Ebay sides with buyer with 1 FEEDBACK SCORE, EBAY RANT

[joebo80]

A buyer with a 1 feedback score (in the USA) won an auction I had listed on ebay.ca. The item went for almost $300 Canadian in auction. 

I shipped the item out and once he buyer received it, they asked for a refund. And I gave it to them. I listed the flaws of the item in the description and tested it. But they weren't happy.  I said send the item back. 

If the item was so bad, (as the buyer claimed) why are they keeping the item and not shipping it back???? BECAUSE IT'S RARE AND WORTH MONEY. I wouldn't be surprised if they are reselling in on Facebook marketplace, right now.  

The buyer did not respond to my messages about shipping the item back even while the refund case was open. I highly doubt they are going to accept or listen to my messages now that eBay has refunded their money.

 Ebay messaged me after they sided with the buyer (and refunded them) about sending them money to ship the item back. I'm supposed to send this fraud artist money in the hopes of shipping the item back? After they already been refunded?  They weren't interested or had no intention of sending the item back when the refund started. They ingored my messages, when I asked did you ship the item back?  Are you shipping the item back? 

THIS WAS A COMPLETE SCAM!!!!  THE BUYER HAS 1 FEEDBACK. HOW MUCH MONEY DOES EBAY MAKE FROM THEM? ZERO.

EBAY MAKES NOTHING FROM THEM.   HOW MUCH DOES EBAY MAKE FROM ME & OTHER SELLERS??? EVERY TIME I  SELL ITEM OR EBAY HOLDS MY PAYMENTS now, which ebay collects INTEREST ON!!!!  EBAY MAKES MONEY FROM ME!  They don't make money from a buyer with a 1 feedback score. 

I WAS NOT ABLE TO SEND RETURN SHIPPING LABELS BECAUSE THE ITEM WAS PURCHASED ON EBAY.CA, I'M IN CANADA, THE BUYER IS IN THE USA. I explained this to the buyer and ebay and both did NOTHING. 

I will never, ever sell another expensive item on eBay EVER AGAIN.  In fact I'm considering leaving after being on eBay 16 years just like everyone else is doing. eBay cares nothing about it's sellers, this experience proves it. 

Ebay doesn't understand sellers like me make them money. Not some fraud artist buyer with a 1 feedback. She will most likely pull this garbage again to another seller.  

Through my messages, the buyer wasn't even interested in sending the item back in the first place. I messaged them afterwards to offered to send funds from PayPal to ship the item back. No response from them. They said "eBay" said I should of sent shipping labels and I told them I wasn't able to. Case closed. 

How can I send labels when the item was purchase on eBay.ca and the buyer is in the USA? eBay.ca and eBay.com have different shipping policies. 

Ebay customer service is a joke, BTW.  

[femmefan1946]

I'm supposed to send this fraud artist money in the hopes of shipping the item back?

You were supposed to sent the return shipping when the Dispute was open.

Then when you received it, you refund.

If the buyer returns something other than you sent, you can appeal.

If not, you add him to your Blocked Buyer List, stick a few pins in a voodoo doll, and relist.

If the problems are those the buyer Disputed about, you change the Description.

You can send a Return Shipping Label through Shippo, even if you did not originally ship using them.

I had a similar case a couple of years ago.

The buyer Disputed because a stamp which was advertised as No Gum had no gum. (Gum is a big deal in the philatelic hobby.)

I sent a return shipping label through Shippo.

He did not use  it. He did not return the stamp. I won the Dispute.

There is a system.

Annoyingly, the seller is usually required to supply return shipping.

When you did not send the shipping label, you lost the case.

[pjcdn2005]

You could have purchased a label through Shippo or Pirateship. Or, you could have sent money for the label through PayPal.  If you showed  proof that you sent the label or money before eBay stepped in and refunded, eBay would have required that the item was sent back before you had to refund.   

[ericsells75]

YOU didn’t follow the rules and you lost. Plain and simple. Feedback is irrelevant. This was a costly lesson in not learning the policy/procedure laid out by the site YOU choose to list on. Sorry, I’m becoming jaded to people blaming everyone but themselves for these kinds of issues.

