eBay problems, resolutions, shenanigans, questions and info (not bike finds)

Cheers (all),

Customer seems happy to wait for now so hopefully it gets there and its not an issue.

Slightly worried that it's actually my own fault, Etsy do this thing where they collect the vat (etc) and you are meant to notify the shipper of this electronically when you buy a postage label but I'm old school and tend to just hadwrite my addresses and I read somewhere that you can write 'ioss Etsy' on the package and it does the same thing. I thought I'd done it once already without issue but...?

sold a hard drive enclosure (the listing clearly marked as such) on ebay

buyer now requesting a return because 'it doesn't have any hard drives in it'

i don't have any option to refuse his return request, other than to 'resolve it with the buyer' which I am trying to do - but i'm doubtful this will be productive

What are my options, beyond that? Just ignore the request?

You dont know if he is trying it on or stupid. It actually doesnt matter. I just accept returns with profuse apologies.

The key thing is ultimately ebay will support his return however stupid the reason so you are now into damage limitation and avoiding adverse feedback.

Its annoying, and I hate sucking it up, but ebay is structured in favour of the buyer now, and thats the occasional drawback of selling through a site with bigger reach than any other site.

...just accept returns with profuse apologies.

The key thing is ultimately ebay will support his return however stupid the reason so you are now into damage limitation and avoiding adverse feedback.

This. Arguing or trying to resist giving the refund will just ensure you get screwed over.

Yep as soon as a buyer isnt happy its all about avoiding neg feedback.

I had 4 items posted during Christmas week that buyers got ranty because delayed. Everyone knows the post goes to shit over xmas and they are delayed, worse this year due to staff shortages and Omicron sickness but not these twats. So 3 of them I posted out replacements, and the 4th decided to wait. Original post arrived for all of them.

fuck sake - ebay will support his claim no matter how clear my listing was?

Probably.

If it does just post the buyer a flaming turd once it’s ‘resolved’.

I have heard that if the item has a Buy It Now price then you must accept returns under the Distance Selling rules/laws/whatever. (Within 14 days I imagine.)

Where did you hear that..? Don’t think it’s applicable to private sellers, unless the item is damaged or not as described. Same rules as with auction. Could be mistaken tho

I had one recently, sold a fork, didnt measure the steerer tube, customer didnt ask what it was, asked to return as its too short, I declined, ebay supported my choice and even blocked his negative feedback!

be worth contacting ebay via live chat prior to anything

Heard it from my ex who had a shop on eBay, so perhaps the private/pro seller distinction is the rub there

What @sbbohr said basically. I would suggest getting ebay to give you a call back and explain your situation. It isn't as one sided as people make it out to be but this is only the case is you are clear from your descriptions and photos. Speaking to a human has usually helped clear any issues I have had. From reinstating £1 listing fees on an item when a buyer pulls out or when stuff I've ordered is clearly not as described and the seller is being a C*nt

thanks all. ebay support ahve said the following

Thanks for that! I am sorry to hear you are having a tough time with this sale and appreciate it must be disappointing for you having to action a return, when you have done your best to describe and list the item as honestly as possible. Now due to the fact we never come into contact with the items sold on site, we are bound by distance selling regulations to assure the returns are accepted when the buyer states it is not as described. In this particular case, you would have to accept the return of the item. Although, you can of course report the buyer for abusing the return policy , should you feel this is the case.

With that said, going forward, we do offer seller protection. It is something you need to opt into, but it gives you access to a partial refund tool amongst other things. This means, if you have a buyer who returns an item in a lesser condition than sold, you can keep up to 50% of the refund based on the condition of the item returned. I have added a link with more details on this for you to look over. https://bit.ly/2DPd7BU . As of now, you can still work with your customer to come to a resolution as you do get 3 business days to make it right. Can I ask, have you though about a partial refund?

Did you explicitly say no hard drive / photos to support?

Was that via the msn pop up thing? I've found that generally the conversations on there are cut and paste from prompts or whatever and its really hard to actually get someone to look into it properly

Put a graphics card up for sale yesterday, straight auction with no buy it now or offers. Received a message about 10 seconds after listing with a lowball offer.

That shit winds me up so much; I take ebay way too personally.
In this situation I would block the bidder, delete the message and try to erase the event from my memory!!

I kindly messaged back saying that if they wanted to end the auction early because they didn't want to wait I expected an offer higher than the going price, not lower.

Well done. You can clearly exercise more restraint than I :-)
To be fair, I did respond to a guy once explaining how if I accepted his offer, the fees would pretty much make the sale unviable. After a day or so he came back and bought at the asking price!

Someone purchased an item from me that I had as delivery or collection. They opted for collection but are now asking for it to be shipped. Because they opted for collection they weren't charged for any shipping, any ideas how I can now charge them shipping?

When you list you can setup an automatic bid decliner under a certain amount. Very practical as they don't show up on your end.

Yes, I think I had that set but I guess people are wise to that as they just sent a message with the offer, not an actual offer through ebay.

Hello James,
Please see the cancellation details and respond to the buyer by 09 Feb, 2022.
If you've already posted the order, you don't need to cancel it. Just let us know.
Otherwise, please approve this cancellation request. You don't need to issue a refund because the buyer hasn't paid for the order yet. We'll credit the variable portion of the final value fees to you. You can apply it towards listing more items to sell on eBay.

“The variable portion of the final value fees” so not all the fees?

Someone purchased an item from me that I had as delivery or collection. They opted for collection but are now asking for it to be shipped. Because they opted for collection they weren't charged for any shipping, any ideas how I can now charge them shipping?

The solution here was that I had to separately charge them for shipping and just send them my paypal or bank details. Then sort out a tracked shipping and put the tracking number into ebay.

Fucking ebay sellers...

Bought a 3 speed hub from Germany (135mm disc model not sold here) on 25th Jan. No shipped notifications and the "I didn't receive it" thing just said due by 17th Feb.

I message the seller yesterday asking "Has this shipped yet? Any tracking?"

Seller replies just basically saying "Wait till the 17th."

So I'm like "If you haven't shipped it yet, don't, just refund me." to which I got no reply so I opened a dispute in paypal citing that seller could/would not supply me shipping info so I didn't think it had shipped and it was already a fortnight.

Cue an order update this morning saying it has shipped.

I figure that one of the following three things is going on,

1 - Seller was being lazy and just hadn't got around to shipping the hub until I chased it.
2 - Seller didn't have the hub in stock and it took them till now to get stock in and ship it out to me.
3 - Seller has posted me a brick/empty box/jobby.

Whichever is true/closest to the truth, tbh I'm a bit over it now and don't want the hub. The seller accepts returns but is that going to be a cluster fuck if there's import fees, vat etc to pay? Actually I think ebay charged me vat but I was always banking on there being something extra to pay since its coming from abroad.