buyers who would approach me in this fashion. You do not like you do not want—send them back.

[ysl4lyfe]

I'm 100% sure they are doing the partial refund scam attempt. I also referred to myself as '3rd party seller' in my messages to them to explain how I'm not in control of the quality and they came back with 'You went through a 3 party that's against eBay policy. I think you should refunde the 40 you made from drop shipping my sneakers.' So they are definitely fishing for an easy refund. My final reply to them was a request to open a return case - they've stopped replying after that. Now I just hope they don't completely destroy the shoes in an attempt to hurt me more if they end up returning.

[chapeau-noir]

Geez, they're not even being subtle.

[luckythewinner]

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@ysl4lyfe wrote:

 I also referred to myself as '3rd party seller' in my messages to them to explain how I'm not in control of the quality 

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Trying to "explain" yourself will only make your situation worse.

Especially to an irrational person. 

Just stop.

"Dear buyer, I'm sorry you are unhappy with the item. Please return the item for a full refund". 

"Dear buyer, I'm sorry you are unhappy with the item. Please return the item for a full refund". 

"Dear buyer, I'm sorry you are unhappy with the item. Please return the item for a full refund". 

...

Every minute you spend agonizing over this transaction is a minute of your life that you will never get back. 

[vintagecraze50]

Good job, now see what they do next. If anything.

[vintagecraze50]

It’s a fairly good thing on here to offer free returns . When you do that you can deduct 50 percent off the refund if they destroy your item. And, I believe it deters professional partial refund scammers from attempting this stuff in the first place.

[vintagecraze50]

Yep, not subtle, pretty blatant, and demanding bordering on extortion.

[ysl4lyfe]

I'm no longer communicating with them. I explained it all in my first reply to them, and they sent their reply in 3 different messages and only later I noticed the 3rd message where they also accused me of dropshipping lol.

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@ysl4lyfe wrote:

I'm no longer communicating with them.

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Good.

You told them to return for a refund? If so, you did right. They'll either return them or they won't. If they're strong-arming for a partial refund, they'll eventually go away.

[turquoisetulips]

Please don't fall for this . Just send a simple reply  to return for a refund . Chances are you won't hear from the buyer again. Tulips 

[japan-treazures]

@ysl4lyfe 

Others here have left you good advise on what to do with the refund.

One thing you can do is save the messages from the buyer and you can report them. 

Here is eBay's link to feedback extortion:

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/feedback-policies/feedback-extortion-policy?id=4230&st=12&pos=3&q...

[threshold.sales.group]

OP, this is obviously not the buyers first rodeo. Just how many genuine buyers just looking for a pair of shoes can quote eBay's drop shipping policy? You did well following the great advice in the thread - return for a full refund. 

Fwiw, just how hard would it be for eBay's Trust & Safety team to track buyers that somehow manage to have partial refunds on almost their purchases? If they are really interested in cleaning up the site and protecting sellers that's the first place they ought to look for abusive buyers / scammers. 

[ysl4lyfe]

For anyone curious, I filed the FB extortion case with ebay and they've replied today siding with me. They said that if buyer leaves any negative feedback, I should contact them and it will get removed. The buyer hasn't responded ever since I told him to return the shoes for refund, I'm hoping he gives up, but I feel like the story is not over yet. I think I'll hear from him in a couple of weeks once it gets closer to the 30 day return window. I hope I'm wrong about this though.

Thanks to everyone in this thread, I appreciate all the advice.

[rebby-clothes]

I personally wouldn't refund them and would only accept the return if they open a SNAD case. I've had two buyers threaten negatives recently, one if I didn't take return that went against my policy (one was remorse for fit on no returns item, filed as remorse return) and the other claimed I sent the wrong item but when I mentioned they could return it, suddenly they say "I already washed it and my baby wore it, so how do you want to resolve it?" and I pointed out eBay's item condition return policy and stopped responding to them (yeah I know I would have been stuck with the return if they did file SNAD but I was pretty sure they were trying to scam a free item at that point). Neither one ended up filing a case. The second one did leave a negative, but I personally don't even think they got a wrong item and were trying to keep it for free.

[chapeau-noir]

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@ysl4lyfe wrote:

For anyone curious, I filed the FB extortion case with ebay and they've replied today siding with me. They said that if buyer leaves any negative feedback, I should contact them and it will get removed. The buyer hasn't responded ever since I told him to return the shoes for refund, I'm hoping he gives up, but I feel like the story is not over yet. I think I'll hear from him in a couple of weeks once it gets closer to the 30 day return window. I hope I'm wrong about this though.

Thanks to everyone in this thread, I appreciate all the advice.

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I'll be curious. If they start in again, it'll still be "return for refund" so they may just leave it alone, go onto someone else.