Item being returned used

[brock_and_roll]

Hi all,

I sell specialist seeds online and have been selling on ebay for 25 years through think and thin! As you can imagine I occasionally get customers  saying the seeds didnt grow etc - I usually refund these customers or replace - no problem at all - a cost of trade.

I now  have a customer who is accusing me of selling fake seeds, has left negative feedback before even reaching out to me  - and now the customer has started a return. I messaged the customer asking why and how a return is possible (given that the seeds are now seedlings in a pot of compost) - but the customer told me that ebay said this was the way to proceed.....

Have ebay give the customer bad advice here? Their own policy states the item must be returned in the state it arrived in and clearly this is not possible.

Thanks

[style_wise]

eBay like to do things step-by-step (for obvious reasons) even when we think we can see the end point and want to jump there sooner. Your Buyer has opened IND case, and eBay has given them the correct information about returning the item. Since the Buyer germinated the seeds they will not arrive in the condition they were sold in. So the next steps are part of Business Seller's Seller Protections > Abusive Buyer Policy > An item is returned after it was used or damaged by the buyer. So when you receive the damaged item, report the Buyer and follow this Policy to receive the protections offered there (e.g. partial refund, IND metrics protected).

[brock_and_roll]

Thanks - mucghappreciated.

[marco@ebay]

Hi brock_and_roll, thanks for your post.

I understand that dealing with situations like this one as a seller could be rather difficult. However, buyers have up to 30 days since the day they receive the item to open up returns for not as described cases in case they're not getting what they were expecting after reading/checking your listings as per our Money Back Guarantee policy. Cases are reviewed anyway, you can see your seller protection here, and from there a decision is taken. So, I don't think bad advice was provided to the buyer, instead they were probably guided to follow our money back guarantee policy. 

Hope this helps clarify everything,

Marco

[padanpcparts]

What's a 'fake', seed??