I have just spent way too much time trying to get to a human eBay employee with ears after I was forced to send a full refund to a buyer who returned a different item with lesser value than the one I received. My conclusion is that eBay's current return policy is rigged in favor of the seller who wishes to get a free item if he already has a similar one that doesn't work anymore.
The item was a 5-year old Dell minitower PC with a clean Windows installation. My listing had several detailed pictures taken just a few days before it sold. The same day the buyer received it, he contacted eBay stating that I had sent him a defective one since "the screen goes black". eBay automatically accepted the return, so my options were to refund the customer immediately or purchase a return shipping label and refund him when it came back. I chose the latter. The buyer put a different Dell minitower in my box and reused my bubblewrap. The one he returned was the same model number, but with differnt labels on the bottom, a much slower processor, less memory, and a Windows installation that would not load. Indeed, the screen went black. I reported the buyer, sent him pictures of the different serial numbers and confgurations, and asked him if he returned the wrong item by mistake. He insisted he returned the same one I sent him, and then left me negative feedback.
eBay's customer service asked me to send the buyer a partial refund, which was acceptable to me. Unfortunately she started a case which would take two days for eBay to deciide. Since she wrote up a case, I could no longer send a refund. She told me that in cases where sellers state that they receive a different item back, eBay will automatically decide in the buyer's favor, but the seller has a chance to appeal. Sure enough, today, I received an email (from an address to which I couldn't reply) stating that eBay decided to take the funds for a full refund from my account and send them to the buyer. It implied that I could not appeal eBay's decision, but I could pursue options outside of eBay (a police report? small claims court?) The reason in the form letter was "We understand that you received your item in a different condition than when you shipped it, but unfortunately we couldn't determine that this was caused by the buyer, or that this was something in the buyer's control." I was upset because a) I have proof that the item returned was not the item shipped, b) no one at eBay even gave me the opportunity to provide the evidence, but c) eBay said they based their "decision" on lack of evidence. I wonder how much money eBay saves by ignoring evidence and automating refunds to the buyer.
I normally have no problem requesting a callback from eBay customer service, but today, when I entered the item ID I did not have that option. I sent two emails which may never be read. I did eventually get customer service to call me. He apologized, and led me to the part of eBay's site to request removal of negative feedback. He said the reason was irrelevant, so I'm still waiting to see if his help worked, or if anyone will read my email. He also said he would write a request to appeal the decision so that in a few days someone would send me an affidavit to which I can attach my pictures and inventory list and repeat the details again.
Doesn't it seem much easier for the buyer to get a free working item than it is for the seller to recover 50% of the selling price (minus return shipping) when a bad buyer switches items through eBay returns? Fortunately bad buyers who switch items are still uncommon. Most buyers think they are required to return the same item they received, in close to the same condition, when in effect eBay looks at only the tracking information. If eBay advertised to buyers what they tell sellers about their return policy, bad buyers would be more common and eBay sellers would be fewer. Is there anything we sellers can to to protect ourselves against giving full refunds for different items returned? Is my raising this matter just making the problem worse?
