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

Say you’ve been scammed like that before and refund the payment.

Could probably do some sort of receipt that you keep a copy of but dunno how well that’d stand up in a PayPal court of kangaroo.

Yeah buyer seems ok now he's understood what I mean. It's not clear at all and most of the ebay boards say no buyer protection on collection items however PayPal says no seller protection in the case of a dispute when the item is collected or delivered in person. In all honesty I wouldn't fancy my chances if the guy paid goods/services, collected the kayak in person and then requested cancellation saying he hadn't been able to collect for example meanwhile my kayak's 800 miles away!

@Pasty_Spumante I think (it was years ago) I did something like this @M_V is suggesting after I sold a range cooker on ebay that was cash on collection. I rang ebay and they said ask to see the buyers passport/driving license. I even took a photo of it and him loading it into his van so had his reg number as well. I think as long you detail this in the messages between you and the buyer in advance they can't complain and if they do it's a red flag.

For ebay collection I think ebay now provides the seller with a 6 digit code and QR label that the seller can confirm by scanning with their phone to verify that the item was collected. I havent tested this and only realised it was a thing when the seller asked for it. I dont accept paypal/collect because of the scam, but do need to test this at some point. I dont know if this protects against the scam. Need to phone ebay to check at some point

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@velosaurus that looks interesting thanks.

I did wonder if it is to mitigate the paypal/collect scam. At the moment I just refund paypal and insist on cash if buyer collecting. If anyone tests it/confirms with ebay please do share

Yes, I saw a download/scan QR option but if it requires the buyer to get the seller to scan to confirm collection I can't see how this protects against the buyer simply deciding not to get the seller to scan when collecting, disappearing and claiming not to have collected? I'd say this definitely needs a bit more joined up thinking by PayPal/ebay. Maybe something that an automatic small non-refundable deposit is taken upon purchase (maybe 2%) and then funds are released with no protection for either party when the qr is scanned. This one just seems 'prime' for a fraudulent dispute initiated by the buyer

edit: I slightly misunderstood...I see that perhaps a term of sale is that the seller only lets the item go once the buyer has scanned to say they've received it. I'd hope at that point all buyer protection goes out the window but I'm not sure PayPal would see it like that.

Edit again: emphasis ("Please have the seller scan this") seems to be on the buyer instructing the seller to scan - should be the other way round surely?????

When I've had people collect stuff I've made them sign paperwork and taken copies of their ID. That said, it was reasonably spendy bike stuff.

Yes, understandable in the circumstances. Seems perhaps that for cash on collection perhaps the fairest way for all parties would be eBay charge a flat £5 fee for listing for example with no protection for either party (typical sold as seen transaction).

Hi there.
In the space of a few hours I've sold two items both to buyers with UK and other addresses in the delivery address section. I only have UK delivery enabled. Their locations are Singapore/United states.
I messaged them both. One paid and said the UK address is for a 3rd party company to send it to him. Seems legit and I assume I'm covered for postage to that address. The other asked if I had any other retro games etc for sale and didn't pay so I cancelled the order.

Anyone have experience of this? Is it their problem once the 3rd party takes hold of it?
Many thanks

Pretty much. Just make sure it’s sent signed for. If in doubt message eBay but I remember someone asked the same question before. I think eBay said as long as there’s proof of delivery it’s all good

Buyer just agreed that my responsibility ends at the uk address. Sweet.
Cheers @BigH

All good!

I had a couple of things take literally months to arrive from the US recently. Eventually they got to Brussels and took over a month to get from there, I could have walked there, picked the things up and walked back again quicker. But they did eventually arrive.

I've contacted the seller a couple of weeks back they said some really vague thing like 'oh maybe it's lost shall I send it again?'
The answer is 'yes, please'. The second one will arrive first.

OK now my US seller saga has taken some interesting turns.

I messaged them a few times, asking if they had sent the parcel or not. I always got these really terse messages, no ‘Hi!’ or ‘Thanks, Billy’ type stuff, and NEVER actually answering my question, which was ‘when did you actually dispatch it’ and later ‘did you actuslly dispatch it or not’. I was just looking for some assurance that they’d actually sent it, rather than just taking $130 US from me and doing jack shit.

