Ebay Refunded Buyer and Now The Item is Delivered

[elkenwood]

I sold a $400CAD item to a buyer in France a couple months ago. The most affordable tracked and insured option for shipment was Canadapost International Parcel Surface. Which is slow, on cargo ship. After 6 weeks in transit, the buyer opened up a case against me for "item not delivered" and at the time shipping had not updated for several weeks. The buyer escalated the case and Ebay customer support gave them a full refund while the parcel was still showing "in transit" on shipping. I immediately appealed the decision and got denied. The buyer messaged me on ebay messages and confirmed with me they would repurchase the item upon delivery.

I was unable to intercept the parcel for return as it had left the country and 2 weeks after the case was settled, it got delivered. It has since been another 2 weeks since delivery and the buyer is not responding to me at all. Past that, the buyer is reselling the item I sold them in their shop. So they have both the item and the refund and I'm out the item and shipping.

I contact customer service on April 25th and was told to wait 7-10 days for a specialist to investigate. I recontacted yesterday and was told there was no record of that conversation and that is not the proper way to refute the case and was told they would put in another request for appeal, then today I got a boiler-plate email in response that just outlined how to send an invoice to the buyer on paypal. I filed out a "report buyer" and contacted customer support again today was told the same thing I was told yesterday, that another submission for appeal would be sent in to the appeals department again.

I'm not sure where to go from here. Should I attempt to go through postage insurance or refute the charge back from ebay on my credit card? Any advice is appreciated. I never thought I would have an issue like this since I always assumed ebay would not refund the buyer with a tracked parcel prior to a return label being sent out. 

[msau4301]

"The buyer messaged me on ebay messages and confirmed with me they would repurchase the item upon delivery."

If the buyer had already agreed to repurchase the item after received they are probably still in agreement to do so now. I would touch base with the buyer first (if you haven't already) and tell them you will be sending invoice (or setting up special listing) for them now that the item has arrived. I had same thing happen to me several years ago and it was the last time I ever used ground method (mine wasn't even tracked but I had an honest buyer!). It was super easy back then because I just sent the amount through Paypal invoice and she paid right away. Even though eBay is no longer processing payments through Paypal I think they may still allow invoice to be sent in a case like this.

Alternatively you could do up a fake listing in the amount owing and call it something like "Special listing for (insert buyer name) for re-payment of refunded then delivered item". Hopefully if you have a cooperative buyer, which it sounded like in your description it should be okay.

[elkenwood]

I did exactly that. I messaged the buyer 3 times after delivery letting them know I remade the listing for repurchase through ebay since they don't have a paypal account. The buyer has not responded in 2 weeks and has listed the item I sold him for sale in his ebay store, which leads me to believe there was never an intention to repay me.

I also tried to add my item listed in their store to my cart to see if I was blocked and was given a error message letting me know I'm a blocked buyer. So, I assume the buyer has purposely cut off contact.

[brettjet38]

Your first mistake was offering to ship a $400.00 item via surface shipping internationally...

...as for the Buyer, you have been ghosted, and I doubt you will get repaid for the item.

@elkenwood The most affordable tracked and insured option for shipment was Canadapost International Parcel Surface. 

What did you offer as a shipping method in your listing?

[elkenwood]

This was my first time shipping overseas. I only had it available for purchase within the US and Canada. Buyer private messaged me and made a special request, item marked as surface international upon shipment. 

Buyer just wanted most economical shipping method so I went with surface since it was the cheapest option to offer insurance and tracking. I had picked up something at the post office prior to shipping it out and the clerk told me "about 6 weeks" and on checkout it said 4-8 weeks. Turned out to take the full 8 weeks which was a bit longer than I anticipated. Clearly a poor choice to even offer that shipping method.

[flipistics]

It certainly sounds like you got scammed. Contact the representatives at Ebay for Business on Facebook and tell them what happened. If anyone is going to help, it would be them. You might have some sort of chance depending on the exact correspondance with the buyer, especially if the buyer specifically requested that shipping method. Also report the buyer to eBay. It won't get your money back, but if they do it to other people it may eventually get them banned. I don't know if surface shipping has delivery date guarantees, but if it does you can also check the tracking and make sure it falls within that timeframe. If not, you may be able to at least claim the postage.

Expensive lesson. If eBay had to process the refund, you probably got a ding on your account too 😞

[msau4301]

Oops, didn't know the other parts to the story when I answered. The dreaded private message should never be answered. Everyone wants the cheapest shipping but there would be no reason he couldn't ask about that on the site messages. As other's have said you'll have to go through eBay channels here, good luck.

[elkenwood]

I'll try messaging them on facebook as well. I have honestly contacted customer support a total of 7 or 8 times on this and am told something different every time. No one at ebay actually wants to read the messages and everything reverts back to them just telling me to continue to send the buyer invoices.  It's super frustrating.

[elkenwood]

Ebay said my account would not be dinged. I filed a buyer report today. I also just sent them a message on facebook, thank you for the suggestion.

Surface doesn't have guaranteed dates. Canada really doesn't have any good, somewhat affordable options for tracked international shipments.

