eBay

coolthings123 · ‎01-06-2020

Anyone had this issue. Buyer bought and paid for item using PayPal. I sent the item to the buyer to the address provided on the PayPal notification which was an address in Quebec. A couple of days ago the buyer sent me a message stating he had not received the item and asked that I confirm the address to which I had shipped the item. I advised him I had shipped it to the address provided by PayPal to Quebec. Buyer got back to me stating no wonder he had not received the item as he lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I advised the buyer I didn't know how to explain it and sent him a screen shot of the PayPal notification which had no mention of an address in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Buyer has now opened an item not received dispute saying I sent the item to the wrong person. Am I missing something here or does this make no sense at all? I admit is was a small item that I did not utilize tracking. However there should be some protection for sellers that the information provided by PayPal is accurate. Any insight would be appreciated.

msmaggie060 · ‎01-06-2020

I think I would ask your buyer to check his PayPal account if you sent to the address shown by PayPal, just in case his address was inadvertently changed. Or hacked?

Or call PayPal yourself and have them check the address against the one you sent to. Without tracking though, not too much you can do to prove shipment.

ypdc_dennis · ‎01-06-2020

What do the details for that order on ebay say is the correct address?

coolthings123 · ‎01-06-2020

The item details on the eBay purchase show the buyers name with the Quebec ship to address. Nothing mentioning Thunder Bay. I realize with no tracking I will likely get screwed but it seems to me if you have to rely on the information provided by the buyer and it is wrong???

coolthings123 · ‎01-06-2020

I certainly would have thought the buyer would have had enough curiosity/sense to look into the matter after I sent him the screen shot of the PayPal payment, but apparently I was mistaken. I guess it is always easiest to blame the seller and make us jump through all the hoops to rectify things.

gazer-sky · ‎01-07-2020

I had correct address AND happy user but buyer financial institution opened an unauthorized transaction case and paypal made me pay. I have no proof that he did but I even asked the buyer call his financial institution and say transaction is ok and it didn't make a difference.
No tracking is the killer here, without it never know anything. Good luck.

reallynicestamps · ‎01-07-2020

I admit is was a small item that I did not utilize tracking.

You will probably lose the Dispute, because you cannot prove delivery.

That being said, phone Trust and Safety and let them know that both the eBay and Paypal addresses show the buyer's address to be Quebec.

Point out that the Thunder Bay person may be a scammer who has hacked into the real buyer's account.

It might work. If the clerk is unsure, ask for a supervisor. And call during North American business hours.

While the weekend and night shift offshore clerks seem smarter to me, and at least they understand that Canada is not part of the USA, the Utah clerks seem to have more authority, in spite of their horrible accents.

If not, you will have to write this one off and refund promptly. Do you use Cookie Jar Insurance?

coolthings123 · ‎01-07-2020

Thanks for the input. I will try to contact eBay/PayPal and let them know the circumstances. It is only a $50 item so not a huge deal. It was one of those time where it was two dollar letter post or 18 dollar parcel so I figure why not take a chance with no tracking. I might have to give up gambling. Thanks again for your suggestion.

electronicifycanada · ‎01-07-2020

I have had this happen a couple times and learnt a few things with it.

First both PayPal and eBay say the buyer must provide the right address or they lose buyer protection. The issue is eBay wants you to use eBay's address and PayPal wants you to use the PayPal address. It's a policy that is a very gray area because of that. The money goes through PayPal in the end so I tend to stick to PayPal's policy over eBay with this.

I have had at least 2 of these in the past 2 years I can remember off the top of my head. Both times I simply added to the eBay request that the buyer admitted they used the wrong address in messages and eBay found in my favor both times.

Since the policy is super gray I can't guarantee what eBay will do or recommend doing this. You might lose, but if you don't care, go for it... I personally don't care because I normally just refund return request either way and have good metrics from that.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-07-2020

When a buyer pays, the address they use is generated on both the eBay and PayPal sites so that is the only address you should see. Sellers should always use the address showing after payment.

