Sent defective item, asked to pay reshipping fee. Do I need to pay?

[natsuiro]

I bought two power supplies and one was defective.

The seller offered to replace the defective one but only after I pay a $3 reshipping fee.

It's only $3 so it's not a big deal, but I don't if I need to pay it or not.

[marnotom!]

Not the most customer-friendly way of doing business, but if you don't have to return the defective one it's probably cheaper than doing it that way.

My only concern is that if you never see the replacement, you'll not only have a defective power supply but you'll be out an additional three bucks.

Is the seller based in China, by any chance?

[reallynicestamps]

There seems to be a new scam out of Asia that responds to a complaint of non-delivery with a promise of a replacement.  Of course, the replacement never arrives either, but the naive buyer only realizes that when she can no longer start a Dispute to get a refund through Paypal.

This sounds like a similar scam. On the one hand, the buyer is being asked to pay for the seller's error. And there is no guarantee that when the replacement arrives it will be any better than the original.

[plastic-baron]

Yep, happened to me.  Paid for extra shipping for defective item.  It never came even though they claimed to send it twice.  They also said they would refund me the whole amount and again nothing.  They are still selling and have a lot of negative feedback.  Yes they are a seller from China.  I think some sellers are better protected than buyers as they generate to most revenue for ebay.  The almighty dollar is priority.

[marnotom!]

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@plastic-baron wrote:

I think some sellers are better protected than buyers as they generate to most revenue for ebay.  The almighty dollar is priority.

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The sellers get the money to pay eBay from the suckers buyers that give it to them.

Buyers have a pretty good protection scheme from eBay provided they're willing to pay what they need to use it.  The big problem is that it's not terribly cost-effective for most international transactions.

[plastic-baron]

I guess I should have checked feedback first.  This seller from China has over 4000 negative and 3000 neutral feed backs.  They have a lot of transactions but, that is no excuse.  Many sellers with same amount have little or no negatives.  I wonder why they are allowed to do business as they are clearly scamming a lot of buyers.  Because of this I will no long buy anything  from any seller in China!   I am out the the money I paid for the item and  the extra postage I sent.  I should have suspected something was up when the seller asked me to complete the transaction for the extra shipping costs for replacement item out side of ebay.  Clearly a violation of ebay rules.