Buyer Opened Case Claiming Item Defective. Now Claims it Works After We Refunded.

[ecgt]

Here's a new one for us. Any suggestions about how to proceed are appreciated.

After we had gone to bed on October 15, 2020, a customer opened a return request for a Micro Machines Nintendo NES cartridge that they claimed did not work. We responded the next morning suggesting that the customer may need to clean their NES console or cartridge in case of errant dirt. The customer did not respond. We sent multiple additional messages over the weekend asking for more information and the customer did not respond once.

Today, with the threat of the case being escalated and us receiving a mandatory defect, we refunded the buyer. Sometimes this is the lesser of two evils in the long run, as protecting our Top Rated seller status is more valuable than the odd case of shrinkage. The total value of this item including tax and shipping was around $62 CAD. Not worth getting a defect over and the cost of accepting a return would have been more than the cost of refunding.

Soon after we sent the refund and closed the return request, the customer messaged us saying that the cartridge works and no refund is necessary. This is a hard pill to swallow and is suspicious given that the customer did not respond to messages for more than three days. We are using Managed Payments and see no way to try to get our money back through eBay.

Any suggestions? Thanks, Dr. brian Campbell

[femmefan1946]

This is a Learning Experience.

Dear Ghu  I hate those.

I am quite willing to believe that the non-working Thing suddenly started working again.

Murphy's Law.

I suspect that it may be intermittent forever. DH has that problem with his laptop, although that may be a case of BC&K.

The best way to handle these problems is to tell the buyer to return for a refund.

You may have to pay for return shipping. You can send a USPS shipping label through Shippo, btw).

and the cost of accepting a return would have been more than the cost of refunding.

Yes, exactly.

When you get the Thing back you refund.

If it works, you relist and resell. If it doesn't the buyer was right. You might be able to resell it "for parts".

If he doesn't return it, eventually the shipping label cost is refunded, he loses the dispute, and you keep the money.

Can you find his PP address anywhere? Although you are in MP, most buyers will continue to use PP or a cards to buy.

If you have that you can send him an invoice, which makes it easy to repay the refund.

Or you can send him instructions on how to return or or ask him to not accept the refund.

I have no idea how to do that.

tyler@ebay 

How does one find the PP /email address of a customer?

[ecgt]

Thank you, femmefan1946, for your thoughtful reply.

The customer is Canadian, so your USPS suggestion through Shippo does not apply. We use Canada Post's Snap Ship service, which offers the same thing, but given the cost of the return (and the fact that we have already paid for the original shipping and refunded that shipping cost today), it is not cost effective to request a return. As such, that's not something we will pursue.

Managed Payments completely removes Paypal from the equation on the seller's end. Buyers can pay with Paypal (among other options), but everything is processed entirely through Adyen. Nothing goes through Paypal on our end at all to the extent that the transaction history in our Paypal account shows nothing at all from eBay since we switched to Managed Payments. It also seems that the old way of finding a buyer's email address through the order details tab in the orders section is no longer an option. Since July (perhaps earlier, but we only noticed then), eBay has scrambled a customer's email address with random numbers and letters (for example, 88fe3038a3653@members.ebay.com).

Unfortunately, creating a new invoice through Paypal was the way that we would have dealt with this in the past. eBay has now closed that "loophole" for sellers using Managed Payments. Instead, we are considering asking the buyer to send us an email money transfer, unless anyone has a different suggestion.

Best, Dr. brian Campbell

[femmefan1946]

I agree that this is a problem. Not one that would come up often for a given seller but certainly it will several times a month or even a weeks, given the volume of sales over all of eBay.

I'm sure you are familiar with the concept of Cookie Jar Insurance, using a small amount of every sale as a self-insurance premium kept in a virtual Cookie Jar against unexpected problems.

The biggest advantage of the Cookie Jar is that it also protects the seller when there is a oddball problem like this or when she makes a stupid mistake (like selling a red sweater and shipping a blue one). Things that are not covered by postal or third party insurance.