There is a risk that when customer service is called about the wrong address that they will escalate the case. An escalated case without tracking will always result in the buyers favour . It can also result in an unresolved case defect for the seller.

zee-chan · ‎01-08-2020

@coolthings123 wrote:
Thanks for the input. I will try to contact eBay/PayPal and let them know the circumstances. It is only a $50 item so not a huge deal. It was one of those time where it was two dollar letter post or 18 dollar parcel so I figure why not take a chance with no tracking. I might have to give up gambling. Thanks again for your suggestion.

It wasn't a bad gamble; I usually ship using small packet or lettermail too. Tracking is too expensive; over the years I lost about $100 to INR claims, but I have shipped over 200 times untracked and the money saved ($5-30 per order) using untracked service far exceeded the $100 I paid out.

I only use tracked service if my gut feeling says so (buyer left many negatives to other sellers) or if the order value is like $150 CAD or over.

coolthings123 · ‎01-24-2020

Well, as was expected by most of the responses, I lost my battle with the bureaucracy whom are those astute investigators and champions of seller protection at eBay and PayPal. I spoke with an eBay representative, in Ireland, and outlined my position. His reply was it would appear the buyer is trying to game the system and he would relay this information to his counterparts in Canada. Before anything happened the Canadian arm of the this top notch investigative unit closed the case because the buyer elevated the case to a PayPal dispute which quickly let them off the hook of having to try to investigate the matter further. Because of this I also received a "defect" which I will accept as a badge of honour because I think this whole system is a farce. Regardless, I dutifully spoke to a PayPal representative and outlined my position. He advised the buyer had two addresses linked to his PayPal account. One in Quebec and the other in Ontario. He also indicated this was suspicious and felt the buyer could very well be trying to game the system. Armed with this new found sense of backing from PayPal that I was possibly in the right I quickly went to the Resolution Centre and provided my input and vehemently disagreed with the Item not Received dispute. I was advised PayPal would review my information and get back to me. Well, after several days of sitting on pins and needles, they finally got back to me to inform they had sided with the buyer. I immediately thought, "did they actually review any of the information I sent?" In my view, apparently not. So, I have formed the following opinions:

PayPal/eBay are obsessed with tracking numbers. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that a buyer should be at least investigated for suspicious account activity they readily fall back on the tracking number as their failsafe so they carry on without actually having to do any investigating.

PayPal/eBay don't care if buyers are gaming the system because they are not going to lose money as the seller is the low hanging fruit that will end up paying and by and large won't do anything about it other than vent a little.

PayPal/eBay apparently say its okay for a buyer to have multiple shipping addresses attached to an account and then lie to a seller about it.

The eBay and PayPal seller protection policy is completely bogus.

Thanks for listening

reallynicestamps · ‎01-24-2020

Yes.

Tracking is the be all and end all.

This is why so many sellers of low cost items use Cookie Jar Insurance to cover to occasional problem transaction.

Might be a disagreement. Might be the seller's mistake. Might be a scam.

Doesn't matter. The cost of Cookie Jar Insurance is much lower than the high costs of tracking, both in actual cash and in lost sales.

That being said.

I spoke with an eBay representative, in Ireland, and outlined my position.

Ireland?

You are in Canada and so is the peripatetic buyer.

How did you end up calling Ireland about all this?

coolthings123 · ‎01-24-2020

I phoned the eBay hotline. Got to chatting to the representative and out of curiosity asked him where he was located and he indicated Dublin, Ireland. Apparently all the Canadian reps were off shift at the time.

reallynicestamps · ‎01-25-2020

Ok.

The reason this is important is that different sites work by the rules of their own nations.

For example, UK sites require a lot more information about sellers, than the North American sites.

The problem can be that the reps may not know that there are different rules. The dotCOM reps who also handle dotCA problems are a real pain, since many of them don't realize that Canada is a thing, that we are not served by USPS and that the border means import fees can be an important part of the transaction.

Which is while I prefer the Philippines reps, who probably have a cousin in Edmonton.