buyer claims "not as described "after 37 days

[bill7774]

I received a "not as described" notice today. It has been about 37 days since the sale. I listed a printer as new in the box. I stated that the box had been opened to check contents only. That was true. I bought it from an individual and just wanted to check to make sure everything was good.

The buyer claimed that the box had been opened and he wanted a refund because it was listed as new. I send the buyer a message and explained that in the description it stated that the box had been opened. I am afraid that this guy has been using the printer and now wants his money back. Paypal has a hold on $250 for this.

I feel like this guy is scamming me and ebay is going to make me give him a refund. What do you guys think? Should I go ahead and escalate the case.What do you think eBay might do in this situation? I am afraid they may side with him only because I listed it as "new" and not "new (other)"

[slim jim]

i'm not too sure you have much of an option. you can tell ebay your side of the story. if you get a human they may side with you

[TonyAlmeida]

You listed it as "new" and "new in box" that mean in seal box, never open.

[bill7774]

Yeah I realize that.I should have listed it as "new (other)". I didn't expect anyone to use that to scam me.

[slim jim]

you can win, just expect the worst

[STACCATO]

Explain to ebay you open box to properly list items as stated in ebays policy and that you wanted to take detailed photos of items.

[bill7774]

Hm, I just checked this guys feedback. He has bought a lot of new printers. Strange. Perhaps he is reselling them in a little store or something. Maybe I will get lucky if I have to send a refund and the printer will come back in the same condition. Fingers crossed.

[Jonesla9]

You should be good if you stated item was open in the listing.

[TGMT²]

Originally Posted by bill7774

What do you guys think?

Personally, I think you should offer a partial refund that would benefit you and your customer.

Nobody wins if he has to return the item. The shipping costs alone will eat up your profit margin.

Cut your losses and move on.

[vogeltron]

Personally, I am one of those sellers I don't care if I get a negative or lose money. If I think somebody is trying to mess with me I go all the way. I don't care about the money whether it is $1 and I end up getting a negative I don't care. Somebody like this I would tell eBay it was clearly stated the item was new and checked blah blah blah. If you had a return policy be sure to say it was passed the date. This is not your problem. The buyer should have contacted you early. I would also use to new tool to report crummy buyers. Explain your story and tell them this is not how eBay works blah blah. Something about building a trustworthy community blah blah blah. That is about the best you can do. Most these people are trying to get you to play chicken. I have had instances like this before where the buyer was refunded from eBay but they did not take the money from me. I was told by an insider they know that it does put a record on their account for future behavior when things like this happen especially if the Seller has a good reputation and explains themselves clearly.

[rsot]

I agree with you vogeltron - I can take the negatives because I work on more positive transactions. I will fight off buyer fraud to a tee though

[Sandy D]

After 37 days and 250.00 I think if your description is very clear you could win this one.

I usually just count the losses, save the negative and move on but this is one now I have read the thread over again that I would fight for.

[cantzme]

Don't be bullied! I sell a lot of wholesale items, and one particular item had 1,000 pieces in the bag, 45 days later he messages me saying that only 120 came in the bag... Needless to say I won my case, and got his negative feedback removed by eBay as well. I do not play nice with scammers! You shouldn't either!

[Moegames]

Originally Posted by bill7774

Hm, I just checked this guys feedback. He has bought a lot of new printers. Strange. Perhaps he is reselling them in a little store or something. Maybe I will get lucky if I have to send a refund and the printer will come back in the same condition. Fingers crossed.

Be VERY careful with buyers that buy a lot of computer parts, in the last 12 months i've had three damn buyers buy items off me (computer parts) and send me an email as item not described,etc because they claimed the part didnt work...One item was a tested refurbished HDD i bought off newegg, the next item was some DDR3 laptop ram and the last item was a monitor.

The first guy that said the hdd was bunk i know for a fact ripped me off...all HDD's have serials numbers on them..yes i know that..but what this guy did was take off the pcb board off my hdd which was find and working and put it on one of his dude HDD"s that werent any good..i could tell because when i shipped off the item i always look at everything closely,etc and i noticed the pcb board on the underside of the HDD had screw marks on them..it takes a special screw driver to get these pcb boards off Sata HDD's..plus my pcb board and dark brown foam padding under it..when i got the HDD back..it had light grey foaming under it. So i go look at the guys past buys...and here this guy has been buying broken HDD's exactly mine and also buying working HDD's exactly all the same model as mine...so this guy clearly is buying broke hdd's and switching the bad pcb's on them..its one of the first things that go bad on HDD's that click.

