Just want to share my experience so that people will know how to deal with a similar situation in the future.
I order an item from a Chinese seller, but the item is not the item advertised (the item I received lacks the HDMI input). I open up a return request expecting the seller to just refund me since it is just $10, but to my surprised the seller said "Hi. Do you want to return it back to us?"
I want to call the seller's bluff, knowing that the cost of returning a shipment from Canada to China will be a lot more than $10 , so I replied "Only if you pay the return shipping cost". That was a mistake.
I got the following messages from EBay:
Get ready to send the item back
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The seller has approved your return request. You should receive a return shipping label by Jul 26, 2018. Just print the label and send the item back to the seller.
and
Here's your return shipping label
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The return shipping label is now available for V29 VGA/HDMI/AV/TV/USB Interface LCD Controller TV Motherboard. See your return details to download and print the label. Be sure to send the item back to the seller by Aug 03, 2018.
I have not returned anything to China before so I thought that maybe the seller has some kind of arrangement with EBay to have the item shipped back cheaply. But the label looks very suspicous because it is just a bar code (see attachment)
I asked the EBay community and was informed that no such return label exist for international sales. So I contacted the seller:
I've been informed that your return label is invalid:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Member-To-Member-Support/Does-this-look-like-a-legitimate-eBay-return-...
So please just refund my money.
But the seller just ignored all my messages. Unfortunately at this point in the dispute there are only two option that I can click on. It is either "close the case" or "item shipped back", neither of which is correct for me. So after a few days I contacted Ebay via https://resolutioncenter.ebay.com/ and selecting "Resolving buying problems" under Help. Then I used the option "Have us call you" at the bottom of the page.
The Ebay representative was very polite and helpful after getting all my information. and I got my refund in one day.
So the lesson here is not fall into the trap of agreeing to return a shipment to an international seller. That is simply not possible unless the seller is willing to send you the return shipping fee via paypal first. The seller is simply counting on the buyer not wanting to bother with a return, or getting confused and/or get frustrated and click on "Close the case". The correct response would have been to tell the seller that "Prepaid international return label via EBay is not possible and at any case return shipping with tracking will be very costly for the seller" and the seller will just have to take the loss if he/she shipped the wrong item.
Hope this will help someone in the future. But Ebay should just not let international sellers upload fake return labels in the first place since no such thing exists. Or at least have the option of "Fake Return Label" option so that buyer is not stuck in there with the two invalid options of "Close Case" and "Item Shipped Back"
