eBay

esell-resell · ‎12-10-2011

Has this happenned to anyone else?

I sold a Computer Server to a buyer on Ebay, this guy phoned me, we discussed everything about the server and shipping. Now this guy was cheap I could tell just by him whinning about how much the shipping would be and how long it would take.

So me being a nice person and I know what it is like to have to wait and wait for my package, I told him to send me $90 and I would express ship it out to him and he would have it in 3 - 4 days. He agreed and sent me the extra $90 plus I gave him a deal on the server $169.99 , when I could have easily got $200. The server weighs 70lbs and is 26"longX19"highX9"wide and has to be shipped in it's proper sitting place so I had to label it with THIS SIDE UP stickers and also HEAVY stickers (70lbs) and alot of FRAGILE AND HANDLE WITH CARE stickers. It cost me $280.00 to ship it to him (no lie I have the receipt from UPS on my account) and only charged him $90. When I packaged the server I did it at the UPS office that I go to all the time and the UPS agent helped me actually. I wrapped it in packing cardboard and used a bubble packing envelope for extra cushion on the back of the tower server so that none of the conections would be broken. It was then triple wrapped with cardboard boxes customly made top fit tight around the server and several layers of red Tuck Tape were used to seal it all up.

The buyer received it I believe 6 days later because some of the paperwork for the border ( Canada to USA) were not proper so it took a few more days. When his even NORMAL shipping, like the cheapest from Winnipeg Manitoba Canada to New York USA would have been $133.00 and would have taken 2 - 3 weeks to get there. Remember he only paid $90?

Anyway 3 days after he received the server he sends me a message that it was damaged during shipping because it was not packaged properly and he wants all his money back and also the shipping money. In my listing I had listed no returns or exchanges. I want all of you to know that I have sold many of these units and I always, ALWAYS run a system check on them before shipping them out and I have never had a problem. So I replied to him that I most certainly did package it properly and I asked him to send me pictures please and I also asked him why he would accept a package that was damaged. He would not respond or nor did he send any pictures.

Yesterday I received a buyer complaint thing from Ebay and Paypal puts a $179.99 hold on my account. I responded to the complaint and explained everything in detail and informed the buyer that I would be contacting Ebay and UPS this morning.

This morning I woke up a little later than usual 11am and noticed that the buyer had already escalated the complaint with Ebay at 6am. I immediately phoned Ebay and spoke to someone in the Ebay Buyer Protection department and I explained everything to the rep and also that I packed it in front of the UPS agent who helped me and that the buyer would not send me any pictures, and I expressed to the rep that I think what the buyer did was buy a different server locally because I noticed on his account that a few days after he bought my server, he was buying Tape drives for a completely different server, and after speaking with him on the phone he had said that he was in need of a server badly because they did not have one.

So here is what the Ebay rep did during the phone call I had with him. He ruled in the buyers favor and now the buyer can take 7 - 14 days to ship it to me and he can send it anyway he wants, so I will be waiting for 4- 6 weeks at the very least to get back a BROKEN server that has now cost me 280.00$ in shipping and is probably now worth nothing because here is what I believe happenned the buyer found a server locally and then read the buyer protection policy and then damaged the server ON PURPOSE then filed the claim. I know I cannot prove it 100% but I know that is what happenned.

So now I am out over $550.00 and apparently there is nothing I can do about it. I am sooo tired of getting ripped off on Ebay by buyers that LIE and Ebay rules in there favor all the time. I have 2 kids and this is christmas time and this extra money is for gifts for them, I am so UPSET right now with Ebay that I am about ready to quit selling on here completely.

I go out of my way to ENSURE that items are packed EXTRA well so that damage does not happen, and now I get ripped off by some goon that uses the policy to get away with it.

BEWARE SELLERS this can happen to you.

I think Ebay needs to wake up and change some of this NON-SENSE policy loop holes that these scammers use to scam you out of money. Oh and get this that buyer can now leave me NEGATIVE feedback but I cannot do the same to him, I can either leave positive or no feedback!

