I send via lettermail knowing full well the risks that can occur...
I just had a buyer that has purchased several items from me - all within a short period of time, resulting in multiple shipments. Once the last shipping notification was given, the person filed a INR claim on the first purchase. I just refunded the buyer and blocked him.
The buyer went through and filed INR claims on the rest of the purchases - each sold and shipped separately.
These shipments were going only an hour away, from Hamilton to Niagara Falls and were extremely unlikely to all disappear on different occasions. I refunded all the claims except for the last one - being yesterday.
The real kicker is that he left glowing feedback stating their speedy arrival for all of the items.
I responded to his feedback with the following;
"Nails me for sending w/o tracking on multiple sales/shipments = BLOCKED FOREVER"
That statement caught the eye of another seller who was also victimized by this buyer. He contacted me and stated that he contacted eBay and was able to get the INR case closed in his favour because the stupid buyer had also left positive feedback stating speedy arrival of purchased item 4 days before filing the claim.
I finally called CSR today after the final anticipated INR claim was opened. As expected, the two representatives I spoke to did not really listen carefully to my plight and just blurted typical advice about uploading tracking to solve it all. Once explained (again) that it was cheap items not worthy of insurance of any kind, the best advice I got was to send screen captures as a private message to the buyer of his feedback and to report the buyer using proper channels on the site. This along with a quick retort in the INR claim stating about the screen aptures should help defend the claim in my favour.
At this point the buyer tried to pin me as the crook stating that I am stealing buyers' money by selling items and not shipping them - I guess he thinks that is what top rated sellers do to succeed...
I really don't care about the lost money or inventory. I just wanted to notify eBay of the scammer and to take care of any blemish to my selling account that these INR claims might incur. I hung up the phone and proceeded to do my assigned homework from eBay with an immense feeling of futility looming.
I immediately received a CSR survey in my email asking how they performed in pacifying my concerns.
I will wait until eBay closes the INR cases on my behalf and refunds the buyer from my account before I respond with my true feelings.
I have a hunch that no matter what effort I put into revealing this scam buyer with multiple victims, eBay will side with the buyer.
Postcards are a low crime category. In my 15 years of selling here, this is the third time that I know of that buyers have left positive feedback for me and then claim not receiving their item. One was a c/c chargeback 9 months after the sale.
So long story short, INR claims = instant refund and a block.
Fighting a claim is pointless. A hit to the Cookie Jar Insurance is easier and cheaper.
Calling CSR is, as most other times, costly in time and sanity - so is usually avoided by me. This buyer just rubbed me the wrong way (over and over) so I had to do my part in letting eBay know that they are fostering crooks and profiting from them.
PS: I googled the buyer's name and city and his crime spree is so prevalent that someone set up a website about him. He has done time in jail for ripping off people using Kijiji and Craigslist selling concert tickets. Now he's testing eBay with petty mail fraud. The postcards I gave him are of places from his past - as can be ascertained by the locations of several of his past victims.
