Buyer has REFUND and ITEM; no Recourse?

[sawtoothrc_com]

I had a really bad buyer that threatened feedback because he could not wait for a Customs Delay over the holidays. It was delayed for a while and I refunded him, and filed a trace.

A week or so after the refund I have confirmed delivery to his door. He denies he has the package, and refuses to send back the parts or the refund.

I can find no way of doing anything about this, eBay tells me to contact the buyer, who talks trash like a 12 year old. Paypal will do nothing.

Does anybody know of any thing I can do?

Why is there so much protection for buyers who pay no fees, and so little for Sellers who often pay HUNDREDS a month in Paypal and eBay fees?

I wonder how much little things like this cost eBay in lost sellers who leave?

This was a very small item, but I don't like the idea of getting scammed by some guy when I can absolutely prove it beyond a doubt!

[amberwoodottawa]

I am sorry if my comments sound harsh, I do sympathize with you and it is unfortunate that you got taken by a bum but it is a harsh world out there and there are tons of bums like you got caught with.

The problem is you made a business decision to refund him before obtaining a trace. eBay and PayPal wont pay for a wrong or poor business decision.

The fact that he threatened negative feedback is feedback extortion and that would have been able to have reported that to eBay and you would have had the negative feedback removed.

At this stage what has happened to you is called fraud and theft and is reportable to his local police authorities.

I would suggest that you advise him that you will be proceeding to file a report with his local police and will commence a legal action.

Dont threaten and not follow through, so after you give him 24 hours to make another PayPal payment and he fails, get in touch with his local police department.

Should they act on it, even if they just make a phone call to the bum, then there is a good chance he will believe that you will follow through and sue him so your chance of being paid at that stage will increase substantially (but no guarantees).

I would sooner get negative feedback and fight that through eBay than give someone money without any assurance of getting the item back, but what the heck, I am in this for the money, not the glamour.

Good Luck!

Malcolm

[sawtoothrc_com]

I know, but the reason for the refund was that it has always been that anything missing for 21 days is lost, and I would be getting a full refund from Canada Post. Problem is, the package showed up!

They lost or misplaced about 40 packages over the holidays; then suddenly they showed up 3 weeks late.

I know it was my own fault for giving the refund, I was doing in in good faith. Color me stupid!

[your-chic-shopper]

what's the value ....if it's lot's send him to collections

[sawtoothrc_com]

It's only a few dollars, it's the principle that bugs me!

I filed for NPBA (Never thought of that) because technically he hasn't paid me.

And this is the absolute worst buyer in my almost 5 years. When I asked him his name at first to find out his information and invoice, etc. he swore at me for not just looking it up!

[amberwoodottawa]

CP is 30 days before they will even begin a search let alone start a claim (as I have been infomred).

Even for a few bucks, I agree with chic shopper, off to collections. Its a no cost method to have someone pester the heck out of the bum, especially as you point out, Its the Principle of the Thing!

Malcolm

[whoscloset]

There are some customers you just can't please. I've had some items take up to 6 weeks to arrive in California (from Ontario).

When I have a situation like this I reply to the initial inflammatory, threatening e-mail with a really pleasant one, explaining customs delays and usual shipping expectations. This usually results in a much toned down and reasonable response from the customer.

If they continue with threatening and rude behavior, I pretty much accept the negative feedback in advance. You're probably going to get it from them anyway and there is no sense in adding to the pain by giving an early refund or re-shipment.

[your-chic-shopper]

Well CP for international shipments is even worse try 60 days before they will place a trace . Try telling a customer that the item can nont be traced for 60 days

[catseye*]

it has always been that anything missing for 21 days is lost

Huh? is this your personal policy or...? I've never heard of it before.

[sawtoothrc_com]

Actually, since I use Express Post then CP will start a trace as soon as it is past the Guaranteed Delivery time; 5 - 8 business days depending on what State it is going to.

That is why usually if something has not arrived at 21 days, it is not going to. That has been my experience in the last 3 years using Express Post.