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

geirojas · ‎01-08-2014

I cannot believe how much this is still happening yet eBay does NOTHING about it. I am another one who has just been recently scammed by a buyer and eBay ruled in their favor. I sold a very nice pair of grey UGG boots to a woman on eBay. She received them and I get a message almost three weeks later with her claiming that they have a broken button, that has been glued on and that I was very clever at hiding it in my pictures. She offered absolutely NO proofof her claims but demanded a full refund. I immediately called eBay and they said it sounded like she had gotten "buyers remorse" and that I should stand my ground, which I was planning to do anyway. The buyer ended up opening a case against me and in her message to eBay, she said that she did not open the package after it was delivered for 2 weeks "to keep her kids from snooping for Christmas presents" and that her husband opened it and discovered a broken button. She then said that she gave the boots to her daughter anyway. I didn't receive a message from her until almost a week later stating that there was a "supposed" broken button. Long story short, she stopped communicating with me when I said that unless she provided proof, she wasn't getting a refund. She waited past the 5-6 days to escalate it and it took eBay a whopping 4 minutes to rule that she return the boots to me for a full refund. I immediately got on the phone again with eBay and after several hours of back and forth from CS reps to a supervisor who said they would appeal it to then getting transferred to their Resolution Center where I was told put on and off hold for about 10 minutes being told they a re continuing to review everything to finally be told, "I'm sorry, while we can understand where you are coming from and yada yada yada, we can't reverse our decision. You have to wait until you receive the item back, inspect it and then go through an appeal process." Seriously? So now I'm waiting to get back a pair of boots that the buyer broke (because they were in PERFECT CONDITION when I sold them, packed them and shipped them!!)...which from reading these posts, I'll probably never get them back and she will still get refunded. I gotta say, I think I'm DONE with eBay and I will do what I have to to let others know of their practices so they will stop buying and selling on eBay as well. I have been a buyer/seller on eBay for over 10 years with 253 100% positive feedback (which even eBay said, "You must be doing something right.") and they let a buyer who has 12 feedback and hadn't purchased something off eBay since 2010 and I was her first purchase since get by with fraud! This has got to STOP!!!!

kevineads · ‎01-09-2014

It just happend to me TODAY!

I was thinking filing a small claims case against the buyer and ebay, what do you think? Im just frustrated and right now am out 1500.00

catbuns1978 · ‎01-11-2014

Hi. I sold a laptop as is/for parts. buyer gets the laptop and says it isnt as described. says he mailed it back usps and i respond do not take returns, especially not knowing what he may have removed. I escalate it to ebay and they side with him. all of a sudden he creates a UPS shipping label. hmmm lied about shipping it earlier. yesterday i received the laptop back, with a note saying the hard drive was dying and now not working. Mind you, the laptop had a born on date of may 2013. I checked the hard drive, and it has a 2010 date on it. Also the screws that holds the cover had broken plastic clips. I'm sure this guy removed the original hard drive. I checked his feedbacks and they all appear positive until you actually start reading them. I appealed the case, not expecting a good result. Wont sell anymore laptops ever again thats for sure.

sweetheart1155 · ‎01-12-2014

Oh yes, same thing happened to me but with a vintage clock. Same type of problem except he never even contacted me to say he had a problem. I complained to e-bay everytime I seen a page that said "do you have a problem with a buyer" I wrote the same complaint for about 3 monthes. Finally e-bay called me and said that they are glad to inform me that they now have a new rule that a buyer has to let the seller know that there is a problem before he can open a complaint. And she said I am doing so well on e-bay and that they realize that this is the first time this has happened to me and they know it was hard on me but I need to get over it and concentrate on my sales. I said I will never get over it, some one cheated me and they allowed it to happen, she didn't know what to say! So every time I see that " do you have a problem with a buyer" I keep pounding away at it as long as that negative feedback is on my record. I continue to do business (not that I am some big business) with them but I don't have any respect for them.

buggypoppop · ‎01-15-2014

Same is happening to us! Buyer says the item didn't work, but I know it did as I tested it before shipping. I shipped out 4 at the same time, and only this one person is making the case. The item arrived a full two weeks ago and was a $600 video card. He just put in a claim now saying it doesn't work. NO ONE BUYS A $600 VIDEO CARD AND DOESN'T TRY IT RIGHT AWAY!! Totally just abusing this program and I will NEVER sell on ebay if they rule in his favor.

"that a buyer has to let the seller know that there is a problem before he can open a complaint" The buyer never contract us before either. Put in the complaint without saying a thing. We have flawless seller ratings and he is just taking advantage and ebay is letting him rip us off for over $700 CDN since we also have to refund the shipping it looks like. Paypal has already taken the money even though a ruling hasn't been done.

Done with ebay, this is horsecrap! (I'd like to use more colorful language.

goldenboy005 · ‎01-16-2014

Yes this just happened to me also, and ebay told me to bad.

goldenboy005 · ‎01-16-2014

Some countries you can't purchase insurance, and others that allow you to purchase insurance, they only insure the package until it leaves the country and some policies only allow you to purchase insurance on packages shipped with a specific service through USPS. Insurance isn't offered on every shipping service to other countries.

goldenboy005 · ‎01-16-2014

In December as case was opened against me as the customer wanted to return an item for buyers remorse, but I don't accept that as a valid reason and that was stated on the auction. They opened a case and when it got escalated Ebay looks to see if you accept returns and they saw that we do but not for buyers that just change their mind. Ebay doesn't care if you have any stipulations on the returns you accept. If you accept any form of a return they disreguard any of your stipulations and say you accept returns and that means all returns for any reason. So i get the item back and it wasn't packaged very well and was damaged. Ebay told me to file a compaint with the shipping company that the buyer used to ship the item back to me. They basically told me that they no longer will do anything about any item that is returned that is damaged in shipping or even by the buyer. So the seller gets stuck again.

