Buyer keeps money and item? How can I escalate

[doorfiesta]

I had a buyer buy a item, try to return it. I denied because I showed all damage. I contacted 4 different eBay customer representatives, and they all said i don’t have to accept it.

In this time, the buyer sent me a message of a screenshot from a eBay rep, basically saying I was trying to blackmail him. Every 2nd word in the screenshot was spelt wrong, and I reported him on suspicion that he was forging messages. EBay literally told me to CALL THE POLICE if he kept messaging me.

Fast forward, get an email saying I’m going to have to send a return label, I call eBay, they side with me. The person I was on the phone with told me that he was settling it right then and there, that I’d have nothing to worry about, and as I was on the phone with him he’d close the case, I’d keep my money, buyer keeps the item. Perfect.

I woke up today with an email saying the buyer has been refunded the full amount, and he is keeping the item. How is this legal? This feels like robbery. Do I have any legal ground to stand on? Being told time and time again there was nothing left I had to do. Only for the money to randomly be taken out of my account?

It’s ridiculous, and eBay should ashamed. Please let me know how I can proceed to get my money back.

[mrdutch1001]

Phone support does NOT = qualified customer service...there is NO such thing as good phone customer service here on eBay and sellers need to realize and understand that this so-called customer service via phone conversation is totally useless.

Sellers also need to understand that they MUST follow the eBay process for returns and refunds.

NO return DOES NOT mean NO refund.

Your only recourse is to follow the eBay process for an appeal.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

If you have Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, try contacting the AskEbay page. https://twitter.com/AskeBay

Assuming Twitter still allows relatively easy sign ups, you can make a throw away account. It doesn't have to have your personal info linked to eBay. 

Direct message that Twitter account. You have to assume the person you're talking to knows nothing of what happened. You have to be concise and to the point with what you want them to do. 

It would help if you had chat logs or something in writing from the previous CSRs. 

Since this seems like a unique case with a buyer faking a screen shot, what I suspect is that someone manually was going to close the case and they made a mistake. Then the case was able to be escalated for a refund. If you can clearly show eBay what happened, they might give you a courtesy refund.

Normally how returns work is that once a return has been opened, you have to provide a label regardless of whether the buyer is wrong. You can report the buyer after the fact, and eBay may take action on their account, but you don't get your money back. Otherwise, eBay doesn't arbitrate individual cases. If you don't provide a label, the buyer can have the return escalated, and eBay will refund them without requiring a return.

If at any point eBay offered to close the case for you without you providing a label, either the CSR had no idea what they were doing, or there was a very strong and unique reason that eBay felt the buyer was violating the TOS of the site. I think I have only seen it once that eBay manually closed a case and deleted the account of the buyer. It is very uncommon, even with blatant scams. 

In short, take 30 minutes to prepare a concise and clear write up of what happened between you, the buyer, and the previous CSRs. Take screenshots of any supporting evidence. Then contact Ask eBay on one of the social media sites. They MIGHT give you a courtesy refund, but it isn't a guarantee.

[rocketscollectibles]

Those threads are such a classic. 

When a buyer open an item not as described case, you must accept return or refund. It's part of the ebay money back guarantee system you are agreeing to by selling on ebay. You can offer a partial as you did but buyers are in rights to decline. You must accept return or refund. It's once returned that you can take actions and do appropriate reports. 

Ebay tell sellers to wait because they contact them with clear intentions to fight the case instead of providing a solution. Ebay support is trash and should always suggest sellers to accept returns here. Those are always closed in buyer's favor. It's straight up a case closed without resolution. 

I think you can appeal but i would have no expectations. Especially here that you tried to fight a case based on condition subjectivity.  

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

You are mostly right that what people need to know about how eBay (or most other online selling platforms work) is that they do not arbitrate individual cases. If a buyer states an item was not as described or flawed, you have to provide a refund or return label by the specified date. If the buyer acted in bad faith, you can choose to take appropriate action like reporting the buyer to eBay, or in more extreme cases filing the appropriate police or mail fraud reports. 

The big take away is, you have to provide a return label or a refund (if cheaper than a return). 

With that said, there are cases where a CSR will report a buyer to the security team and the buyer's account will get removed, which effectively closes the case (or leaves it in limbo until it times out). This is very rare. I have only seen it happen once with a buyer who seemed to be on Paypal and eBay's radar for repeat fraud. OP should check the buyer profile and see if it says No Longer A Registered User. Based on the description of the interaction with the CSR, their account may have been turfed after the case was closed. 

Assuming what OP said was accurate, there may have just been something lost in translation or a mix-up because a CSR manually closing a case for the seller is very unusual. So either, they never intended to do this for the seller, or they did intend to do this but something was done wrong. Who knows. I would contact eBay help page I provided in my previous post with details, and there is a chance they may cover the refund as a courtesy (which they sometimes do in cases of obvious fraud).

[byto253]

Basically a human told you no need to return, and a bot auto refunded.  It does happen.  I would call back eBay and cite the previous calls and direction provided by eBay and request the refund be reversed.   When I call support, I request the ID number for the call for reference and ask that they put a note on the file.  

As suggested, contacting through social media is good, and it provides you with a written response from eBay.   

It is worth calling again to give it a shot. 

[reallynicestamps]

"Don't have to accept" is not the same as "you will win the claim".

You can accept the return and refund.

You can refuse the return and refund.

You can allow the customer to keep the item and refund.

And never trust what a phone rep tells you.

The longer the conversation the more they want to get you the h e double hockey sticks off the phone.

[cogus70]

They did same to me after they used the wrong address so was returned to buyer. He said was delivered yet was shown as non existent address. After 6 hours over 5 calls to customer service, 4 messages to buyer, they also charged me for the return label. They admitted to using wrong label then twisted it to say was my fault. So item 15$ without consent they accepted 13.50 so sell should've not happened but they approved it against my knowledge as well as have been doing that on many items. They don't give two **bleep**s about sellers it's all about how much blood they can squeeze out of a turnip. They take so much in fees and unjust charges., but they don't care, they don't care about buyer either. They was caught overcharging on taxes so I advised a refund of the overage. They said it didn't cost you any thing. I said that's not the point its called good buis which egay has no idea the comprehension of. I've been stripped of hundreds of dollars, as well and several duplicate shipping charges , or it'll show positive and actually deduct from your bank. So they keep updating terms and I advised if they can no reason I can't so sent them a agreement saying if they sold any more items under the conditions they was responsible for the loss and pay back to the buyer, if they held funds it was 10% interst a day after 3 days 15%. Well after they're still selling my items and almost everyone for less then listed without any such allowance which puts you in a spot to feel like you have sell it. I have came found anyone trying justify their means is a bot, employee, or idiot. I mean they take so much I never make a cent just loose. So tried *** I traffic not as busy yet you collect double over them.So my advice is do not use eBay cause they'll take all ya money away... 💯 Crooks

[john_koenig99]

This is a thread from 2023.

You are a US based seller, posting on the Canadian ebay community. 

And the alternative site you mentioned does not even operate in Canada. 

[kh-phdan]

Hello Everyone,

Due to the age of the thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue discussing this topic.

Thanks for your understanding!