having to pay the return shipping on defective items received

[howiebird64]

I recently purchased an item from China that is either defective or does not do what the seller claims. Now I am in a position to return the item (aprox $24) but will pay more for shipping than it is worth.

Is this how these companies work?

They know the item isn't any good and know you won't come up with the money to return it because of the cost?

I am suppose to go "out of pocket" for their poor merchandise?

Why should I suffer when I paid and bought with confidence?

This is my "first" Ebay purchase and might be my last.

Not very happy at all.

[pierrelebel]

"Is this how these companies work?"

Take a look at your seller's feedback rating.  Over 99% satisfaction with a rating of 59,054, including 35,280 positive in the last twelve months with 400 neutral and 291 negative comments.

So that seller works to have more than 99% of his customer satisfied. Unfortunately you fall among those who were not satisfied.

Was the item purchased on eBay.com or eBay.ca (different policies apply regarding payment of return postage)?

Have you communicated with your seller about the problem?  Does he understand the high cost of returning the item from Canada to China?

[pierrelebel]

The current policy on eBay.ca: http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/item-not-received.html

The current policy on eBay.com: http://pages.ebay.com/ebay-money-back-guarantee/

The policy will change on eBay.ca for purchases made after January 7th, 2015:

http://pages.ebay.ca/ebay-money-back-guarantee/

[pjcdn2005]

The policy will change on eBay.ca for purchases made after January 7th, 2015:

http://pages.ebay.ca/ebay-money-back-guarantee/

The 180 day Paypal claim policy will be in effect on Jan. 7. The ebay MBG should be in effect right now.

I'm a bit confused though about the seller paying return shipping as it doesn't seem to be consistent. The buyer should probably phone ebay about it or 'ask ebay to step in' and then the seller may either be forced to pay return shipping and or refund without a return.

[patken123]

buying from a seller with 99% FB is too risky in my opinion.

[for.foa.izhnyg]

I now read every negative/neutral review because I believe a lot of buyers don't bother to post them. So for every one bad review I assume 10 buyers did not post.

S&H back is simply too much money and hassle,you end up getting a partial refund instead and just keeping the item.For most people this is good enough they don't post a bad review, but I think if the description was inaccurate and there were no pictures you could check that would conflict, then the seller should be offering full refunds. It's not like you have the option to examine/try on the item like you would in a store, so you're completely reliant on seller's description and reviews.