[brettjet38]

@elkenwood I only had it available for purchase within the US and Canada. Buyer private messaged me and made a special request

This sounds very much like a Scam, by going off the eBay message site you have zero proof and are not covered by eBay polices for anything the BUYER said...

[marnotom!]

I've found that as lovely as most European buyers are, some of them really don't have much of an appreciation of the distance between us and thus, not much of an understanding of the challenges of surface shipping.

I'm also wondering if another monkey wrench may have been thrown into the works.  Your buyer would have been charged VAT through eBay for the item.  A big problem our European buyers are having right now is that there's often no electronic record of them having paid it, and they're getting dinged again by customs on delivery.  I wonder if a second VAT charge was the last straw for this buyer and that's why they ghosted?

[elkenwood]

Everything was done through ebay messages. So I have a record of all of our correspondence. Ebay customer service seems to have no interest in actually looking through it.

[femmefan1946]

The most affordable tracked and insured option for shipment was Canadapost International Parcel Surface.

 No.

Surface shipping is not affordable.

As you learned.

Painfully. 

It is actually more expensive than Air Mail, because slow service means losing Claims.

If the buyer can't afford Air Mail, he can't afford your item.

Remember the overseas customer is buying from you because they can't find it in their country.

I recontacted yesterday and was told there was no record of that conversation and that is not the proper way to refute the case and was told they would put in another request for appeal,

Never deal with the phone reps on money questions.

The phone reps have a terrible reputation for getting you off the phone as soon as possible even if that mean giving you the advice you want to hear instead of the advice you need to have.


https://www.facebook.com/eBayForBusiness/ — Message button in upper right on landing page.

https://twitter.com/askebay?lang=en


https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-do-I-contact-Customer-Support/m-p/32016431#M1783851 -> Automated Assistant, type AGENT -> enter. You will then get more options.


The social media Chat accounts are covered by trained eBay employees with some authority.
And you get a transcript so you can compare what you heard with what you were told.
 

[recped]

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@marnotom! wrote:

I've found that as lovely as most European buyers are, some of them really don't have much of an appreciation of the distance between us and thus, not much of an understanding of the challenges of surface shipping.

---

Probably because many countries (including the US) no longer offer any type of Surface Mail and haven't for a number of years (about 10 for USPS).

I'm sure the expectations of most buyers never includes the potential for delivery by surface being used.

In this case the buyer waited 6 weeks, the last tracking was probably over a month old by the time the INR case was opened. eBay will extend INR claims if there is RECENT movement showing in tracking, their definition of recent is 10 days not a month or more.

Once a buyer has been refunded in a legit INR case eBay can't and won't do anything for the seller, you are at the mercy of the buyer who after waiting 2+ months is probably not all that interested in doing the seller a favor by repaying.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

When you contact customer service for an elaborate issue, you have to make it as easy as possible for them to follow. You also have to be as clear as possible with what you are asking them to do.

The way I would do it, is that I would carefully write out exactly what you want them to do, and what you think they should look at. 

_______

I would like to appeal an item not received case that was ruled in favor of my buyer. I believe the buyer acted in bad faith.

The item was successfully delivered to the buyer after eBay resolved their item not received case with a full refund. The buyer understood that the item was still in transit, and in a previous message agreed that we could arrange for a repayment when the item was delivered.

Now that the item was delivered, the buyer has not responded to my messages. They also listed the same item on their eBay store for sale. Lastly, it appears based on activity seen when browsing their eBay store, they added me to their blocked list.

Unfortunately, because they are ignoring my follow up messages, I have no way of arranging a repayment with them. The fact that they have the same item I sold them listed in their eBay store also makes me suspicious that they may have abused eBay's Buyer Protection to acquire free merchandise to re-sell on their own eBay store. Because they will not respond to me, I require that eBay step in and assist me in their place. I would like to appeal the result of the Item Not Received case, so that I can receive payment for the item that was successfully delivered. 

For your convenience, I will attach all the relevant details like item numbers and case IDs. I will also attach screen shots of all the relevant information related to this situation so that you can please assist me with appealing the refund. That way I can be re-paid for my item that was successfully delivered. 

In this situation, I would take the time to screenshot the following:

-Your original listing with the main photo.

-Their new listing for the item.

-The tracking page where it shows as delivered.

-The messages with the agreement to repay.

-Your message requesting repayment with a link to the private listing you created.

Include the following info:

-The item I sold was item number (xxxxxxxxx)

-The order number for our transaction was (xxxxxxxxx)

-The request or case ID was (xxxxxxxxx)

-Their re-listed item is item number (xxxxxxxxx)

--------

It is not a guarantee that they will do anything, but you have to understand that most CSRs answer hundreds of questions a day. If they don't understand what you want them to do, and don't have all the info they need in front of them, they may not act. For example, they might not know if you're asking to be educated about policy or if you're asking them to take action. You have to assume they are going to have no background on your situation or idea of what you are talking about, and you need to make it as easy and compelling as possible for them to act and assist you. 

Which isn't me saying the CSRs aren't good. I have had many good experiences. Only that they generally only have time to take a first look at your intitial correspondence, and if it isn't clear or doesn't have all the info, they might just move on. 

It's generally not worth the hassle for say a $20 item. But for a $400 item, it's probably worth putting together all the info you need to try and get eBay to cover the refund.