Potential Buyer Scam, Requesting Return, Input please!

[midwesthobbyrc]

Hello,

I just had a buyer request to return claiming the "item was not in condition as described" and the the RC truck I sold him/her " caught fire in house". (2 weeks after delivered)

I understand in 9 out of 10 cases, eBay favors the buyer. But here is the reason I believe this is a scam and curious if there is anything else I should consider doing before issuing refund.

Product: Used RC truck, fully tested and cleaned before sold

Buyer:

1) New ebayer, created account same day my item was purchased. 0 feedback

  - Has 1 feedback now as it looks like purchased square trade warranty with my item. (Fishy)

2) Shipping name looks fake. Doesn't resemble a normal first and last name

3) Physical location item shipped to was suspicious

4) Has not responded to 3 messages I sent trying to resolve.

5) The RC truck itself has no ignition source by itself. So it's likely the buyer either abused the RC truck and overheated it or plugged a faulty battery into it frying the electronics. 

So I understand my options here are

A: Accept return and pay the $50 shipping

B: Provide full refund

C: Partial Refund

😧 Message seller

C and D does not appear to be option as buyer won't respond.

So knowing the the "truck caught fire", is it correct to assume if I pay the $50 shipping to return, I will likely get a item of lessor quality back and eBay will likely favor the buyer and make me refund original amount plus shipping. (Even though it likely buyer caused) So then I'm stuck with a supposed burnt RC truck to salvage and out additional $50. Alternatively, I could pay shipping and buyer never sends back, this not requiring refund. (Unlikely.) Or lastly I refund money and don't pay shipping and out cost of goods.

What am I missing and does anyone have any alternative approaches. I have 100% seller feedback and throughly test everything I sell, so I'm confident I did not sell a defective items but everything I read would say I have no choices here but to cave.

Thank you

[dbfolks166mt]

About the only hope you have is that the manufacturer of the truck has/had some type of warranty/guarantee on the product. You may be able to recover some of your loss that way. 

[gracieallen01]

In part, you can thank photoshop (and like programs) for that.  Not much of anything can't be touched up, enhanced or faked with todays media manipulation programs and the new 'adjustable' medias.

[donsdetour]

Just saying:

eBays return cost will be more than what you spent to ship it..

[furreherai0]

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@midwesthobbyrc wrote:

Thank you everyone! Very helpful.

Last question...

If I require a return and the buyer truely sends me the truck back after 2 weeks of use and "burnt"...

Given the buyer stated it "caught fire", even if I have a video of the truck working and boxing of it, I still probably have no case to say "I didn't receive item in same quality as I shipped" since the essence of the claim is it " caught fire" so I wouldn't expect it to be. So again I require him/her to return and it either calls their bluff or I get a likely unsalvageable product back plus cost of shipping and can't do anything about it right?

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Well, unfortunately it has been my experience in the past few to several years that few returns truly turn out the way the buyer claims.  However, for me to make any decisions I have to wait until the item arrives and I have a chance to physically inspect it, strangely it seems I always find much discrepancy when comparing their initial claim to what I eventually inspect.

I couldn't begin to imagine why it seems as if buyers feel this need to lie about returns but it almost seems to me there's this competition ongoing about who can throw the biggest fib, at least I can't ever make sense of why the return's condition doesn't ever appear to match the original reason and explanation given.

But it matters not, the buyer can return an item because the sun rose this morning.

Confronting the buyer does little good, you can take my word for it, I haven't had any success even when it was just to try and shed some light on the above conundrum. Once again I have found the best bet is to accept the return, communicate only to state "please return for refund," and issue a refund once some package with that return label's tracking showing delivered has been received.

Sad and not very inspiring, but true.

That being said, I feel your best case scenario would be to receive an RC truck that works just as when you sent it out, has no damage and the buyer is simply suffering from remorse or for whatever other reason chose to lie on the return and you can relist and resell it.

The next best case would be to receive an item that can be repaired with little to no major expense and effort.

The last and worst case would be to receive a destroyed item or no item at all (empty box with a return label attached).

Those are simply the scenarios, there is little good in trying to predict what will happen.  

I know you are trying to be prepared for what to do but in all cases you will simply have to wait until you receive something, then you will have to issue a refund.  What happens outside of that will be at your discretion.

Good luck

[luckythewinner · Accepted solution]

OP,

You seem to understand all the possibilities:

• The buyer may or may not be lying.
• The buyer may or may not return something.
• If the buyer does return something, it may or may not be what you sent.

IMHO the rest of your post can be pretty much distilled into one question:

"Is there any way to avoid refunding a buyer who claims an item is not as described?"

The answer is generally no, unless the buyer makes a mistake or does not follow through.

[deflicted]

Yep. Unfortunately not.  Had someone but a cell phone, submit a claim 2 weeks later for INAD which I sent a shipping label immediately for. Buyer then took another 17 days to ship back.  

So I could essentially just RENT phones from people and never have to buy one 

[dem-4681]

A good possibility is the buyer is trying to goose you into refunding without their sending it back. They probably have the EXACT SAME IDENTICAL but burnt-up and OLD RC truck that they may try to switcheroo on you. This is why I ALWAYS WHEN I CAN, include a shot of the serial number on any item I list. The cards are absolutely STACKED, STACKED, STACKED against the seller which is why, after 18 years, I left 2 years ago. It's over.

[midwesthobbyrc]

Bingo!

This is a old thread but I thought I save everyone the suspense and give an update on the outcome. 

As many suggested, I required the buyer to return the item before refunding. Good news is the buyer must of been bluffing as they never responded to the return request nor created a shipping label. So no money out of my pocket and after a period of time without a return, PayPal closed in my favor and I never heard from the buyer again! 

Got lucky this time.