The guy that bought the ram..he did a switch on me as well and claimed the ram didnt work..again..i tested the ram..in fact the ram was pulled from my own laptop after i had ugpraded from 8gb ddr3 to 16gb ddr. It was my fault because the pictures i took ..the opposite side of the ram had a stick with a long string of numbers, SN and model,etc..well he must of noticed that my pictures the end portion of the model number was cut off in the pic..so the last two digits were missing...he noticed that and sent me back ram that was CL8 ram when i sold him CL9 ram...the ram i got back...of course didnt work.


The monitor i sold...we another scam where the guy sent me back the monitor stating it wouldnt work...i look at the monitor as i owned it and used it daily for two years straight...i remember a few scratches and certain marks on my monitor that were on my monitor..i didnt think of taking pictures of these ligth tiny marks on the shell of the monitor..not the screen..the screen was flawless...but anyways...this dude got me as well...this guy and the guy that got me on the ram both happened with same week believe it or not...the first scam happened months earlier.

There is ring of guys that are in on this together...you can view it here Dean Collins: When did ebay remove the rights to leave bad feedback about buyers?

This guy in the link above works with other guys..they are from Hong Kong but use a USA address which at this address ship off their bought items to them in Hong Kong... be careful because they use a ton of alias..some think its just one guy..but its a multiple of people in on this ring of scammers. One that recently bought ram off me was from this list of scammers in the link above..his name was TVBuddy2013...now days i always do a quick google check on ebay names..sure enough i hit the nail on this guy and found he was a ripper..so i immediately refunded him before i shipped off

[rsot]

The idea of partial refund is a good one to avoid too much hassle

[golden_monkey]

i just say.... is this worth 250.00 ?

just think.. this guy is prob just giggling thinking hes going to rip you off.

again.. its just 250... have him ship it back... sell it as used cause he probably used the heck out of it and keep on moving.

hes a small fish in a small bowl, you have bigger things to deal with.. aka, selling the hell out of more stuff.


people like this are a dime a dozen, step over them.

for every PITA you stop to deal with.. you are losing many more NOT PITA honest customers... these people are just slimballs, everyone has to deal with them.

[boost]

Originally Posted by golden_monkey

just think.. this guy is prob just giggling thinking hes going to rip you off.

Thats certainly what they do....like when they rip you off for $1600 and ebay basically tells YOU THE SELLER you are wrong. Not even reading the facts or anything....eff em.

[rsot]

It is the sad risk of selling on eB - pricey items I dont even ship to buyer's anymore - I ship to few folx I know in the States and they arrange visit with buyer...including signature, photo, etc....if buyer really wants the item he/she cooperates, and I give them a shipping concession.

[hapajenn1]

Amaz0 n is worse than EB -- EB and PP at least try to hear the seller's side of story , whereas Amaz0 n just doesnt care and usually sides automatically with buyer.

For the buyers scamming thing, the worst is trying to ship to Europe or anywhere outside USA (or Canada) since its too expensive to ship Priority w/ Tracking so you always take the risk.

Speaking of safely and securely shipping to international buyers- - has anyone tried EB Click N' Ship?? I read it is a great way to get reimbursed for shipping if it mysertiousyl gets "lost" in transit.

[Roscoe]

Originally Posted by TGMT²

Personally, I think you should offer a partial refund that would benefit you and your customer.

Nobody wins if he has to return the item. The shipping costs alone will eat up your profit margin.

Cut your losses and move on.

What is customer is Professional Buyer?

[joesshooze]

I am sorry but eb no longer cares about sellers other than big box. I just recently sold something new and the buyer resold to someone on eb and his buyer complained. I have no other complaints 60 fb's. And the guy gave me 4 star fb. So the guy says after exactly 37 days like you that "not as described". I have in 3 places on my listing NO RETURNS and eb says the guy can return it and gives him full refund. Are we financing 3rd party sales now? Just wrong to me in every aspect.
On another note I listed 4 items about $200 of household stuff I wanted to sell to get fb on my new acct. and sold everything the last item 5 mins ago. Cannot beat eb for selling venue from home or any other place.