Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

litono
Community Member

Hi everyone, I need your advise for my case as follows:

I have my ad on ebay bidding regarding the lazer pickup for DVD Pioneer DV-989/969, the buyer from Thailand won the bid at 10 dollars Canada on March 22nd 2021. I the Ad I had stated very clear that the flat cable to motor for laser head movement is broken and also my sales did not accept return. At first I did not want to the shipp to Thailand because it is too far and not worth to send a $10 item to him but he said that he need it and willing to pay for the shipping cost, after checking the shipping cost is $50 CAD and he did accept it, before shipped out the item to him I had double confirmed one more time with him and told him about the problem of the item and he also re-confirm to accept that condition and price. And then I shipped the item to him afer that.

After received the item about 2 weeks later, he wanted to return and asked me to pay for the return shipping cost and refund full amount to him. I did not agree and then looked for ebay settlement assistant from ebay help, after many sweet commitments saying that buyer was in the wrong but end up ebay forced me to accept the return and make frull refund to buyer.

I would like to bring up this not because of meney but I really upset about how ebay behave and treat to sellers once they know how to earn the selling fee but never protect seller at all

Hope to receive from your kind advise on this

Thank you,

Hiep Vu

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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

when it gets to the point, that ebay wants you to pay for return shipping, and it is only a 10$ item, it would have been better for you just to refund the buyer, and let them keep the item.. Once you are sure ebay will decide in favour of the buyer, it would be better to cut your loses, and move on.. If you are a small seller, i would block all asian countries.

Message 2 of 10
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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

It is not only 10$ item, I prepaid 50$ shipping and ebay charged me for the sales fee too

Message 3 of 10
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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

If you had refunded the buyer without forcing eBay to make a decision you would have been refunded your ebay fees but you would still have lost the shipping fees.   Once a buyer files an item not as described claim, in 99.99% of cases ebay will tell you to accept the return and pay for return shipping. Or they will force you to refund without getting the item back.  It's often a no win situation and rarely worth fighting as eBay is not going to look at any 'evidence'.

Message 4 of 10
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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

Thanks for your kind reply, so it mean that buyer can cheat everybody by just make a return after receving the item, and what is the term "Not accept any return" for? It is a joke making by ebay system

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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

mcrlmn
Community Member

Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

 

Sure you can, but at a minimum it will cost you 100 bucks just to file a claim.

Message 6 of 10
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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

I am willing to pay 100 bucks if I can win the case, as I said I don’t care much about money but I just want ebay to do a proper job in order to stop any more fraud buyers from this community
Message 7 of 10
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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

Who are you going to sue? eBay? Good luck with that, a) they have lots of lawyers and b) they are only following the rules that you agreed to when you signed up.


It sounds like you want eBay to protect sellers so that they (other sellers) can be the ones to commit the fraud against buyers and have eBay back them up.


Not gonna happen....EVER!

 

FYI - You listed this item as "Used", the definition of used (on eBay):


Used: An item that has been used previously. The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended. This item may be a floor model or store return that has been used. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections.


You should have listed it under "As Is For Parts only" if you had and the only issue was the cable that you mentioned in the description was faulty then eBay might have backed you.



"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.
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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

I'm trying to find the fraud here.

 

had stated very clear that the flat cable to motor for laser head movement is broken

Was it sold as "for parts /not working"?

The eBay standard is that a "used" item may have cosmetic wear (even a LOT of cosmetic wear) but will work.

 

 

and also my sales did not accept return. 

You can have a No Returns policy.

You cannot have a No Refunds policy.

 

At first I did not want to the shipp to Thailand

At that point you could have cancelled the sale as "Problem with Address".  EBay is actually pretty generous with that cancellation reason.

 

he wanted to return and asked me to pay for the return shipping cost

As others have said, you could have refunded him the $60 he paid and that would have been the end of it.

Or you could have Messaged "I regret you are unhappy with your purchase. Please return it for a refund."

But instead:

I did not agree and then looked for ebay settlement assistant

Did he open a Dispute?

Or did you escalate this to eBay?

Did you refuse to refund?

Did you refuse to send return shipping?

You are allowed, even with a No Returns policy to demand the return before refunding.

You might have been required to pay return shipping. Or not.

Did you refuse to refund on return?

 

after many sweet commitments saying that buyer was in the wrong

CS reps have a quota to meet. They will say anything to get you off the phone.

 

EBay sent the buyer a return shipping label (?) and when the tracking showed delivery, eBay forced you to refund the full amount including the return shipping?
Is that what happened?

Or did eBay allow the buyer to keep the (non-working) item and refund his payment?

Has the Defect for refusing to cooperate with a Dispute shown up on your selling account yet?

 

To me there is no fraud here. The buyer overestimated his skills and underestimated the damage to the item.

He asked for a refund.

You refused.

EBay agreed with him that a used item should work, even if it looks scruffy.

The item did not work.

The buyer got his refund.

 

This is not fraud. It is a disagreement.

 

 

Message 9 of 10
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Can I sue ebay when they are protecting fraud buyer and against me?

Thanks for enlightening me. Now then I understand and feel regret to make a sale on ebay website, I should scrab it instead of wanting to share an unused item to someone who may need. No one wants to earn money for just selling a single $10 item

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