eBay

oobga · ‎03-17-2020

Anyone have success buying a pre-order on ebay for an item that won't ship for a month+ out?

I unfortunately made such a purchase without educating myself properly on the ebay and paypal buyer protection rules. The item I purchased actually wasn't going to release for >180 days. Since then, reading through rules, it appears I really put myself at risk. ebay protection is gone in 30 days after delivery (the seller marked the item to ship in march even though the product won't exist until September), Paypal's expires after 180 days. I would guess that's around when a credit card will just shrug their shoulders as well.

Another thing is, your ability to leave feedback for your purchase disappears long before I would be able to say I was scammed. Not to say I will be scammed here. I have no idea what the seller will actually do now that I asked for a refund, but it's been 9 days since I asked and they said 4-7, and didn't reply to my followup, so perhaps I'm in for a little fight.

All that said, I'm still curious if anyone has actually stuck it out trusting someone on ebay as their protections were lost waiting.

Also made this thread simply as a means to inform potential buyers of pre-orders, because there are loads of them on ebay. I actually don't see ebay having many good mechanisms for buyers of them to quickly try to get refunds for them either. I'm told to wait until the made up impossible to achieve delivery date expires before I can open a case. There is a general ebay rule that a seller can't list items that they can't ship in 3 weeks, but there doesn't seem to be any effort to enforce this proactively.

ypdc_dennis · ‎03-18-2020

Since the seller marked the purchase as shipped you can open an Item-Not-Received case before the ebay 30 day guarantee expires and get your money refunded.

-..-

oobga · ‎03-18-2020

Yes, that is my plan.

The issue for a long term pre-order however would be that the seller will mark their ship date arbitrarily just to create the listing, even though the ship date my be impossible to actually achieve because the item won't be released long after.

If a buyer is not aware of their protections, they will watch the ship date pass, along with the 30 day protection period while trusting the seller. Then when the time finally comes that the item is released (could even be so long that the ebay listing is purged from the site), they are left completely vulnerable. The seller has minimal consequence to just cut the buyer off and keep their money. Buyer has no protection, and they can't even leave feedback because the listing is gone.

richardcm · ‎03-18-2020

Presale policy

https://www.ebay.ca/help/policies/listing-policies/presale-listings-policy?id=4252

Presale listings must clearly state that they are “presale” in the title and description, and guarantee delivery within 30 days of purchase.

In order to protect buyer and seller guarantees, presale listings must follow eBay policy, including listing the date the item will be available to ship.

What is the policy?

Presale listings must guarantee that the item will be shipped within 30 days of purchase
The date the item will be available to ship must be clearly stated in the listing
Listings must clearly indicate in the title and description that the item is being offered for presale
Handling time details should include the time the seller will wait to acquire the item, in addition to the time it will take to ship to the buyer

tyler@ebay

oobga · ‎03-18-2020

Hi richardcm,

Is that policy actually enforced though? In my case I bought a pre-order for an item that won't be released until September. If I didn't research the buyer protections afterwards, I could have ended up sitting around waiting until Sept, and when time came for the item to ship, realize the listing is gone from ebay, and my ebay and paypal protections had expired because the ship date in the listing was set at March (because the seller couldn't create the listing without putting that made up date in).

I can quickly search ebay and see the same type of item available from others as pre-sales. From what I can see, ebay does not enforce the presale policy. They only require the seller to put a date that satisfies the policy, regardless of it being impossible to achieve or not based on when the product being resold will actually release.

I totally understand this policy would be hard for ebay to enforce. it would require ebay having people scanning pre-sale listings, searching up the items being sold for actual release dates and comparing times, then removing listings. There are probably so many different pre-sale items out there, it would be hard to keep up.

The alternative to proactively eliminating listing could be to create additional buyer protections for pre-sale listings. For example, in my case, since the seller broke ebays rules for their listing (a completely made up ship date that is impossible to achieve), I should be able to demand an immediate refund.

tyler@ebay · ‎03-18-2020

@richardcm wrote:

Presale policy

https://www.ebay.ca/help/policies/listing-policies/presale-listings-policy?id=4252

Presale listings must clearly state that they are “presale” in the title and description, and guarantee delivery within 30 days of purchase.

In order to protect buyer and seller guarantees, presale listings must follow eBay policy, including listing the date the item will be available to ship.

What is the policy?

Presale listings must guarantee that the item will be shipped within 30 days of purchase

The date the item will be available to ship must be clearly stated in the listing

Listings must clearly indicate in the title and description that the item is being offered for presale

Handling time details should include the time the seller will wait to acquire the item, in addition to the time it will take to ship to the buyer

tyler@ebay

Thanks for the tag @richardcm!

Hi @oobga - yes, we do enforce the pre-sale policy. If a seller has intentionally circumvented this in order to try to sell you something outside of that date range you would be protected (even if you didn't realize that and come September you hadn't gotten anything).

In this situation though, as @ypdc_dennis points out, because the seller said the item was shipped, you have 30 days from the latest estimated delivery date to open an Item not Received request to make sure we can help you get a refund.

Thanks!

Tyler,

femmefan1946 · ‎03-18-2020

ebay protection is gone in 30 days after delivery (the seller marked the item to ship in march even though the product won't exist until September), Paypal's expires after 180 days.

It's my understanding that Paypal allows Disputes for 180 days from payment.

So if you paid on March first, by August 31, you are still only 154 days from Payment.

You could open a PP dispute at any time.

The reason would be Not Received.

The seller would be instructed to prove Delivery (not shipping, delivery).

If he can't do that, you are refunded.

But go with eBay first.
If your eBay dispute fails, you have PP as a backup. (And the credit card you back your PP account with to back that up.)

But if you go to PP, eBay will not allow a dispute later.

oobga · ‎03-19-2020

Thanks for the reply femmefan1964. I believe August 31 is actually 165 days from today, and 183 away from the start of March. The actual release of the product I bought would have been ~200 days between my payment and the release date of the product since it comes out around mid Sept.

I'm pretty sure my protections would have expired if i just waited on this order. It was imperative for my protection that I act early. The alternative was to just trust, and fully risk being scammed with no recourse (protections expired, no ability to leave feedback since the listing is gone), except maybe trying to talk to my credit card company.