[rocketscollectibles]

EBAY MAKES NOTHING FROM THEM.   HOW MUCH DOES EBAY MAKE FROM ME & OTHER SELLERS???

EBAY MAKES MONEY FROM ME!  They don't make money from a buyer with a 1 feedback score. 

Ebay doesn't understand sellers like me make them money

Lmao that vision. Buyers are the ones paying. Even the 1 000 000 score account one day had a 1 feedback score.  Ebay makes money from you, but you makes money from buyers, no buyers and no one makes money

Can't help with your problem and that's obviously a frustrating situation, but that vision ''me me me, buyers are useless'' blowed me

[byto253]

You also so not have to send a label for international.  indicate you will accept the return and will pay for shipping up front so they can buy a label.  I did that, the person refused to return it and was refunded.  BUT because I was clear in the messages that I would pay for shipping up front and would refund when received a call to Ebay immediately had the decision refused and I was reimbursed my funds.

You need to protect yourself, and never refund without a return unless you do not want to item back.  Sorry that you got hit like this,

[mr.special-editions]

@joebo80 

You always need to remain calm and polite no matter what.  If you can't do that then you should rethink selling anywhere (period)

@femmefan1946  and @byto253 

Read their posts, both explain what you do.

Byto253 has an excellent strategy that I to have used on more than one occassion. 

[joebo80]

Yes, buyers are important on ebay. I never said they are useless. But a buyer with 1 feedback is most likely a scammer  or never coming back to buy something again on ebay. I have 100 plus items I was going to list on ebay to sell, but after this experience they are being listed on other sites.

When I say me, I'm referring to Sellers as a whole.

SELLERS are the ones that made ebay in the beginning. They are the ones who posted rare items, weird items, collectibles, Graded comics, sports cards, vintage action figures, electronics, etc that really made ebay.  Without interesting or rare items posted for sale, there's nothing for a buyer to buy now except fake cheap merchandise, which can be purchased on Ali Baba, Amazon and countless other sites.  That's my point.  Ebay needs to protect buyers and it's sellers. It's a two way street. 

[ricarmic]

Both buyers and sellers are important for things to work.

The problem is that most of the annoying, frustrating, time consuming and sometimes expensive rules that are in place are because of folks who used their time to abuse the system, both buyers and sellers.

It's a sad fact of the online world, there aren't any signs that it is going to get any better in the near future.

[t_bjarnason]

But a buyer with 1 feedback is most likely a scammer  or never coming back to buy something again on ebay.

This is certainly NOT true. I have yet to come accross a buyer with a 0 or 1 feedback score that is a scammer. Assuming that a new customer is a scammer until they prove themselves with a higher feedback score is complete nonsense. The scammers I've encountered usually have higher scores and more experience. 

And as far as them coming back to eBay in the future - they certainly aren't if they have a negative experience with a buyer over something that is most likely a genuine concern or issue. It's our responsibility as sellers to make a positive experience for buyers so they DO come back. That sometimes comes at a cost to us. A lot of customers (especially new ones - hint, hint) depend on US to provide them with the correct processes to resolve issues; if we don't know the process, we find out. 

Lastly, sellers did not make eBay. Buyers did. If there was no demand from buyers, then there wouldn't be enticement for sellers to provide supply to begin with. Both sellers and buyers exist in well-balanced harmony. It's what made eBay such a success. The attitude that buyers are a level below sellers is completely obsurd.  

[byto253]

Good post.  Sorry sellers, you are not more important than buyers. 

[ericsells75]

If we are using feedback as a measure of an accounts ‘importance’ couldn’t the inverse of your point be true? That a seller with over >1000 feedback should know the rules?

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

It is important to understand how eBay works if you want to sell.

If a buyer perceives that something was wrong with the item, or claims it arrived damaged, you will be required to provide a refund. You can either choose to provide a return shipping label and refund the buyer when the item arrives. Or, you can negotiate with the buyer to provide them with a full or partial refund. If you do neither of these things, you risk losing both the item and the money. 

If the buyer scams you on a return, you can report the buyer. This doesn't undo the scam, but if a buyer gets reported enough, eBay takes action on their account. 

