April 27th, a Saturday, I sell a gaming laptop
The following Monday, April 29th I ship the laptop out, post office closed on Sundays.
One day later (Tuesday) the buyer opens a INR case, yes this is two business days after sale, and yes this is still within MY time to even ship the item out!
3 hours later the buyer is granted a full refund, $1000
Having been on the otherwise of a INR, I'm thinking how was this granted so quickly?? Whenever I've opened a INR case, eBay has given the seller every opportunity and timeline for the item to arrive.
Tracking was provided and marked as accepted by USPS at the time of the refund.
I open a appeal thinking this is clearly a mistake, I do not know or understand how this buyer was granted a refund so quickly, I submit the tracking number as part of the appeal.
I submit the appeal Tuesday afternoon after the refund, by the next morning the appeal was already upheld and closed.
I call customer service.
The person reviews the information provided, is in full agreement something went wrong here. They add additional information to an appeal to the appeal if you will. They also tell me I have unlimited appeals. But should receive a determination in 48 hours.
Less than 24 hours later I get a email from a Linda in appeals that the outcome will be upheld, even though the verbiage in her email clearly states a understanding that the timeframes in question to this refund do not make sense to eBays seller protection policies.
I call customer service again, they tell me once the item is delivered then everything will be sorted out and I will get my money.
Which to clarify, I had the money from the sale, because my account has a long history of positive feedback for sales, so I get immediate payouts.
The problem is when the refund was granted, a -$1000 balance was added to my account, basically eBay saying I owe them that money.
May 7th the item was delivered, I shipped on time, but it took a bit longer due to severe storms in that area of the country.
I then contact customer service AGAIN, saying item was delivered what's going on, I get runaround answers and demand to talk to customer service leadership.
It is then when I get Kaliegh and after reviewing the case, she determines something DEFINITELY went wrong and submits a manual correction. Which I'm told can take 7-10 days.
It's now day 7 after that interaction and the negative balance is still on my account.
For eBays admitted and irrefutable failure to protect a seller and follow its own policies.
This whole time eBay has been hounding me for the uncollected fees, attempted two chargebacks to my account, which ive had to keep empty to prevent them from collecting money they should never have been attempting to collect.
This is hours of time lost, stress, constant customer service calls and interactions, for what seems to be a fraudulent (and successful) attempt to obtain a expensive gaming laptop for free.
Im sure day 10 will come around and I will have to contact eBay yet again to actually get this negative balance removed.
Every step of the process I get assurances of outcomes that always fall through.
If you think you are protected selling on eBay, you are very very wrong.
