eBay

mgiurgeu · ‎01-11-2018

For those who are new to selling on eBay/PayPal or for those lucky sellers who have never been stung, be prepared to lose money with no recourse.

I've been selling very little, but for quite a few years without incident, until last month when I sold a brand new iPhone X to a buyer in Canada. The buyer claims that they received a bottle of water instead. They open a dispute on eBay, I respond promptly asking for the case to be escalated. The buyer then opens the same dispute to PayPal. At this point, without my consent, eBay closes the case. At the same time, eBay suspends the buyer's account. Hopeful that the buyer is exposed, I wait patiently for PayPal's resolution, but to my surprise they rule in the buyer's favour.

I appeal the decision but to my shock, PayPal says that the only valid evidence they will take into consideration from me is government documents proving that what was in the package was indeed the phone and not the bottle of water. Needless to say, CanadaPost does not have any such evidence. When I point out that eBay has suspended the buyer's account or that my reputation on eBay is 100% they say that none of that matters to them because they are a separate company from eBay.

So here we are. Take it as you want: lose if you're an honest seller or steal cheaply if you're a cunning buyer. It's really easy. All you need is patience.

Bye, bye eBay/PayPal. I will never ever sell anything on this platform.

sylviebee · ‎01-20-2018

The seller (in this case you) sent a bottle of water in place of the item, a postal employee pulled a switch enroute (Did the package have a custom's declaration stating that the package contained a phone?), or the buyer is falsely claiming that a bottle of water was in the package instead of the phone.

The resources to determine which of these three possibilities is the true one are limited.

However, If you did have unlimited resources at your disposal, how would you go about determining which of the possible scenarios is the true one?

momcqueen · ‎01-20-2018

Mmm, postal tampering. When I first began selling here, I spent a lot of time worrying about that possibility (for no good reason) so I invested in a few rolls of tape that were marketed as 'tamper-proof' and read 'do not accept if this tape has been cut' but, in the end, I decided NOT to ever use it because it made my (untraced, small packet airmail) parcels stick out like a SORE THUMB and said 'steal me' louder than anything else possibly could. Plus, what's to stop someone from just peeling the tape away and chucking it in the trash if they were so inclined to thievery? I can really think of only a few cases that have ever hit the news where I live of postal employees being caught at that sort of thing. They do get caught if they start doing that. Senders open claims and suddenly it all starts to look mighty suspicious and all the arrows point to one person in particular. Then it's goodbye job and hello jail.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-20-2018

Ebay automatically closes a case if a buyer files a claim with Paypal or their credit card company. A buyer is not supposed to have 2 cases open at a time. But regardless of where the case was settled, the odds were in the buyer's favor because it is a he said she said situation and there is no certain way to prove what really happened.

If the case had remained with ebay - I have had heard of ebay taking the sellers side once in a while if they file a police report and then provide that and the report number. The police wouldn't investigate it but they have allowed you to report it. In some cases, ebay seems to take this more seriously if he seller has gone to the trouble. I don't have personal experience with this, but some US sellers have said that it sometimes works. ebay may also have taken into account the buyer's claim history although that isn't certain either.

Paypal doesn't mention seller protection for items not as described in their user agreement. They offer seller protection for item not received claims and unauthorized chargebacks. Recently I have heard of a couple of cases where they actually ruled in the sellers favour in a snad but as far as I know that is unusual. There is a small chance that if you had asked the

buyer to send the item back and then you would refund once you received it that the buyer would drop the case since they didn't want to pay for return shipping. Of course they could also have been willing to pay to send back the 'bottle of water' and you would still have to refund.

Someone else may have mentioned this..can you report the phone as stolen so that it can be deactivated?

Sorry that this happened to you. The majority of ebay transactions go well although it does seem that selling cell phones is a higher risk than in other categories.

momcqueen · ‎01-20-2018

Can you tell us: did you ship this order with Signature Confirmation?

sylviebee · ‎01-20-2018

@momcqueen wrote:
Mmm, postal tampering. When I first began selling here, I spent a lot of time worrying about that possibility (for no good reason) so I invested in a few rolls of tape that were marketed as 'tamper-proof' and read 'do not accept if this tape has been cut' but, in the end, I decided NOT to ever use it because it made my (untraced, small packet airmail) parcels stick out like a SORE THUMB and said 'steal me' louder than anything else possibly could. Plus, what's to stop someone from just peeling the tape away and chucking it in the trash if they were so inclined to thievery? I can really think of only a few cases that have ever hit the news where I live of postal employees being caught at that sort of thing. They do get caught if they start doing that. Senders open claims and suddenly it all starts to look mighty suspicious and all the arrows point to one person in particular. Then it's goodbye job and hello jail.

It sounds like your approach would be to determine the guilty party by deciding which of the three possibilities is the least likely to occur.

Is that what you're trying to say?

I've had experiences with the PO that make it clear to me that "postal tampering" does indeed occur.

In fact, none of three possibilities is common but all three do occur and likely at about the same rate.