The way eBay works, is that they do take action on scammers, but if you are unlucky enough to be caught up with one before eBay takes action, you usually have to take the loss. If you have very good evidence that the buyer is acting in bad faith, such as deliberately damaging an item, after you provide a return shipping label, eBay might cover the refund as a courtesy to you. They will still refund the buyer, and you will still be out the cost of a return shipping label. It will also require a lot of back and fourth with eBay customer service. Depending on the price of the item, it may not be worth the time.

This is why eBay is not as good for casual or low volume sellers. Depending on what you're selling, local marketplace sites (Kijiji, Facebook, etc) are more suited to that. A person who sells 100s of items a month is in a position to eat the cost of a failed transaction because over their yearly sales it works out to pennies per order in lost revenue. They also are more likely to be operating as a business where their total losses for the year are worked into their margins. A person who uses eBay to sell a personal item doesn't have margins. 

The entire point of eBay's system is to create value for buyers, which in turn should lead to higher revenue for sellers. This is very good if you're a high volume seller, because you get more value back from this system when you're selling 1000s of items a year, and eBay's protection for buyers increases their willingness to shop with you. This may not be good value when you're a casual seller who gets less value in return because you're doing a dozen transactions a year. The trade off of getting more potential buyers but having to completely eat the cost of a failed transaction when you're selling very little isn't good. When you're selling a high volume, the trade off is good.

Feedback number isn't an indication of anything. In terms of elaborate scams, you are more likely to be scammed by a high feedback account, because they know the system. 0 or low feedback accounts can sometimes be sock puppet accounts for scammers who circumvent eBay's blocks, but it is more likely they are a person who googled for your item and found it on eBay. Feedback itself is useless and outdated. Most people do not leave feedback when something goes wrong. The only time feedback is ever useful is with the least sophisticated scammers who don't understand that sellers can see a compilation of all their feedback left for sellers, which allows sellers to see a pattern of activity and decide to cancel to the transaction. With that said, eBay has encouraged buyers to hide their feedback by placing the hide feedback button on the profile. So it is very likely that feedback will soon be entirely useless. 

[parts_and_diecasts]

very true

especially with our listings showing in google search results (thankfully), you will get buyers with 0 feedback paying by credit card. nothing wrong with that. Buyer feedback doesn't mean anything anyways, I got scammed by people with 300+ of feedback, I also completed US$200 transactions with 0 feedback buyers without any issues

[parts_and_diecasts]

Eric,

took you barely a year to get jaded, the pandemic has been aging you 😉

chill out, nobody put a gun to your head to answer those newbie questions

[nang957]

I agree-I have been on ebay for aprox. 20 years and have had nothing but grief from ebay when trying to resolve issues-They certainly only care about the buyer and the seller is nothing short of invisible

[byto253]

NOTE:  2 YEAR OLD ZOMBIE THREAD 

[pansy19]

This is  reality .

EBay Seller protection ? DO NOT EXIST! 

With any proof you as a Seller are not able to do anything.

You have to Refund and no any right , pay  for return OR loose it.

Treats Sellers like that ,  making profit from them. 

Good luck to everyone .

[pansy19]

Did you have any Return ?

THERE IS NO RULES  on ebay   , whoever buy from you  can manipulate you  at any time for anything , you'll losse anywhay as  a seller. Paying RSL from your pocket .Follow OR Not you going to loose .

Is it  ebay rules " If buyer doesn't read description ? The Seller has to pay RSL OR lost item " ?

Is it ebay rule " The buyer make false statement "?

Is it ebay rules " The buyer lies  even presenting proof that is not true?

On the end 

Why we Sellers are FORCED on ebay to do what they wants , we pay to be here  with all extremly high fees.

Good luck

As a Seller you don't have any right .

[recped]

---

@pansy19 wrote:

This is  reality .

EBay Seller protection ? DO NOT EXIST! 

With any proof you as a Seller are not able to do anything.

You have to Refund and no any right , pay  for return OR loose it.

Treats Sellers like that ,  making profit from them. 

Good luck to everyone .

---

The only people that have a problem with eBay's seller protection are the ones that have never read the policy and assume that eBay will cover them for anything and everything as if they were your mommy.

What is covered by Seller Protection is no mystery but you can't make up your own rules and expect eBay to comply.