01-29-2018 11:36 AM
I recently sold a jacket to a buyer in France and he returned it due to sizing issues. Now the problem is, on my eBay return policy, there is a restocking fee and buyer is responsible for original shipping costs, but when I try to issue a refund, it would not allow me to deduct both costs. Eventually I contacted the buyer AND eBay customer service and on the eBay France website, it did not state there was a restocking fee on their website. Eventually time lapsed because eBay could not find a solution and the case was automatically closed and the buyer got his money back. Beware when selling to buyers who use eBay's international websites, your policies are not synced with theirs.
01-29-2018 03:45 PM
Did it allow you to recover original shipping costs or did you have to pay the full amount back to the buyer?
01-29-2018 04:29 PM
I had to pay the full amount to the buyer. When I tried to refund, it did not provide a checkbox to deduct the original shipping or add a restocking fee. It was as if the case was a "not as described".
01-29-2018 06:49 PM
What was the actual reason the buyer chose for the return?
01-30-2018 09:08 AM
The item did not fit. It was a sizing issue.
01-30-2018 09:14 AM
I have included a side by side of example listings of mine and shown that it's missing a part. I received a reply from eBay FR where they said they could not do anything and had to go with whatever eBay FR listed on their side.
01-30-2018 09:29 AM - edited 01-30-2018 09:32 AM
wrote:I recently sold a jacket to a buyer in France and he returned it due to sizing issues. Now the problem is, on my eBay return policy, there is a restocking fee and buyer is responsible for original shipping costs, but when I try to issue a refund, it would not allow me to deduct both costs. Eventually I contacted the buyer AND eBay customer service and on the eBay France website, it did not state there was a restocking fee on their website. Eventually time lapsed because eBay could not find a solution and the case was automatically closed and the buyer got his money back. Beware when selling to buyers who use eBay's international websites, your policies are not synced with theirs.
I had a similar situation, but it was for Sweden, reason- ordered wrong size. The return request did not show my restocking fee and wanted me to pay for return shipping. I called eBay and was told to refund less the restocking fee thru the PP transaction once I rec'd the item back and they would refund the return shipping cost back to me. But, the Buyer changed their mind and decided to keep the item. I asked the B to close the case but they said there was no option for them to do that, nor were they able to leave me feedback. I had to wait 30 days b4 I could close the case. Such a waste of everyone's time and resources.
When I get the time, I am going to include, into the listing notes to internationals, details regarding restocking fee, return shipping paid by Buyer, etc.
01-30-2018 03:21 PM
Yes... this ebay policy makes absolutely no sense!
I just sold a 63lbs plasma/TIG/STICK combination machine for $969.99 and I paid the original shipping. The buyer received the item, and filed a "Request For Return" within 24hours after receiving it. It had arrived with a problem caused during shipping. My auction clearly stated the machine has a warranty of 1 year labor and 3 years parts and that all shipping charges is the responsibility of the buyer.
I offered a money back guarantee with a 15% restocking fee.
Effectively ebay just ignored these clearly defined parameters conveyed to the buyer as part of the sale conditions.
ebay sent an email with a shipping label attached and charged over $70 and demanded that I pay return shipping.
My hard costs as a result of doing business with ebay... $70 + $63.48 (original shipping) = $133.48 for a failed sale. And that does not include the time, frustration, returned condition of machine, missing parts (which ebay won't cover) and for this they charge 10% commission (I hope I get that back as I had to deal with "Customer Support" in the Philippines. (that's another part of the story envolving PayPal getting envolved)... WOW this has become crazy.
I've feeling that I actually may not be able to afford to sell on ebay any longer.
What happend?
😕
First of all... shipping is not a financial benefit to the seller. It is only to provide a practical convenience to the buyer that a seller initiates shipping. We are doing it for the buyer.
The cost of shipping is for transportation of an item and really not part the price for the item.
Then ebay concludes that sellers should pay the shipping... BOTH WAYS. In the event of a problem that was cause by the shipping company and not the seller (or buyers). But, somehow it seems logical to ebay that the mean seller... apparent all sellers must be mean... deserves to be punished for selling the item in the first place. This is logical? On what planet!?
Could there be some other reason for ebay to use their power to require sellers to pay return shipping? Hmm
I thought it was odd that a shipping label just showed up with the email... which means I could not even choose which shipping company was going to return the item. What's that about?
All this just does not make sense!
I've sold hundreds of machines on ebay since 2004... what is going on here????
01-31-2018 07:44 PM
02-09-2018 10:53 AM
So I called eBay and they direct me to eBay France. Now I am on the phone with them and they barely speak English. eBay US claims it's illegal for them to issue a refund on eBay Frances behalf. Has anyone heard of this law before?
02-09-2018 04:15 PM
I doubt that there is any such law however ebay and Paypal do go by rules of the site that the item was purchased on if there is a dispute so the buyer must have seen the item on their home site and made the purchae there rather than on .com. European laws regarding refunds are different than US law so perhaps that's why ebay.fr doesn't have the restocking fee policy.
https://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html#8
When you sell your items internationally, you agree to be subject to that other site's User Agreement, policies, and the eBay International Selling Policy.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/international-selling.html
when you list an item for sale with an international shipping option (such as worldwide shipping), which may result in your item being sold to a buyer on an eBay site other than eBay.com with a buyer protection policy.
You are subject to the buyer protection policies (if any) of the eBay sites where your items are sold.
02-09-2018 07:35 PM
Thank you for the link. Wish I would of known this earlier. I guess I will be looking into countries to avoid selling.
02-10-2018 01:12 PM
Just a suggestion.....For items that are under 4 pounds you might also want to look at using first class international for those countries that have first class delcon. First class int'l is expensive these days but it is less than Priority. I can't imagine that too many people are willing to pay $45 for shipping a tshirt.
06-26-2018 04:05 PM
I had the same case with ebay.fe, I wanted to return a damage item to a seller in france, On ebay.com after 3 days if you don't reach an agreement with a seller ebay will intervene, but it seems on ebay.fr it's after 9 days, I already called ebay customer service and they said they are working on it.
06-27-2018 01:28 PM
@voguesurplus wrote:I recently sold a jacket to a buyer in France and he returned it due to sizing issues. Now the problem is, on my eBay return policy, there is a restocking fee and buyer is responsible for original shipping costs, but when I try to issue a refund, it would not allow me to deduct both costs. Eventually I contacted the buyer AND eBay customer service and on the eBay France website, it did not state there was a restocking fee on their website. Eventually time lapsed because eBay could not find a solution and the case was automatically closed and the buyer got his money back. Beware when selling to buyers who use eBay's international websites, your policies are not synced with theirs.
Well now you can no longer put in a Restocking Fee on Ebay US!
Not that the restocking fee ever mattered; buyers would simply select SNAD instead to avoid it.