Ebay accused of failing its sellers as fraudulent buyers manipulate the system

[aspkin]

ast November Clive Rose* sold two handmade Japanese swords on eBay, worth a total of £1,940. The buyer, once he had received them, demanded that the cost of the more expensive sword be slashed. Rose refused to haggle and asked for the items to be returned and a refund issued.

Eventually a box arrived. “We couldn’t open it until we had signed for it,” says Rose. “On the label it said two items were inside. When we had signed and opened it up we found the cheaper £540 sword badly damaged because of poor packaging, and a brick. The other £1,400 sword, for which he had been trying to barter, was not there.”

The buyer claimed Rose had forfeited his rights by signing for the parcel, while eBay’s response was similar. Although Rose sent photographs and message threads to support his case, eBay took the money from his PayPal account and refunded the buyer for both swords. Rose, who has a 100% satisfaction rating from other buyers, had his account suspended for withholding eBay’s seller fees and is now threatened with debt collectors because his PayPal account is overdrawn.

[....]

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...tem-protection

[Haidukken]

Ah, that's just how the cookie crumbles.

We are talking big business here and all of this could have been avoided by some simple common sense. In the age of robot customer support or lines of codes that make and take decisions, its no wonder that people get ****ed up and over, left and right.

I'm pretty sure there are countless cases like this and nobody really gives a **** anymore. Welcome to the 2017, the age of YOLO ****ery.

[Play]

I've dealt with this many many many times.. whereby the buyer would return the item back, but take out the expensive components that make up the entire item.

eBay's response - take the buyer to a small claims court as they want no part in it.

For those who run their business on ebay, this isn't a big deal as we're used to it and we eat the loss. But its disappointing for irregular sellers on ebay when they have to put up with it.

[slokor]

A more and more familiar and common story.
As 'Play' said - big sellers can afford that sort of a loss and **** it as a part of the cost of doing business but for the small time seller this comes as a shock to the system. And the fact of the matter is ebay and paypal make sure you agree to the terms of service that relieve them of any sort of responsibility in such a case.
As a small seller one should never even consider selling expensive items on ebay anymore. Sad but true.

[phaz0rz]

Sometimes when I sell an item, the customer will later message me requesting to return the item.