CBC Investigates Ebay

[wilmcal0]

Just found this article on the CBC website: 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ebay-camera-refund-return-policy-1.6479463

This is definitely a step in the right direction and I wish that more scammed sellers would follow this route.

Ebay gets away with far too much, but all I ever hear is the same old "put your extra pennies in a jar", which does nothing except empower the scammers. 

I had a similar experience with a U.S. buyer. I offered to return the item at my expense only to discover that it was practically impossible to create a U.S. return label here in Canada (I do not use ebay labels). I offered to send money to the buyers Paypal account for him to purchase a return label, but the buyer never responded but waited until my time to "respond " to the issue ran out. Of course, ebay stepped in and fully refunded the buyer like the good samaritans that they are (and so that they could keep their ridiculous fees from the sale, which they would lose if it actually got returned.)

[ambros_51]

yei agree ! e bay does not care one bit about sellers ! i too got ripped off by a us buyer costing me over $700. and the scammer buyer got to keep the item and i had also paid the shipping . e bay reps in the dispute process are horrible people , they don't give a DAMM about sellers . u.s buyer in the amount of over $700.00, i complained and complained but got nowhere . those e bay reps in the dispute section of the site are an abbomonationn

[pjcdn2005]

That article brings up a few questions.   eBay does not ever issue return labels for Canadian transactions so I find it difficult to believe that they would issue a USPS label to a Canadian buyer in this case.

Since both seller and buyer were in Canada, the seller could easily have purchased a label to send to the buyer.   The buyer would have had to return the item and then the seller would have refunded.  I suspect that the seller just waited for ebay to 'do something' about the label and then lost out on getting the return back.  There is definitely a lack of information from ebay on exactly how to handle returns when one or both users are outside of the US.   It can be confusing to both seller and buyer on what to do if these situations, expecially if one of the users is not being cooperative.  I don't think that the seller is totally blameless though as they could have been more proactive, but it isn't the first time that there has been confusion about return labels here.

Just as a fyi for the future @wilmcal0 Canadians can purchase usps labels on Shippos or Pirateship.com. 

[maximus7001]

Shippo is how we send usps labels to usa. All you do is change sender to the usa persons info and the receiver is your address. Be sure to use any extra available address lines in both sender and receiver to put "MERCHANDISE RETURN" in caps so it stands out better for canada customs. You then upload the pdf of the label to the return case on ebay. If they end up not using it (they loose the claim) and you can apply for a refund from shippo at a much later date.

We have sent about 10 of these usps labels in total since shippo began for ebay returns and personal items too for family in usa to ship to here. They charge in us$ for usps labels. Make sure to pick the cheapest service unless the item is over the value that you for sure need a signature. $800 CAD? or is it $700 CAD?

We once had one return that was $800 and despite the package and return label saying "MERCHANDISE RETURN" all over it in huge black bold writing the customs charged us in full as if we had bought it from usa. Because we had the pdf of the label to use in the claim for getting back the $ that canada customs scammed us for it all worked out a few months later. They took $119 from us in their scam.

[ypdc_dennis]

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@wilmcal0 wrote:

...  experience with a U.S. buyer. I offered to return the item at my expense only to discover that it was practically impossible to create a U.S. return label here in Canada ...

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For future reference: Canadians can buy USPS labels for a USA to Canada return using Pirateship.com (which sells discounted USPS labels).