[ecgt]

Thanks for the suggestion. Not familiar with Cookie Jar and generally don't see a need to use these sorts of services. I will definitely check it out.

[pjcdn2005]

If you weren’t in MP and a buyer who had been refunded was willing to repay you wouldn’t go through eBay, you would have them send you money through PP or you send them an invoice through PayPal.  Unless you closed your PP account I don’t see why you can’t do the same thing now.  Since you were in a transaction with the buyer, you are allowed to ask for their email address and/or give them yours.  

[reallynicestamps]

The OP would be asking Paypal for that information, right?

Could work. Noted.

Actually I think we are allowed to ask eBay for that info too, but I am not sure how. Customer Service?

[pjcdn2005]

No, they would be asking the buyer for their Paypal email address or sending their own Paypal email address so that the buyer could send money.   eBay messages should allow that to go through as they are/were in a transaction.

[travis7s]

Personally I would have made them return it for a refund. $62 is a high enough value to make it worth my time and I don't like potential scammers getting away scot free. There is a good chance they will simply not return it if you call their bluff with a return label, and you end up winning. 

[ricarmic]

I am wondering if you can fix this by just advising them that you appreciate their honesty and because it has already been refunded the easiest way for them to repay is for you to just create a special nondescript ebay item for them to purchase and pay for. (I usually put part of their ebay id in the title like "special lot for ecg").

I do this all the time for special orders, I would think that it would work in this situation too?

Of course it could seem to the buyer like some sort of scam but if they've seen the refund come back they'd know it wasn't.

Anyway an idea.....

[sunraycity]

Why not ask them for their phone number or alternatively have them reach you at your customer service number to rectify the situation?

[reallynicestamps]

The basic problem is that we have only eBay Messages to contact the buyer and Messages Blocks email addresses and phonenumbers.

Does the original Paypal payment, which has the buyer's address also have their phone number?

If so, you could phone them.

Without the phone number you could try sending a letter- a real snail mail, stamped envelope letter- to the postal address asking for the appropriate PP ID so that you can bill them and they can return the refund.

tyler@ebay 

Does eBay allow members already in a transaction or who have been in a transaction to get the phone number or PP ID from each other still?

[pjcdn2005]

lol  I'm not sure if you just want Tyler to confirm but as I mentioned earlier in a couple of posts, we are allowed to exchange email addresses and other personal info after a sale.  I don't remember if it was on this forum or just the .com forum but the ebay reps have confirmed that at various times. 🙂

[a52split]

In your Seller Hub, find the sale.  Click on View Order Details.  There you will find the buyer's phone number.  Call or text and sort out payment that way.

[ricarmic]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

lol  I'm not sure if you just want Tyler to confirm but as I mentioned earlier in a couple of posts, we are allowed to exchange email addresses and other personal info after a sale.  I don't remember if it was on this forum or just the .com forum but the ebay reps have confirmed that at various times. 🙂

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I could be wrong, but I think the "BOTS" allow this when the person has purchased something.  I think email addresses and real addresses etc are ok to be exchanged with the buyer after a sale. I don't know how long that is ok for, my guess is 90 days.

This I recall because I'm sure I saw Tyler say that addresses etc are ok in response to a thread a while ago. I know that I've been including the buyers address in my responses to the "where is my item" messages I get and I've not had any problems doing that so far.

[pjcdn2005]

I remember his saying that too so the bots must be programmed to act differently before sale vs after the sale.

[tyler@ebay]

Howdy @reallynicestamps - @pjcdn2005  is correct: you are allowed to exchange personal information once you and a buyer have a transaction that was paid for. In this OP's example, it would be just find to send an eBay message requesting PayPal information because they had a transaction. 

I also think @ricarmic's idea of a 'generic' listing so the buyer could make a new purchase is probably the least painful for everyone involved!