I had a buyer in Canada request a return for a $15 item. The buyer repeatedly ordered from me before and sought to haggle a discount and once I accepted it, she requested to cancel the sale.
This is the only order which she did not cancel and was delivered to her. It was a sealed set of 4 collectible postcards. Without contacting me (despite she was previously messaging me all the time asking for discounts), she opened a return through eBay. She claimed only 3 postcards were inside.
I offered to refund her $4, which she declined. I then offered her to return the postcards in the cheapest untracked envelope, stating that I will pay the postage. She refused.
Eventually, I sent her an international pre-paid return label valued more than the order total, as I suspected the buyer was hoping to keep the merchandise for free, which I would not allow. It’s a collectible item and I can easily still resell it for more, after giving her a big discount.
Now, the buyer has the pre-paid return label in her eBay messages. But she stopped responding and now, the return is still open.
I am worried she will escalate it to eBay into a INAD case and I will lose, because the return label was given in a message, I did not upload it into the return at the time I accepted it.
Does anyone have any experience what would happen? Will eBay check the private messages?
I buy lots from ebay (and sell a little only once in a while) and have had a few returns, I don’t know how experienced I am. I just wonder why you don’t upload the return on eBay now, rather than give it in a message. Also, it looks like this buyer may have a hidden agenda and wish you ill, but what’s her point…to post negative feedback maybe?
Anyway… YES, eBay DOES check private messages, AND takes them into account - in fact, they’re very good at that, totally unlike Amazon. (I often marvel at how they find the time / enough staff to do it…but they do seem to read you, and take intentions into account).
So, I have an update! I am hoping this will help someone.
Overnight, the buyer somehow managed to escalate the return into an eBay case. This is despite she received an international pre-paid return label and as soon as she did (despite she insisted on this since the beginning), she stopped responding to messages and ghosted me.
I woke up to several e-mails from eBay received over the course of the night stating that the return was escalated to a case. Then another e-mail stating that eBay decided that the buyer has to return the item. A hour later, the case was decided in the buyer’s favor, without even giving me any option to respond to the case at all, before it was decided while I was asleep!
Clearly, the buyer must have spent hours on the phone with eBay, pushing for a returnless refund.
As soon as I saw this, I called eBay UK customer service and they swiftly overturned the case and decided it in my favor, also removing the defect! Now this is a good platform, not like ScamAzon.
It is because the buyer is in Canada, while I am in Slovakia. This means that I am unable to purchase a pre-paid return label through eBay. Also, purchasing an international postal label will usually exceed the total cost of the order.
EBay help page on international return states that the sellers should negotiate a solution with the buyer, such as a partial refund or sending money for postage. This buyer categorically refused any solution, she was rude from the begining. She already bought from me before, constantly messaged me asking for discounts and then requested to cancel the purchase claiming a child placed the order.
One of the good things about eBay is that you can block her from buying from you.
Unfortunately, she can create another account with another email address and that one will not be automatically blocked - if you recognise her in this other account, you can then block her on that account too.
(If you want to be sure, you can ask ebay whether the same Paypal or bank account is used on both her eBay accounts. eBay usually listens to and does help sellers).
In fact, if she repeats this pattern with different accounts, especially after being blocked by you on one of them, you could report her to eBay - I’m not sure what they’ll do exactly, but if she leaves bad feedback for example they would surely remove it, seeing that she just buys from you to persecute you.
Yes, on eBay it’s possible to have a case decided over a phone call with them. But just as easy as it is to get it decided over the phone, it’s just as easy to have it overturned, unlike on Amazon.
You can have it overturned, yes; but some things don’t get overturned on ebay, which can get overturned on Amazon. For example, if negative feedback is removed on eBay, it can strictly never ever be reinstuted, even if the staff on the phone wholeheartedly agrees that it should never have been removed; while on Amazon, my negative for a seller, which the seller had managed to get removed, got put back by Amazon as they agreed on the phone that it should not have been removed (by another member of staff. That was many years ago though).