[amberwoodottawa]

90% of our shipments go via Express Post and we have been told to wait 30 days before they will search or entertain a claim (unless for damage).

Typical of CP, depends who you talk to, different people, different rules.

Malcolm

[muminlaw]

Malcolm wrote, and I agree: "At this stage what has happened to you is called fraud and theft and is reportable to his local police authorities".

I would like to add that it's also reportable to his local postmaster! The US post office is very strict about mail fraud and if you send a letter to both his local police chief and his local postmaster - AND SEND HIM A CC of both! -- you'll often get settlement quite quickly.

Glenda

[sawtoothrc_com]

Amber, you should be able to start a trace the day after the item was supposed to arrive!

They will tell you from Postal to Zip what the arrival guarantee is, and if it's past that they should start a trace.

They lost 30 or 40 for me at the beginning of Dec; they all turned up first week in Jan!

On Friday I got a parcel returned that was sent in AUgust. Checked on the 'Reason for Return' tag was 'Other'.

It looked like it had sat under someones seat for a coupla months.

[systemagic]

This, like so many others, sounds like a particularly unpleasant individual. I wonder if sharing the identities of such persons with other discussion board members would be beneficial in saving ourselves some grief by blocking them?

Is it likely that, among a burgeoning 80 million EBay users, any of these unpleasant characters would buy from us? From me – I don’t know. From us collectively - seems reasonably possible.

Should a buyer suffer farther-reaching penalties beyond that which may come directly from an isolated transaction? It would be, after all, only one side of the story. Also, a buyer could, through the one incident, have learned his lesson. Depending on the story I personally have little sympathy for most, if not all, of these cases and definitely don’t want to encounter any possibility of having an unpleasant transaction with them.

Is it possible that a PS could present their best customers as nasty ones to avert competition? Anything’s possible but I suspect that becoming a PS, via the FB rating requirement, suggests that a PS has generally higher integrity.

The biggest downside may be, when reading or writing about unpleasant buyers, to have to dwell on them too much. There may be a lot of them.

An upside may be to provide some greater satisfaction to the complainant as well as the knowledge that they could be doing the larger community some good.

[e-scrooge]

I never refund in that situation until a trace is complete. I just eat the negative feedback and move on (hence why I have over 20 negatives in my profile).

It's not worth either the time or effort to try dance around the occasional negative feedback comment, I find. Very few people seem to even look at feedback once you're over 1000. They figure you're automatically OK to buy from when over that mark.

[amberwoodottawa]

Regarding filing a claim: When you file a claim with CP before 30 days are they doing anything or just taking the information and giving you a claim number?

I have had my rep and 2 CP Cust Serv people tell me that they will not start doing anything (tracing the package) if it is within 30 days from the date shipped.

I can understand why as everything I have shipped has been delivered including those that I would have started a claim for, they just arrived 31-47 days from the date I shipped. That means ALL of the claims I would have started would have been dead claims as the goods finally arrived. (I naturally deducted my Exrpess Post charges for late delivery).

Regarding sharing bad eBayers eBay IDs. I think there are some eBay rules about that although I dont think this would violate any "Profiling" laws.

I have sucessfully sold people who had a negative from other PSers and been paid promptly so the feedback service doesnt help but certainly the story line that we see shared on these threads would make another PSer want to immediately block some of these characters from ever having the opportunity to bid on any of our auctions.

Maybe we should check the rules, see how it can be done and start a new thread (with the method to post without breaking the rules right at the top of that thread).

Malcolm

[sawtoothrc_com]

I prefer to give a buyer the benefit of the doubt and would never arbitrarily add them to my BB list for no reason other then my own. Eventually they get NARU'd anyway, if they are not dealing. Then they will just show up with a new name.

The guy I'm dealing with has over 100 positive, and now 3 negs, so apparently not all bad. Someone else might not have problems with him. I just blame people for not understanding that sometimes mail is delayed, especially at Xmas, and more so crossing a border.

That's the problem with 98% of Customers in the US. He was the only one out of 30 or 40 delayed shipments that was a real .....