Contacting Ebay about a seller apparently planning to vanish after I filed for a refund

[serpenco]

Bought a lathe from a guy, obviously in China, but shipped from within the USA, and it turned out to be a real piece of junk.  The guy has offered to send me a replacement for an additional $400 and I can keep the old one (like it is even worth that?) or he can send me parts to repair it myself along with a partial refund.  Problem is that he would have to send me practically the entire replacement lathe as a kit, since there are far more things wrong with it than are right. Some of which are even safety issues which I am sure would not pass muster if manufactured in the USA.

So while I am mulling this guys offer over, I decide to check the guy's account on Ebay, as he had multiple pages of stuff for sale, and I wanted to see if he was selling other lathes. Incidentally I am convinced the guy has at least a dozen concurrent accounts on Ebay, as that same lathe was being sold by all of them, showing only one or two remaining, which ALL ended as being SOLD OUT just as soon as I bought mine. Questions I asked those accounts all got replied to within a couple of minutes of each other, prime time in China, and all were copied nearly word for word as a cut and paste.

Well, what do you know? The guy pulled up shop. ALL of his auctions are now gone. At least for the account I bought the lathe from.  Seems to me that the guy is planning to go into ghost mode and just evaporate.  I would like to contact Ebay about the guy but  they make it so darn difficult to find actual contact info, that it is ridiculous.  They are about to be left holding the bag on $1,300.00 and I want to warn them, but heck, if they really don't want to talk to their customers, then I guess this is going to be their problem.  I paid via credit card, so if Ebay tries to leave me holding the bag, my last resort will be to dispute the charge. I sure as heck am not going to bend over and take this.

Anyway, just grousing I guess, about Ebay being too aloof to talk to us little people. In some cases, it just might be in their benefit to do so as maybe sometimes we are really trying to help them.

IMHO.

[mkaczorsee]

Did you open a not as described case?

[serpenco]

Yes.

The concern is that the seller will vanish before the refund can be extracted from him. What happens in such a situation? Where does the refund come from if the seller has closed the payment source he was using?

[serpenco]

Well, to be more accurate, the claim I made is "Doesn't work or defective".  In case that makes any difference in how Ebay treats this.

[soh.maryl]

You opened a not as described case ("doesn't work or defective").  I am assuming you did this within 30 days of receiving the item.

96 hours after opening the case, you need to return to the case and ask eBay to step in.

If you are required to return the item, the seller is required to either send you a prepaid shipping label or to reimburse you in advance for the cost of return shipping.  

You are understandably upset, but opening an item not as described case is not that difficult.

OK, I now see that the seller has evidently been removed by eBay.  If your item not as described case does not work through eBay, you may wind up opening one with Paypal if that's how you paid, or, as you mention, do a charge back on your card.

eBay DOES offer help.  You just need to learn how and when to use it.

[japan-treazures]

@serpenco 

Sorry you are having to deal with this situation. If you decide you want to try contacting eBay, here are a few ways.

I have had great luck getting a hold of eBay customer service on three issues I have had since Aug 2020. I must have gotten lucky with the timing. 

Try using Facebook or Twitter, that worked for me the quickest. 

You can send an email message to eBay. Not sure if email is working. It is hit and miss due to COVID-19. I just used it on Aug 11, 2020 and got a reply and solution to a problem I found here on eBay. I was shocked. I used it again on Aug 26, 2020 and Sept 1, 2020 and got a call and they took care of an eBay issue. 

Here is the link: 

https://www.ebay.com/help/account/contacting-ebay-customer-service/contacting-ebay-customer-service?... 

The email option is at the bottom of the link.  Or you can reach out to customer service using social media: 

eBay on Facebook

eBay on Twitter 

Social media worked for me. I received an answer and resolution to my issue fairly quickly.  The CSR ended up calling me. It wouldn't hurt to leave a contact number.   

You can also try to get phone support by visiting any help topic page, scroll down to the bottom of the page to the call back option.  Click on the option and you should get a message that you will get a call back with the estimated time.

Be advised that this option is not available 24/7. If you try a time that is not eBay’s normal business hours the option may not be there or your call back will be take longer. I recommend trying this option in the morning California time.

