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ebayer sent lawyers letter to sue over £3000 .. advice please ..
 

Hi there,

What should we do here ...

Sold a bulk load(over £1k of oral braun toothbrush sets to an ebayer a half a year ago , turned out that the items were ⊗⊗⊗⊗ as he had the oral braun test them and has emailed us the letters from them and also the country marks and trade .. all in German apart from the email which was automatically translated in English.

Now we had no idea they were ⊗⊗⊗⊗ and never even knew that there
were ⊗⊗⊗⊗ toothbrush sets ... it sounds odd but his email and letters faxed seem very legit.

The ebayer is requesting a refund for the amount purchased and has threatened if no refund he will persue his lawyer to sue us over 3K inc his own expenses , lawyer, solicitor, amount of goods and payment etc Has our name, address etc

Would it be wise to just refund their payments? The eBayer is not in Uk but in Europe .. appreciate your advice, Thankyou!

i would say, forget it. it would cost them too much to sue you. not worth it in my opnion.
but what do i know..

Exactly...

If you used your real information (IE: Real eBay/Paypal/eMail), I would suggest to issue the refund and look at this as a lesson learned.

If it was on a stealth account that youre still using. You can either issue the refund and continue using the account. Or ditch the account and close any accounts associated with it.

Thanks for the advice guys, much appreciated. Yep this was our main account since 04 and real personal details ,.. the last sentence on the email was that if no refund he would have ebay lock the account within a week ..

Spend a little consulting fee with one of your local good lawyers to get more info, confidence and back you up.

Sounds like the buyer is just upset and is sending empty threats. Who is to say youre getting banned from ebay in a week. Not him.

Sent a pm to you.:peace:

If you have the money I would refund him as its the right thing to do. If your struggling, maybe you can work something out with him. If he becomes anal about it and won't work with you, lo siento mi amigo. Tell him to get lost.

-HeG

Hi [insert buyer's user id],

We greatly apologize for this misunderstanding. As I'm sure you know, many of the products on our shelves today come from overseas suppliers. This particular shipment came from a new supplier and we were completely unaware that were not genuine Oral-Braun toothbrushes.

Please ship these items to the following address and we will gladly refund your payment as soon as it is received.

Thank you.

[insert your user id]


P.S. I would also send this by mail on paper with your letterhead on it. Make sure you post it certified mail with return receipt, so they have to sign for it, and when they do a little stub gets mailed back to you as proof they received your letter.

P.P.S. WTF is a Oral-Braun toothbrush?

Braun Oral-B?

http://images.jr.com/productimages/B...FFFFF&CVT=jpeg

#9 is a fantastic example.

If the issue is genuine, you've saved some face and also demonstrated to the buyer that you are concerned.

If he's a scammer and sold the goods but wants to double-dip, that will likely kill the gusto. The cost of perpetrating the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ paperwork in an international legal process should be deterrent enough.

By this method, you've covered both possibilities as well as you can for a first response.

Thanks everyone for the good advice . Taken some advice.
Havent replied and the guy hasnt followed up yet .. he did say our ebay account would be closed on the 14th ... although he might be still contacting ebay.

Just not willing to refund yet as theres no way of proving that stock was the ones we sold him and also who knows he may have sold it all and gained a profit himself .. and the fact he cannot return one single toothbrush replacement seems suspicicous ..

Yep .. see the 2 little replacement heads .. thats the ones we were selling ... didnt even know they could ⊗⊗⊗⊗ toothbrush heads!

firstly if you want to know if oral b ⊗⊗⊗⊗ exist just do a web search, Ive found stuff about them on a 2 second search, theres also ⊗⊗⊗⊗ toothpaste, and we all know mac3,

Also where you got original products from is crucial, I think you know whether they are f ake s or not, now you do at least, not saying you did at purchase, so all this about not being sure doesnt hold water,

if hes had them tested and says they are f s, why wouldnt you believe him, its not like he would say that if it was a genuine product UNLESS he is planning to not ship them back, either by sending you a brick with tracking or kicking up such a paypal fuss that they refund him regardless - but just from your account I believe the buyer, people ususally dont fret so much unless theyve been had.

we are advising I think someone who KNOWs more than is letting on, come on ,we all know who supplies what VERO product on this forum and we know what we are getting because of who is supplying them...

And what if he buys fa kes from somewhere else and has them tested and claims they're the ones you sent them?

I would pay his return postage too ...

Update:

The buyer first stated all items were confiscated by German trading standards and that he could not post any back.

Now he has asked for our address as he has a "few" to post back.

We think hes trying to find out our address as we had an email from ebay that this ebayer requested the personal address details.

Luckily for us those were the old PO box details we had.

Is there anyway someone can find your address through paypal? Would Paypal hand it over if asked?

Thanks again :0)

If they paid with PayPal, probably so. But you said this transaction happened 6 months ago? Hmmm.....why did it take them this long to put this complaint together. Even PayPal says you have 45 days after purchase to file.

I wouldn't rule out scam.. 6 months ago confiscated by the German customs and now they don't have the product to return? Really? I say its a scam. The scary thing is scammers are becoming and more sophisticated.... Also, they threatening that Ebay will close your account within certain time if you don't pay.. another red flag!

Are eBay going to be interested once the item has disappeared from their pages?

Just as an addenda - Several powersellers on the eBay forum have had similar approaches from "apparent" lawyers threatening court action, etc. Usually they are accused of violating someones trademark and told that they have to surrender all their stock and the profit they made, yadda yadda.

They have reacted in various ways:

Binned the letter
Got their own lawyer to write a "cease and desist"
Written to demand further evidence
Written to plead ignorence/forgiveness and dont have any stock left
Etc

So far no one has been taken to court.

There was a thread on the eBay powersellers forum about this not long ago.

I mark threatening letters "return to sender" and put them back in the post.

You should never refund untill you have received the return , never , never , never !
Don't listen to these idiots who tell you to refund .

Sounds like a scam to me , if you don't get a full return DON'T refund them .

Take one negative feedback comment on the chin , it's not the end of the world

There are firms our there writing scary emails to all kinds of internet users - some of them kids - trying to scam money from them. Like people getting hold of your IP address of your wireless network then getting mickey mouse lawyers to threaten to sue you for "illegally" downloading music/films etc. None of these cases has got to court - they are designed to scare people into parting with money.

As some other posters have said I would be deeply suspicious of the amount of time that has gone by. If someone stiffed me for £1K I would be off the starting blocks a lot earlier with my approaches.

The "few" he has managed to acquire may well be f*** and it was these that failed the manufacturers tests.

If you bought something from a high street store would they refund you on your word alone? Not so. Try getting a refund from Walmart or Tesco on these lines. You have to produce ALL the goods.

The sample letter is a great ploy - but use an accommadation (virtual office) address for returns and snailmail business correspondance as I do.

wow ... great information and knowledge folks .. wouldnt know what to do without you guys , so Thank youuuuuu :)

We found it odd that the person first saidevery single item was confiscated and could not return not one and now is saying they can return a few out of the hundreds we sold them ... so they return a few items out of a hundred for a full refund ...

Thanks again for confirming :0)

How do you know its not a switch?

What some of the powersellers say when a customer wants to return a "faulty" item and they suspect a "bait and switch" tactic is to tell the customer that once they (or their insurers) have confirmed that the item bears their "secret mark" they will be happy to refund. If they then hear nothing more they will then know its a potential scam.