Someone wants a refund....after he has had the item for over a week.

[vampkid78]

So this collector or reseller bought some comics off me two weeks ago and they were delivered last Wed.  Today I get a message from him saying "i want to return these and get a refund because there is a crease in the cardboard that renders the comic book grading worthless and they are not as described".  First off, cardboard is NOT the comic.  Second, this was packed in a secure package by the USPS.  Third I have a no returns policy and the fact that in my ebay pictures they are MINT.   Why did he wait a week?  Sounds fishy to me.  I already have spent the money on something and i really dont have the $175 i spent to refund him anyway.  Should he file a claim with the USPS?   I thought about going on the offensive and calling ebay and stating my case, because I feel he will try and get a refund where there shouldnt be, and I will lose out.  

[chrysylys]

They can have it 3- 1/2 weeks and still file here.  They can wait about 25 weeks and file with PP.

The money isn't really yours to spend for least 180 days.

[vampkid78]

So if i sell something on ebay i cant spend the money for 6 months?  thats news to me.  i shipped it on the 2nd.  he got it on the 4th...now a week later wants a refund so i should keep his money for six months?  ive never had this problem and ive been on ebay since 2013-14.

[dtexley3]

If he opened a refund request you have until the day listed in the request.  On that day eBay will close the request, take the money from your paypal account, refund the buyer, let them KEEP the comic(s) and give you a unresolved refund defect.

When and if the buyer opens a return request you should select "return for refund" and hope the buyer doesn't return it.  If they do, you must refund, and IIRC correctly you have 5 business days.

Welcome to the enhanced eBay seller experience.

[missjen831]

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@vampkid78 wrote:

So if i sell something on ebay i cant spend the money for 6 months?  thats news to me.  i shipped it on the 2nd.  he got it on the 4th...now a week later wants a refund so i should keep his money for six months?  ive never had this problem and ive been on ebay since 2013-14.

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Well you can spend the money as soon as you get it. But since the buyer has 6 months to file with PayPal and get their money back, you need to have money on hand so you can refund them for 180 days after the sale. 

[lewisburggold]

Things have changed my friend pretty much any buyer has 30 days to return.  Even if you have a no returns policy ebay will force you to do the return.  Best regards

[grannywith6]

Yes indeed, 30 days to return so you might as well have a return policy. If there are no funds in your PayPal account, they will extract it from your back-up method (debit card, credit card, or checking/savings account) I agree with the above poster, I have never emptied my PayPal account - I always keep a reserve for issues such as this. Build your sales, build your PayPal balance, then take the "top" off and leave some extra for issues or expenses.

[sandmansales]

Seller protections here have basically been eliminated. For that reason ebay is an extremely risky company to do business with.  Your explanations, your outrage, your policies, your tenure, your time limits, your justice means nothing to ebay.

The only thing you can do is accept the return and if you have a case, handle it outside of ebay. You will get no adjudication here.

[lex-talon]

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@vampkid78 wrote:

So this collector or reseller bought some comics off me two weeks ago and they were delivered last Wed.  Today I get a message from him saying "i want to return these and get a refund because there is a crease in the cardboard that renders the comic book grading worthless and they are not as described".  First off, cardboard is NOT the comic.  Second, this was packed in a secure package by the USPS.  Third I have a no returns policy and the fact that in my ebay pictures they are MINT.   Why did he wait a week?  Sounds fishy to me.  I already have spent the money on something and i really dont have the $175 i spent to refund him anyway.  Should he file a claim with the USPS?   I thought about going on the offensive and calling ebay and stating my case, because I feel he will try and get a refund where there shouldnt be, and I will lose out.  

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I had the same thing happen to me a week ago. $175 is a lot to lose. Your no returns policy is out the door should the buyer open a SNAD. If you refuse a return, Ebay will force you to and take the money from your Paypal account & refund the buyer and you get a defect on your account. 

[tiqui1999]

How did you ship this item? Did you insure it? I recommend insuring things over a certain price. If you sent it priority, it might be insured. I would ask the buyer for pictures and if you sent it priority, you need to file with USPS yourself.

Whenever my customers have problems, I always ask them for pictures before I determine what is going on.

Once you get the pics, you can see what the damage is. That's first, and that way, he can't make it look worse for a case if he tries to do a SNAD later.

Someone else said to keep money in your paypal account for the freezing, but I don't do that anymore. I stopped because once, Paypal froze my account and canceled me as a user for selling an item with CBD in it. Yeah, look on ebay and you'll probably see 10 or 20 items with it in there. Some other sellers must have reported me to paypal so they could get rid of me, and I didn't know you couldn't sell it with paypal. For 6 months, I had a few thousand dollars FROZEN. It was NOT COOL because I still had to ship and pay orders and eat.

So now, I have the PayPal, and every few days, I transfer everything into a bank account. Then, I pay myself from there, transferring money to my REAL bank account later. So Paypal can still dip into my middleman bank account if it needs to, but it CANNOT just freeze all my money like that again.

[kingaristoteles]

You must be very careful my friend... ebay always accepts rertutrns from buyers regarding your return policies...it's a serious problem...First of all tell the buyer to send you some photos of the items to see the defects... if he does and you see something wrong you can always offer him a partial refund as a compencation if he opens a return request...

[retrose1]

OP, if it is just a message and not a case, then your buyer is phishing for a partial refund.  This is not good for you because of the things other posters have told you.

What you need to do is to tell the buyer that you packed well and that you will be notifying your postmaster about damage to the package and have them look into how they are treating mail being delivered to the buyers house.  That the backing board is not the comic itself, so the book could still be in as sold condition.  You have to give them an out before you call their bluff by telling them to file a case so that you can send them a return ship label.

There are many buyers on ebay that are making a career of scamming stuff, but if they do it too often, ebay notices and can void their buyer protection, so what you need to do to respond to their comments is to

a) let them know that you are friendly with the post office and can get them on the PO's radar id they continue a scam attempt.

b) force them to get on ebay's radar by having them file a dispute.

Do not mention scam or call them scammer, just be very professional and as brief as possible.

It looks like your buyer isn't a pro and might just be attempting to upgrade their collection with your mint item.  But if the buyer goes through with it, there is nothing you can do to get justice and you will lose the case and the money.

[turquoisetulips]

When and if the buyer opens a return request you should select "return for refund" and hope the buyer doesn't return it.  If they do, you must refund, and IIRC correctly you have 5 business days. dtexly - unquote ----------------------------------------------------

The most expensive item I have for sale right now is a vintage typewriter  for 80 bucks . Selling high value items on e bay make me nervous . This issue is one of the reasons why . I feel for the OP .  Tulips

[turquoisetulips]

So now, I have the PayPal, and every few days, I transfer everything into a bank account. Then, I pay myself from there, transferring money to my REAL bank account later. So Paypal can still dip into my middleman bank account if it needs to, but it CANNOT just freeze all my money like that again. tiquil - unquote ---------------------

Very clever ,, kudo's ! Tulips 

[sam9876]

In this situation, how would insurance be helpful?