Lost my appeal

[chrismo679]

Buyer had bought a phone and after almost 30days, he decided to return it for a refund because he claimed it stopped working.  I accepted the return as suggested by eBay .  After a few days, buyer was refunded his money and I had taken the phone to a repair shop to diagnose the problem.  The shop discovered extensive water damage beyond repair.  So I decided to appeal my case and lost because eBay said they had valid proof that the item was returned to me.  **bleep** !!!! Am I missing something here or what???

[dandfmarinesalvage]

No you haven't missed anything. Unfortunately even if you had taken it to the shop prior to issuing a refund, you'd have still lost the case. It's unfortunate but rare (as in almost never) that ebay will side with the seller in such a case. It almost always ends with a seller that has no money to show for their now broken/not working item. Honesty and integrity are a thing of the past and ebay gets stuck being the middle man and has no way to decipher whether the buyer or seller is at fault. 

[bivy]

I'm sorry that happened to you. Fraudsters think they are so clever but, hopefully, there is a ring in hell for them. Meanwhile, make sure that you formally  report this buyer so that if this a pattern for them, eBay can take action in suspending them or perhaps even believing a wronged seller somewhere down the line.

[rebell45]

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling-Q-A/Ebay-refunded-buyer-for-an-item-he-damaged/qaq-p/31159166

[north40sales]

There is a reason that many sellers refrain from offering items like electronics and high value items on eBay for this specific reason.