Item question about shipping

[crafts321]

i been selling on ebay on and off for 15 years and  going to stop.  Ebay is very difficult for sellers, i find it amazing what crooked buyers can get away with. Here is the story, verified by ebay representative.  this was first return i  had to process.  All this is totally new to me. After receiving item back i clicked on issue refund in ebay to refund cost of item. My seller policy says buyer pays for return shipping. Buyer with 500 stars never accepted refund.   If i issued refund via paypal then buyer would not have to do anything but refund via ebay without shipping charges refunded creates partial refund and buyer has option not to accept refund.  Buyer waited  required number of days to make sure i could not post any feedback and contacted ebay and told them that i refused to refund her and item she received was not as described.  Apparently  "not as described"  is magic word crooks on ebay know to use so they can get shipping refunded against seller policy.  Item she received was exactly as described she simply did not like it.  So ebay refunded her entire purchase plus shipping fee, refused to refund any final seller fees to me.  Denied my appeal without any explanation.  So this fraudulent exercise cost me exactly what i was selling item for.  I should consider myself very lucky because i lost relatively small amount of money because of this crook.  But i often sell items that cost over hundred dollars to ship, so any crook who wants to try item at my expense can easily do it on ebay.  all they have to do is to uses magic words "not as described" and i am out of 100 dollars in shipping.  Hard for me to believe  that ebay totally disregard sellers but here is my story. Before i  stop selling i would like to know if there is a way for seller on ebay to protect themselves from crooks like my buyer.   Obviously it will be waste of time to sell with no refund accepted options and i am sure ebay will still find way to charge me shipping charges if  buyer claims "not as described". 

[yellowcomputer]

1/ Per ebay's policy, if buyer click on either "item damaged, not as described, faked product", regardless of reality, they will be provided with a return shipping label out of seller pocket. Ebay does not care about seller on this matter. But if they do care, they simply do not know how to do it fairly without costing them extra cost. 

Your policy is nothing, just a mere fun part for you to design, when returns are issues.

You just hope buyer is honest to click on something like "did not like it or color is different, etc" then buyer will pay return shipping cost. But of course it is rare to have honest buyer under ebay's system!!! Ebay gives buyers choice to lie, period.

2/ As seller you can not refuse a refund, ebay will do it any way, take your money to refund buyer. But as buyers, ebay may not refund them right away as they would tell buyer that seller does not agree to refund!!!!! This is for ebay benefit. They will find a way to get money from sellers and refrain to refund buyer !!

3/ Per ebay policy, after refunding the buyer, seller will be reimbursed fees when ebay makes their invoice to you. Paypal would refund the fee immediately (reversed fee) when they (you) refund the buyer.

4/ I don't see your reason to appeal beside your concerned return shipping cost.

5/ On your perspective, buyer may be fraudulent. But if buyer, in reality, received a bad item, he/she does have a point.

6/ There is cost to do business, even on ebay. If it costs too much time and money, then just stop right away. But if you can manage to do it without frustration, selling on ebay may be a way to make some coffee money.

NOTE that ebay's sytem is for their own profit. They neither care about seller nor buyer. And what they are doing (from Donahue) is really not benefiting them. Amazon and ebay started out at about same time. Look for their stocks now !!!

[crafts321]

thank you. buyer is totally fraudulent. why would i list item and not describe it properly?  

Not following you about amazon.  are you saying that sellers treated fair at Amazon? i can look into amazon handmade. i am done with ebay.   Just because it took me 15 years to sell to crook, i cant take any chances going forward.

[crafts321]

buyer returned item to me herself.  are you saying that ebay can refund her price of item, charge me for return shipping and item,  and keep return shipping to themselves?  That sounds like theft

[juststuffisell]

Yes, any buyer can force you to pay return shipping, and upon receipt of the item, a full refund to include original shipping, on any item you sell on eBay regardless of your policy.

You have to be aware of this when selling items that cost a lot of money to ship. These items are better served being sold as local pickup only. You can assist buyers with making arrangements with local packaging companies that can assist them with the shipping. This is the only way I know of to avoid eating shipping on high cost items. Not sure how that impacts sales though as I don't have a lot of those items and none of them have sold.

Regardless, you are going to eventually have a buyer that is going to do this and you'll eventually have another. At least the experience did not cost you like it cost another seller. They apparently paid 200.00 to ship a bike. Buyer sent it back not as described and he fought the return and lost which cost him the return shipping and the 150.00 FVF so in the neighborhood of $550.00 or the entire transaction on a false snad.

