Dear Ebay community,
I sold something on ebay for my son and shipped it through DHL, send from the Netherlands to the Warren Michigan. DHL took 2 months to deliver it. Meanwhile this customer had bought the same item elsewhere and opened a not received case. Once it actually arrived he wanted to return it or have a refund and opened an item not as described case because it arrived with an unfortunate hairline. At first he wanted a 500$ refund telling us that was what the restoration would cost. My son wasnt sure if he should agree with that, its an item worth/sold 1100$ and it's a hairline and he asked if he could show some proof of those costs since it could be repaired for way less. The customer refused and said he wanted to return it instead. My son tried to get him to have it repaired, saves everyone a lot of hassle. He suddenly wanted a 600$ refund. My son asked if he could go to the post office to file a damage report at USPS so DHL could pick up the case and we can get some compensation, in that case we have some coverage and a partial refund wouldnt be problem. Our customer said he would do that immediately the day after, but he didnt. He wanted to return the item now. Calling to the United States is expensive so my son approached ebay on Twitter. They said we had to do what the customer wanted, so that was the return and so we agreed. We asked ebay to give us some more time to figure out how to return it and they put the case on hold until the 8th of feb. My son went to USPS and saw you could get a label there and pay with credit card and paypal and it all looked very easy and straight to the point. So the 8th of february he went online to get the label for the buyer. Unfortunately it wasnt that easy. The menu didnt show up on the phone or several browsers on the computer and it had to be done that exact day. My son asked the buyer if he could help to get a return label. He refused and said ebay told him it was all our responsibility and we had to figure it out, not very helpful. Instead he asked for a 750$ refund right away after my son said we could split the damage coverage if he would file the promised damage report at USPS. First of all there was never an option to do a partial refund when this case was on hold. Not on ebay and not on PayPal. And second of all he kept raising the price and not helping us at all. There was also no way to leave any message in the ebay case since it was put on hold. Ebay promised us that we could send regular messages and that those will be taken in consideration considering the case and that we only had to send funds for a lebel to the buyer or get a label ourselves. My son could not find how to add an insurance on the USPS website for this item worth 1100$ and asked for help several times. The USPS customer service was closed since it was Saturday. He asked if the buyer could send us his paypal address to give him funds for a label and he kept refusing and said it was all our responsibilty. My son found a way to create a label but in that case the buyer had to pay at the post office and we kindly asked if he wanted to do that and add an additional insurance to cover the 1100$ value. In case he returned it and it was not packed well and broke even more, to cover the buyer. The buyer accepted but later refused and meanwhile my son finally figured out he had to change the registration/sent from address in USPS to a US address (that of the buyer) to get the regular menu. We could add an insurance up to 650$ too, better than the initial 200$ that we had at least. But once we wanted to pay for the label by credit card it said it only accepted credit cards from the USA. There was also an option to pay with PayPal so he tried that. But also only American PayPal accounts were accepted. Ebay kept saying we had to get the label and send it to him. My son approached a friend in the United States to help us paying for the label by sending him money over PayPal. This worked! We had a label. We left the label over the ebay message system for the buyer. It was the 9th or the 10th and the case was still open and ebay said we did everything we had to do! The buyer did not respond to the label. A day passed, and suddenly we received that the case was closed in the buyers favor and he was refunded from PayPal. It is the 13th now and nothing has been shipped by him, we checked the tracking number. The buyer also doesnt reply anymore. We send ebay a message and they said at first that the label was faulty. We showed all the proof that it wasnt. We send them the label again, a screenshot of the tracking info, payment confirmation from the USPS website and that of my sons friend. ebay now came with the excuse that the label had to be delivered to the buyer before the 8th, while that was not what they said to us. We have been stolen from an item and we want to appeal this. This is not ok! We put a lot of effort to help someone out that could not make up his mind and now we have been stolen from an item, our money we made and even more for the shipping label. My son is stressed out and I am stunned that this is how things have to go. We can show you all the proof needed considering this case and this situation and we would like the be helped out.
Kind regards,
Hans
