eBay

discountstore57 · ‎04-01-2021

Good morning,

We encourage everyone to do the same. We filed an online police report. We filed an online small claims case. We will not let a buyer rip us off. Stop the madness, file your case. We lost over $550.00. If we have to walk to their state-we willl. Enough is enough. An employee accidentally refunded before a return because of how the tab on managed pay looks. The buyer was refunded and he won’t return the collectable cards. We sent a return label through returns. He said that it was blank. We don’t know....could be...We emailed him one through EBAY. We mailed him one. We offered a prepaid service. EBAY states that since he was refunded, all that they can do is answer the police inquiry. WE WILL NOT LET THIS GO since we can’t deduct it because cost of goods is no longer possible. Fight these people so that everyone has fewer incidents. Win or lose, we got the time.

discountstore57 · ‎04-03-2021

Not likely since his email stated that he was sending it back...

lamber9347 · ‎04-03-2021

@discountstore57 Good for you and I do hope you come back to this forum to post an update regardless of the outcome. It will be very beneficial to other sellers to know and understand what transpired. Best of luck to you....

discountstore57 · ‎04-03-2021

Thank you. At this point, we just want to deter other buyers from thinking that they can do this to legitimate licensed, tax paying businesses.

discountstore57 · ‎04-03-2021

They can still return the item with our prepaid label. We will open it at the post office.

kensgiftshop · ‎04-03-2021

@discountstore57 wrote:
He needs to send back the item. He has the money and the item.

Yes he should, but they shouldn't have been refunded until the item was returned.

Instead of blaming the buyer, blame the employee that refunded the buyer.

Have a great day.

discountstore57 · ‎04-03-2021

There is no blame on the buyer. He agreed by EBAY email to return the item, and he did not. It cost 550.00. They were collectable cards. They were sealed. The employee made a mistake, and has been retrained, and forgiven.

kensgiftshop · ‎04-03-2021

@discountstore57 wrote:
He agreed by EBAY email to return the item, and he did not.

Was that before or after the refund?

Have a great day.

masim5393 · ‎04-03-2021

@discountstore57 wrote:
There is no blame on the buyer. He agreed by EBAY email to return the item, and he did not. It cost 550.00. They were collectable cards. They were sealed. The employee made a mistake, and has been retrained, and forgiven.

For $550 he should have been canned

discountstore57 · ‎04-03-2021

After

vintage-car-magazines · ‎04-03-2021

@fab_finds4u wrote:
You made the mistake and now you want the buyer to pay for your mistake?

You or your employee GIFTED the buyer the item when you refunded the buyer before getting the item back. There is no incentive for them to return it now.. They haven't broken a law so I'm sure that police report went in the round file.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall on court day. When the buyer shows the judge the policy that says sometimes the buyer is refunded and not required to return the item I think it will be all over.

What do you mean in your listings that you set up a sales tax table for the states eBay doesnt? Do you mean you're charging buyers in states eBay doesn't collect in? That would be illegal to tax buyers in states you don't have a physical presence in. You can't charge buyers sales tax in states you don't have a reseller's certificate in.

A mistake is not a gift. It's no more a gift than if McDonalds gave a customer their food before collecting payment and the customer walking off with the "gift". Or a bank depositing $10,000 into your account instead of $1,000. It's not a gift and you don't get to keep it.

I'm not well versed in the laws governing this ( they likely differ state to state) but I'd be hard pressed to believe that a court would rule that the buyer gets to keep both the merchandise and the refund. They're not big on someone being unjustly enriched at someone else's expense....especially when they're aware that it's a mistake.

I'm frankly shocked at the comments on this topic saying that the buyer has no responsibility in this. The seller made a mistake, yes. The buyer isn't to blame for that but they're certainly at fault for not returning the money or the merchandise. Just because there isn't a mechanism to deal with this on eBay, doesn't mean that it's right or that it's within the law.

m60driver · ‎04-03-2021

Small claims works, sometimes, if the person lives nearby. But there are costs involved for both filing and the serving of papers. If the person lives far then there are the travel expenses. And even if you win there is no guarantee you will get paid by the defendant, which might mean yet another trip to court. The idea of going to court just might make you feel good to teach the scoundrel a lesson, but in the end it is a poor business decision with a bad risk reward ratio. Back when I had my business I would never bother filing at small claims for less than $1,000, and that was filing locally.

discountstore57 · ‎04-03-2021

Good points. Luckily, we have the time and resources.

thedi_ster2012 · ‎04-03-2021

I am starting to think there needs to be a class action against Ebay and Paypal's faulty policies that leave sellers vulnerable to buyers. Had a few cases of being scammed and no matter the evidence the buyer has all the power. USA police reports don't do any good as they are civil. So far I won all, but took around 4 months to resolve and one was because the fake item the buyer mailed off was lost in the mail, so if it wasn't for that I would have lost. I am in the middle of one now where I won for doing a partial refund because they cancelled after shipment and I didn't refund the shipping (around $50 plus materials), but the buyer appealed and Ebay refunded without any communication to me. So sellers are in a bad lose lose scenario until policies are updated. Ebay make's their money from a percentage of sold items, you would think they would have more loyalty to the ones bringing in the revenue. Will probably be moving my inventory to different sites and no longer use their services, which is unfortunate as I used them for over a decade and I haven't had much issues until Ebay and Paypal separated and caused conflicting policies.