Not selling on eBay I think is a bit extreme. eBay is a great tool in the tool box for sellers. I believe you will not like the other platform mentioned; higher costs to sell and the same return issues.

Cheers

[crafts321]

thank you. this is very helpful.  Can you confirm if this actually something ebay can do.  Buyer told me that she only got refund for purchase of original item. Obviously considering what she did i can not trust her. But ebay charged me for price of item and return shipping. So do they really keep return shipping to themselves? Buyer shipped item to me at her expense and waited about 30 days before contacting ebay. 

Now aside from shipping issues considering ebay total disregard for sellers is it possible for the following to happen?  Lets say item was returned and got damaged in shipping and buyer did not insure it properly. So now i am stuck with item i can not sell and crooked buyer ends up making money of me. And what if it is a jacket they tried on ripped it in process and return it to me? this is not something that can be insured but ebay never going to believe me.  And lastly why it is necessary to keep bank account for refunds? Why credit card cant be used?

[southernsun-56]

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@crafts321 wrote:

thank you. buyer is totally fraudulent. why would i list item and not describe it properly?  

Not following you about amazon.  are you saying that sellers treated fair at Amazon? i can look into amazon handmade. i am done with ebay.   Just because it took me 15 years to sell to crook, i cant take any chances going forward.

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Amazon and Etsy have higher fees and just as bad return policies. 

You want to sell with a full on no return policy, the only way to do it is sell in person, cash only.

[juststuffisell]

Amazon fees are indeed higher and they are losing buyers & sellers. They had a nice sweet spot on prime. The price increase was to much for people and the price on merchandise has gone up considerably. For same reasons you are seeing prices increase on Ebay as the cost to sell here increases.

Etsy fees depend upon the value of the items you are listing and your sell through rate because you are paying 20 cents a listing plus a percentage of the transaction. If you are selling lower cost items and you have slow or no sales, it costs A LOT more to sell on Etsy. A lot! You have to move merchandise when you pay by the listing like that.

Every platform has policies to protect buyers. Even if you had your own eCommerce platform you'd have policies and if smart, would be flexible about returns. The last thing you want are a bunch of negative reviews about your business out on the web. The issue that impacts most sellers is being forced to pay the shipping to and the return shipping on a remorse transaction in disguise as a SNAD - which is becoming more common on eBay as buyers feel they are entitled to free shipping. That drives up costs & risks and will continue to drive up costs into this year as sellers start to get hit with the extra 4% FVF in high return categories.

eBay - IMHO - is training their buyers to expect free shipping to and from the sellers on eBay and when you don't offer it, more and more buyers will use the tools available on eBay to get it out of you.

Cheers

[juststuffisell]

I'm not really sure I understand the entirety of your question.

Some of your question is not stuff I am familiar with only because I never let eBay make the decision for me as a seller. I know that if a buyer files for return, no matter how the item was sold, I have to take it back in most instances. I can fight it, but the risk is not worth it for me. Your other questions are probably better served being answered by someone that has had direct experience dealing with eBay policies where you dispute the return.

Cheers

[mycarolinavintage]

Reference: Buyer waited  required number of days to make sure i could not post any feedback and contacted ebay and told them that i refused to refund her and item she received was not as described. 

Sorry you are going through this. It is frustrating, I know. Due to a highly protested changed eBay policy, sellers have not had the option to leave negative feedback for buyers for quite some time. The time the buyer waited before filing a case against you would not affect that whatsoever. If the original shipping cost concerns you, I suggest you dispute it. (The buyer is actually out the return expense.) Then let it go and move on. Don't shut your eBay business down for one bad experience. If sellers did that, there would more than likely be very few sellers here, if any.

You got the item back, can you not re-list it? Oh, and did you add that buyer to your blocked buyer list? I would,

but maybe that's just me.

............................................................

Energy flows where attention goes.

[crafts321]

i relisted item without any changes. Item is exactly as described.  i feel it is not worth my time to deal with so much fraud. i wish sellers got together and filed class action lawsuit. ebay should have shipping center like they do for international shipping to have all returns sent to them and determine if it is really SNAD case.  Most of sellers care about their reputation and unlikely to lie when listing items.   I had no idea how common is what happened to me.  i still dont understand if this really ebay practice. So apparently i had SNAD case (i had to google it), buyer returned item to me long before she contacted ebay to start SNAD case, but she claims that ebay only gave her money back for actual item and not return shipping. I was charged for both. So ebay kept return shipping to themselves?