Them I googled the shop, an actual bike shop in Smalltownville Pennsyvania. The google reviews were a litany of ‘oh my god these guys are jokers’ ‘my stuff never came’ ‘they said they sent it but they didn’t’ and ‘I called them and the guy sounded stoned’, all one star review hell.

So I messaged again, saying ‘please answer my question: have you sent it?’. Got another vague reply.

So I called them. The guy sounded depressed to me, not stoned. I was SUPER polite, patient, ‘oh you know it’s been eight weeks now, I’m just calling to check what day you mailed it, because the est. delivery time keeps being pushed back, oh great yeah check at the warehouse for me buddy that would be so helpful, thanks so much I really appreciate your time Billy, have a great day’.

Next day I have another tracking number from ebay, seems like another parcel is being sent. I get another terse ebay msg: ‘we sent your parcel’.

I write back, as civil as I can mange: ‘Hi, please don’t send it now, I’ve really waited too long, I’ll find another rim, can I have a refund please? Here’s the transaction details: xxxxxx’

I get a refund really fast. Surprising.

That was about ten days ago. I buy more expensive stuff, in a colour I don’t much want, from a UK shop. I collect them after paying online.

I have a few days away. I come back to a Post Office card saying I have customs charge of £24. I go to office, I pay it, it’s my rims.

What do I do?! Their comms were so bad, I don’t really feel like paying them the refund back, but I kind of feel bad. Especially for the depressed bike shop guy - what if the $130 comes out of some some poor person’s wages?

What would Jebus do? What would you do? What would @jaygee do?

Pay for the goods, you know its the right thing to do.

What a messy sequence of events.

Pay for the goods, you know its the right thing to do.

The right thing would have been for the seller to send the rims in a timely manner.

@Skülly have you built the rims you bought in this country? Can you return them?

At most I'd send one message offering to pay for the rims that have shown up but subtracting anything that you're out for the other ones (return postage if they can be returned etc) and if that message is met with the same lackluster response as your previous ones then fuck it.

Would be interesting to know what the legal situation is. I think I looked into it once if you are incorrectly sent items then you have inform the sender and it's their responsibility to arrange collection of the item (at a time that suits the recipient I think) within a set time period. That was for a seller within the UK, not sure how it'd work with a seller in the US but you could make the offer.

I've had situations like this on ebay where a seller's stubbornness or lack of response has meant that I end with a full refund and the item and I'm always of the opinion that if its the sellers actions (or lack thereof) that have gotten us there then it's their fault.

Could you tell the posting date from the package label?

Ask them to sort out the return, if they actually do it then they get their rims back, if they don't then you get rims.

Thanks for all the reponses.

If I offered them money minus what I spent on the replacement, they’d owe me money. The reson I went for their offer is it was cheaper even with import duty. Of course, what I should have done is not pay the import fee, then they woulda been returned. But fir some reason I couldn’t resist paying for the import just to check it really was these rims.

tbh the fact they couldn’t be bothered to reply to any of my queries, sometimes seeming like they didn’t actually read them, then willingly refunded without at least clearly saying ‘USPS did collect them on June 17th, they’ll turn up eventually’ or whatever makes me give very few shits about them. Why not read your messages?

Will check, but not sure how this helps.

OK so the customs recieved it on the 8th Aug. A label that seems to be USPS global air freight ticket says ‘date of mailing 07/30/2020’. Which means that the shop sat on this parcel for six weeks (yet they marked it was dispatched on my ebay sale on 16 June) , and it then took just three weeks to get over here, through customs and to my local post office collection.

Bloody weirdos.

What I really can’t wait for is the second parcel to require £24 customs charge in about 8 weeks from now.

I should start a shop.

I would be viewing this as a freebie, a form of compensation from the universe for all the other injustices I had suffered in life.

But I’m a bad person, maybe you want to take a different path in life.

I feel faintly bad about it but yeah this is the slightly skint reality for me. This bike build has got way out of control so shelling out more cash is a bit of a bind.

@Skülly have you built the rims you bought in this country? Can you return them?

Soz @M_V I missed this suggestion, it’s a good one except: I carried the rims home cabletied to my rack, and managed to slightly scrape the corner edge of the black paint & label where they meet the brake track, which is probably a bit too much to reasonably return them.

Fuck it I’m just going to build the UK ones and hang onto the US ones for a rainy day.