Buyer asks ebay to step in (escalates) on a return literally 30 minutes after it arrives to me

[bigdeals.etc]

What the heck man??? I thought we at least get 2 business days.

So a buyer files a return and I auto accept. I never pay attention to them anymore since they are meant to auto close. I just wait to until the package comes to my door to process them. Meanwhile this buyer hasn't done anything and I keep getting those "Has _____ package arrived to you yet?" emails from ebay. Also I get scare tactic notifications saying something like "YOU NEED TO REFUND THE BUYER BY (LAST WEEK)... if the item arrived to you which it should have if the buyer shipped it."

Lol I hate those scare tactic attempts. Anyway, so today I see the buyer escalated the returns for ebay review. I thought that was weird since he didn't even send anything back yet. I look at the details and just before the buyer escalated he uploaded a tracking number. The tracking number shows that the item was shipped out last week and arrived to my warehouse today (I had already left for the day). The comment the buyer made on the reason for escalating was "It arrived today".

This case was created literally 30 minutes after the timestamp on the tracking shows delivered. So much for giving me 2 business days to refund huh ebay. So I had to urgently beat the bots from closing the case in buyer's favor by requesting ebay call back (30 minute wait), and tried chat connection (20 minute wait). The agent was able to step in and extend the review time for this to let me at least inspect the returned package before refunding. I confirmed with her that had I not took the effort to contact ebay and beat the bots... the bots would have ruled in favor of the buyer and refunded and dinged me for it (and kept FVF).

So basically wow. What a broken ebay returns system. And also this buyer... according to the tracking, he took almost a month to ship the item back to me and yet he expects me to refund him within 30 minutes. Thus creating this into an urgent matter for me when it technically shouldn't have to be. I'm just lucky enough to be in front of the computer on my off-hours and caught this notification in time.

[postingid7659]

What we really need is some way to share these buyers names with one another so dozens of sellers can simply block them.  

You can't do that on here, naming and shaming is not allowed.  

[autopartspuller]

There is some type of glitch with the Ebay return system.  Your post is about the third I have read this week with ebay's system giving early refunds or escalating early.

This worries me.

brian@ebay 

tyler@ebay 

Can someone give some feedback on this?

[toysaver]

"Your post is about the third I have read this week with ebay's system giving early refunds or escalating early."

Please add or not being able to refund at all.

[monster-deals]

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@postingid7659 wrote:

You can't do that on here, naming and shaming is not allowed.  

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It is allowed on 99.99999% of the rest of the internet. There are pages upon pages and websites and forums.

Unfortunately you can only add so many names to the Best Buddies List

[brian@ebay]

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@autopartspuller wrote:

There is some type of glitch with the Ebay return system.  Your post is about the third I have read this week with ebay's system giving early refunds or escalating early.

This worries me.

brian@ebay 

tyler@ebay 

Can someone give some feedback on this?

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@autopartspuller @bigdeals.etc  I'm not aware of any issues. If I can get an item number as an example then I'll review the case in question to see what happened and get it reported.

[bigdeals.etc]

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@autopartspuller wrote:

There is some type of glitch with the Ebay return system.  Your post is about the third I have read this week with ebay's system giving early refunds or escalating early.

This worries me.

brian@ebay 

tyler@ebay 

Can someone give some feedback on this?

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@autopartspuller @bigdeals.etc  I'm not aware of any issues. If I can get an item number as an example then I'll review the case in question to see what happened and get it reported.

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Case 5244059433 (opened 30 minutes after return 5153512205 showed delivered) and Case 5244059566 (opened 30 minutes after return 5153512202 showed delivered). As mentioned, luckily I was able to contact ebay immediately to put these on hold before the bots closed them out in the buyer's favor. But the fact that the buyer was able to do this caused trouble for me.

It actually goes both ways. Here with return 5157857504, I accepted it on 8/19. Ebay says they are giving the buyer until 9/2 to ship it back. That's only 10 business days right? I thought ebay gave buyers longer than that.

[airsheep]

Brian, if you will scan through the threads on the Shipping and Returns board, you will see at least half a dozen people, most with Free Returns, whose buyers were refunded automatically by ebay.  The seller was never notified that there was a problem until a refund was taken from their account and given to the buyer, and the buyer was not required to return the item.  The minimal protection ebay affords sellers was taken away.

[burns4thewin]

As I recall, regardless of what ebay's stated policy says, I've always found they're only too willing to refund without giving the seller the specified time to do so.