I have sold over 4,000 high school yearbooks (most picturing famous people) over the past 10 years on Ebay. Until 6 months ago we never had ONE negative. We are careful to describe our books and provide pictures. If a book has a meaningful defect we go out of our way AFTER someone has bought it to have them RE-READ our description and look at the pictures BEFORE we ship the book, should they have bought it on impulse and not read the details carefully. In the past few months we have had FOUR International buyers effectively say that the book they received was "disappointing" and below the conditions described. The first time it happened I ascribed it to the fact that in the buyer's country they might not have typical high school yearbooks which get distributed, read, written in etc. Ebay provided the buyer with a complete refund, even though I sent Ebay the e-mail exchanges which showed that we had made the buyer fully aware of the exact condition of the book. I did not have to pay anything. Curiously the buyer gave us a negative feedback (our very first), but 2 weeks later Ebay erased it (???) This has now happened three more times. The book was not returned to us, and I doubt if it was returned to Ebay?? It would appear that they process and satisfy these International returns, pay the buyer 100% and the buyer keeps the item. Is the increase in the incidence of this happening because these buyers are ripping Ebay off (and in the process causing mayhem, albeit no direct financial loss to the sellers)?? Have others experienced this? We may have to stop selling to buyers out of the U.S.
