Auction Refund because WRONG item description and extra costs

[pa-rona]

I'm an expat doing consulting work for an NGO in Central America and I purchased an item through an ebay auction. We use a mail forwarding service so the item was delivered to an address in Florida and then sent to our office in Central America three days later. To my surprise, the item was not the one described. The auction title, product and item description clearly stated the item was the pro version that has completely different functionality. The only thing the two products have in common is the brand name. I contacted the seller, he admitted his errors and offered a refund and return label from Florida. The thing is DHL charges $62 to send the package back to the US and I paid 75 in the auction. Besides, I already paid 10 bucks to have the item shipped to Panama. I mean, the seller even posted the wrong model number in an auction, so the item sold for a price well over the retail value of the non-pro version and merely 10 bucks under the retail value of the pro version. Besides, he described the item as brand new when it’s clearly in like new or open item condition. No seals, little bags open, item bag missing.

What does ebay usually says in these situations? Is there anything written about it?

p.s. the non pro is a 10/100 switch and the pro is a gigabit router with SFP cage for optic fiber and POE af/at for remote outdoors installations... ip cameras, AP and such.

[glorybells]

When you use a forwarding service, it voids the eBay money back guarantee, so the seller really owes you nothing in this case (how do you know that the forwarding service didn’t switch out items?)

If the seller is offering to work with you at all on this, they’re doing more than what’s required of them in this type of situation.

[orangehound]

---

@pa-rona wrote:

What does ebay usually says in these situations? Is there anything written about it?

---

eBay's Money Back Guarantee only extends to the delivery address.   You can make a claim, but the seller is only responsible for domestic return shipping from Florida.   A lot of sellers specifically do not sell internationally because they don't want to deal with an international Money Back Guarantee claim.  So, though the seller is not innocent, he is not completely guilty as well ... his liability is really whatever would be the return shipping cost from Florida.

What are your options?

• Find a cheaper return shipping option.
• If you can use the item, ask the seller for compensation for sending the wrong item.
• File a credit card charge-back for not getting what you ordered ... this is a little cruel since the buyer would not get the item back, but be forced to refund.