Hope this helps!

[serpenco]

"OK, I now see that the seller has evidently been removed by eBay. "

Where are you seeing that info?  I can see that the seller's auctions have all been removed, but I assumed that was because the guy was taking steps to vanish and he deleted them himself. As far as I can tell the account is still there.  But if Ebay deleted them, well, that would be interesting too in it's implications.

I have been having conversations with him all along, and the latest indicate that I should pack up the lathe, taking pictures of the lathe in the crate and when sealed.  When I send the pictures to him he will initiate a pickup tag with a trucking company to pick up the 185 lb crate. Not sure when in this process that the refund will be issued.  But as I mentioned before, if Ebay doesn't take care of it, then I will do a chargeback with my credit card company, if necessary.  Honestly, in the past Ebay has been pretty good about standing behind me in the few instances I had issues with sellers. So hopefully this will go OK too. Truthfully, I wish the lathe had worked out, but the list of things wrong with it is far longer than the things that are OK. I was seriously considering riding this out and accepting from the seller either the offer to send replacement parts or to send a replacement unit for an additional $400.  But that $400 thing plus finding all his auctions having been removed pretty much spooked me. The "spider sense" rarely fails me.

Thanks.

[mtgraves7984]

"I have been having conversations with him all along..."

@serpenco ... Stop that. ^^^ You'll make yourself crazy. Good luck!

[serpenco]

I've got the lathe all crated up and ready to go.  Interestingly enough I found another problem with the lathe while doing so. I thought the compound was one of the few good things on this lathe. Wrong!  Whoever drilled the holes for the mounting bolts cut into the slideway on one side of it. Sheesh.

Another thing notable is that I could not find a serial number or a manufacturer label anywhere on this thing.  My guess is that what ever factory this came out of, they had a bunch of reject parts and just threw them all together to make as many machines as they could to dump on Ebay.  I guess Ebay is making so much money off of these Chinese sellers that they really don't care what goes on.  **bleep** shame you just can't trust anyone these days.

Oh well, just have to wait for the seller to arrange for the truck pickup now.  Hopefully there won't be any feet dragging processing the refund. Ebay only has till my credit card bill is due, at which time I would need to file for a chargeback with the credit card company.  I've had to do this before, and a representative I talked to told me that it is MUCH easier to process a chargeback before you pay the bill for it.

[ma-647837]

---

@serpenco wrote:

"OK, I now see that the seller has evidently been removed by eBay. "

Where are you seeing that info? I can see that the seller's auctions have all been removed, but I assumed that was because the guy was taking steps to vanish and he deleted them himself.

---

Your seller @serpenco is not likely to vanish off of eBay, but it is likely your hope your crate will vanish will vanish.  Instead, be sure to return to your return request on Wednesday and click ask eBay to step in to step up to the next step.

eBay won't be able to issue a return label, so your seller will either have to refund outright, arrange pickup and refund, or eBay will force a refund after 5 days.

In both the above or a chargeback, if necessary, your seller loses their $120 in FVF and other fees.

[serpenco]

Well, interesting development. The seller initiated a return label. Only problem is that it is via USPS, and for certain USPS is not going to accept a large crate weighing 183 lbs.  Still trying to figure out how to contact Ebay to get them to take a look at this situation.

In the link provided in a post above, I did not see any link providing email support.

[glyph01]

Contact them through social media:

eBay on Facebook

eBay on Twitter 

[glyph01]

Or select one of these topics and follow the steps:

https://www.ebay.com/help/call_us?type=ContactUs&initFrom=ARTICLE&topicId=4379&l1label=Returns%20&%2...

[serpenco]

OK, thanks, I'll give facebook a try.  Honestly, though, I never use facebook nor twitter for anything.  But I did open up a facebook account ages ago.

[serpenco]

Every link I try on Ebay just puts me in an infinite loop.

But fyi, I packaged up some small parts from the lathe and put them in a padded envelope and slapped the return label on it.  So at least I can satisfy Ebay's requirement of sending what I can to the seller.  Honestly, I would like to see the look on the faces of the people at the post office if I backed the truck up with that crate in the back and the shipping label slapped on that.  🙂 That would be a YouTube moment for sure.