If I would of had a "No Return Policy" then Ebay would of told the customer they couldn't get a refund.

So it boils down to if a seller accepts a returns for any reason at all then a customer can esscalate a case and get their money back even if it's "Buyer's Remorse"

Ebay is making it difficult to accept returns when they have these loop holes that can be abused.

This part was great, if you have a "No Return policy" and the customer pleads with you to take an item back and you break down and say okay I will take it back but there is a 10% restocking fee if you return it. You do this just to help them out. At that point the customer can open a case and since you said you would take it back, Ebay will make you take it back and give them a 100% refund as they do not recognize any kind of restocking fee if they get involved or any kind of agreement or stipulation that you had if the customer returns the item. So again the seller gets screwed for trying to help someone out.

Basically a No Return Policy is what I am changing to as of today. Not what I want to do, but I have to because of the broken ebay policy.

All of this information I got from The Case Resolution Team earlier this morning. I am just passing on the information to everyone here as it might help someone not get screwed over.

kelliesteve · ‎01-16-2014

Wow thanks for the heads up!

ceewald8 · ‎01-19-2014

yea... I feel you. I've had a similar thing happen to me althuogh it was only $25, not hundreds of dollars... but I am NEVER EVER EVER using ebay again. I've tried for hour to get my money back and there is apparently nothing i can do. I've even spent a lot of time searching for a number I can call, but cant find one. You mentioned oyu did call someone, can I have the number?

trackwelder · ‎01-20-2014

Even if you state No returns Ebay will refund them their money anyhow, I have been selling lower cost items tha collectors might want, mainly barbie dolls, and take pictures of each item individually giving as many views as is practical and just had a case filed over a month after the sale because they didn't like the damage to the Box as they claim. I expect I will lose on this too, Buyers do not have to be responsible for looking at an item they can just file a claim and get their money back.

youbetyourbetta · ‎01-21-2014

ebay selling is tough when you're new to it and don't read all the "sellers beware" forums. If anyone is new here, please google sellers beware and read as much as you can. I think there are twice as much more scammers acting as buyers than there are scammers acting as sellers and unfortunately I've bumped into both.

If you're buying always make sure to ask detailed questions, or even request more pictures of specific parts otherwise you get cheap items at expensive prices and selling (it's just ridiculous. some buyers look for any excuse to open a case get the item free...)

Sadly, my blocked bidders list is slowly growing...

youbetyourbetta · ‎01-21-2014

I always have this problem when I need to call. Here's what to do. I'm listing the following for your and my convenience:

1. At the Homepage of ebay on the top menu find the Customer Support Link

2. It automatically send you to "Find An Answer" tab. Select the "Contact Ebay" tab instead

3. If I call them it usually has to do because of a seller problem so select that option. I'll randomly chose a topic. This time I chose "Fees Billing & Invoices"

4. The page it takes you to should now have two columns. On the right side is has a "Call us" and "Call me" option.
Click on "Call us"

5. You will get their phone number and a one time passcode. The number: 866-540-3229, but you will need your own passcode to get through so you HAVE TO GO THROUGH ALL THE STEPS.

Good luck.

future_vnv · ‎01-23-2014

This has happened to me EVERY time I sell a computer part on ebay. They ALWAYS claim damage during shipping, then I have to lose money on the whole deal.

I am getting to the point that I absolutely LOATHE EBAY AND PAYPAL. They always decide in favor of the buyer, so sellers like me keep getting scammed over and over.

The last item I sold on ebay was a motherboard + cpu combo (with heatsink + fan). I packaged this thing with so much bubble wrap that I needed a box twice the size to ship it.

The buyer says when it arrived that the cpu was "broken" and sent me pictures of bent pins. Keep in mind that the cpu was CLAMPED to the motherboard, and CLAMPED again by the heatsink and fan. The whole thing sold for $177, and he wanted a $110 refund for the cpu (which sells for $75 currently on ebay) "or else". Well, I said there's no way I sold you a broken cpu, and unless they drop-kicked it from a 3-story building, it wasn't damaged in shipping either.

Well, whaddaya know, the guy says send me $75 or you'll be sending me $175, so I give in. Next thing I know he opens a claim and they hold ANOTHER $175 on my account on top of it. So so far, I've lost $250 and the perfectly good motherboard and cpu I had been using in my computer up until this point.

I HATE EBAY I HATE PAYPAL

I am officialy done with their garbage, PERMANENTLY.