Damaged fragile bundle – pushed into full return despite asking only for partial refund/replacement | Member To Member Support

Locked

Discussion interactions are currently paused.

Damaged fragile bundle – pushed into full return despite asking only for partial refund/replacement

Summary: nuance888 shared their experience of receiving a damaged fragile bundle and being pushed into a full return, although they had only requested a partial refund or replacement. john1297576 and papso22 joined the discussion, contributing to the conversation about the incident.

Hello to everybody

I would like to share my experience and ask if anyone else has dealt with a similar situation.
I purchased a very large bundle of fragile tableware (paid 425£ for 36 pieces), and unfortunately, one of the large items arrived damaged. From the beginning, I only asked for either:
- a replacement of the damaged item, or
- a reasonable partial refund

I clearly explained that I wanted to keep the rest of the bundle because everything else arrived safely.
However, Customer Service advised me to open a return case, saying this was the only way to arrange a replacement or partial refund. Once the case was opened, the seller approved a full return instead, and suddenly the process turned into returning the entire order.

The biggest issue is that technically I never even saw any official partial refund offer in the case page. The seller later claimed he offered £8 compensation, but due to app/message problems on my phone, I could not properly see the messages or any option to accept/negotiate this offer. I was only seeing instructions to prepare the whole order for return.

Now I am expected to return a huge fragile bundle, and I can currently see only one return label, which is impossible for safely packing everything into one box (originally, the seller posted it in two huge boxes and by ebay policy I have to send items back in the same condition and packing as received).
This is a huge bundle of fragile tableware, and one item already arrived broken due to insufficient packaging. Now I’m expected to repack the entire collection safely and return everything in the same condition it was received.

Realistically, carefully wrapping and protecting dozens of fragile items will take me at least half a day of work, not including sourcing extra packing materials and transporting the parcels. And if anything gets damaged during the return because of inadequate labels or packaging limitations, I’m worried the responsibility could still fall on me.

Honestly, I’m very unhappy with how this was handled. Returning an entire large fragile collection because of one damaged item feels unreasonable, especially when I originally requested a simple partial refund or replacement. Who compensates the buyer for all this time, stress, and work when the original issue was just one damaged item that could have been resolved with a simple replacement or partial refund?

At this point, it honestly feels as though the process was made unnecessarily complicated from the beginning, almost as if the expectation was that the buyer would eventually give up because returning such a large fragile bundle is extremely difficult and time-consuming.

I originally requested a very simple solution for one damaged item — either a replacement or a partial refund. Instead, the situation escalated into a full return process involving repacking dozens of fragile items, arranging transport, and spending hours of personal time.

Considering that I never properly saw the alleged £8 offer in the case system itself due to technical/app communication issues (!?), the whole experience has felt confusing, exhausting, and unfair as a buyer.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Were you able to resolve it without returning the whole order?

UPD:

Luckily, I had enough time and patience to contact Customer Service again and insist on clarification regarding the compensation. Otherwise, I would never even have known that the seller supposedly offered £8 compensation, because this offer was never officially visible to me on the case page in the app.

The technical issues with the messaging system made communication extremely confusing, and I was only seeing instructions to return the entire order instead of any clear option to accept or negotiate a partial refund.

nuance888

1309 View listings

Posted 2 months ago · Edited 2 months ago·Last reply 2 months ago

4 comments

john1297576

Mentor2 months ago

View listings

In theory damaged in transit should be refunded by ebay, not the seller, with no return required.

It seems to me that this would be best sorted out between you and the seller, to avoid the aggravation of returning for a full refund and more possible damage.

Even if you did not see the offer of £8, if acceptable I am sure the seller would prefer this than having to refund in full, so negotiate with seller by messages, to see if an agreement can be made without involvement of ebay.

nuance888

OP2 months ago

View listings

I understand your point, but I already tried to resolve this directly with the seller.

The seller stated that it was “already a good bargain” and insisted that I return the whole set for a full refund, rather than agreeing to a partial refund for the damaged item. The seller chose to accept a return rather than issue an £8 partial refund.

I also did not have a clear opportunity to accept or negotiate the £8 offer within the case system due to messaging/display issues, or due to seller pushed the "wrong" button, so the situation escalated into a full return process.

nuance888

OP2 months ago

View listings

"In theory damaged in transit should be refunded by ebay, not the seller, with no return required."

I thought the same, but eBay did not protect my purchase under Simple Delivery, due to the seller’s business setup.

papso22

Mentor2 months ago

View listings

If the seller won't agree to a partial refund ebay can't enforce one.

This leaves you the option of a full return, or closing the case.