Buyer refused to return...received refund anyway.

[1nathan23]

Long post here; if you can stick around I'd appreciate it. Just wanted to post this here. I'm kinda shook up over this to be honest and I don't know what else to do or who else to ask advice on. I've been selling on eBay for some time now and I've never had a negative experience, they've always been fair and have always been supportive of me selling on here.

So I've been selling some of the really rare Disney Zavvi steelbooks, which aren't easy to come by and are only made in limited quanitities. A buyer from France bought three of them. Now in the town where I live, we're still locked down and I mentioned on my listing that it would take me a couple of days to operate around my post office's opening hours to get them sent. I sent them and the buyer messaged me around a week later complaining that they hadn't arrived and told me that he was going to open a case against me. Luckily, I had tracking. But I thought I'd wait and see if he tried to. So the buyer eventually opened a case (even after the items had arrived) and I immediately provided the tracking details which showed they had indeed arrived. Once this had happened; the buyer contacted me and asked me if he could return them as they were 'damaged and broke'. He sent me pictures of them which was baffling to me as honestly...I'm somewhat of a collector myself and I would never have sold them as 'very good' if they were damaged, dinted or warped like he was claiming. So I told him I could offer him a refund for one of the steelbooks (the most expensive) and he could have 3 for the price of 2. He declined and said he wanted a better offer.

He opened a returns case for all of the items and I was happy to help him. I contacted him and told him I would be heading down to my post office to arrange a returns label for him. As I said, my town is only small and we are still locked down, so when I asked if this could be arranged, they told me that they weren't facilitating any more parcels or processing any returns out of the UK at the present time. I asked them if they could provided proof of this; which they did gladly so I could pass it on and explain my situation. eBay wasn't giving me the option to send a label from my end due to technical difficulties. I then attempted to use hermes online to sort out a label return and they also provided me with a detailed email explaining that they couldn't process a return to the address in the question. So I was confused by all this; but I couldn't go into my local hermes to ask more information as it's never opened up since lockdown.

I contacted the buyer explaining everything and I told him that I could offer him the money to return the items via paypal. I remained nice with him and even said whatever had happened to the items must have been done in transit and it wasn't his fault. He never replied. I contacted him again briefly explaining that once he'd agreed and sent me his paypal details I would send him over the funds to return the items to me. I said I'd help him out with the postage before he even arranged to returns them. Still...I received no reply. I was getting concerned at this point as he was refusing to contact me.

I contacted eBay customer support explaining the situation. I was told on three occasions that they could clearly see I was attempted to contact the buyer and he just wasn't responding. The third member of staff; whom I expressed concern as I felt this buyer may have been using the system to get these items free of charge without actually returning them; reassured me that the next step to tell the buyer that he had to return them from his end and that they were on my side on this. So the deadline hits...he received a refund for one of the item...the second is put on hold requesting more information from him and the third he is asked to return. I was in shock to be honest; this buyer never made any attempts to communicate with me at all and they'd refunded him anyway?

I arranged a callback with eBay and I explained to guy everything that had happened. He told me that from his end, he could see this buyer had abused this case sysem and was simply escalating the case over and over again without contacting me. He told me that the French eBay site was who processed the refund and that I'd need a spokesperson for that site to sort out the situation. He explained what was already mentioned to me; that the case was meant to be put on hold in my favour so the buyer could return them from his end. He even stated that he couldn't understand why they refunded him for one, but are asking him to return Cinderella?

So I contacted the french customer support and around a day or so later, was contacted back saying that I didn't communicate with the buyer to process a returns and that's why they have decided to refund him for one of the steelbooks. They said that it's my duty to contact the buyer and arrange a returns and maybe I should consider doing this in future transactions if this should occur again. I was really shocked by this and extremely upset; I'd explained my situation clearly to the buyer and to eBay themselves. Even providing proof from the post office and Hermes too and they obviously can see I contacted the guy to process a returns and even offered him the money via paypal before he even sent anything.

Now I've been told he's being refunded for the 2nd steelbook too without any proof or details sent to me as to why this decision has been made. The third (cinderella) is currently open and awaiting for him to return the item. As the guy over the phone had stated, why this has happened for this item and not the others I don't know; but I honestly am really upset over this. I said to eBay through customer suppoer a few days ago...I didn't mind refunding the items, but I just wanted the items back and now that won't happen. The buyer has made no attempts to return the third steelbook either, no tracking informaton has been sent and he hasn't contacted me. But I feel like the moment he contacts them they'll simply tell him he's in the right and refund him anyway. I think what's got to me the most is that I expressed to eBay before the case properly kicked in that I thought this buyer was going to use this method to get the items for free and three of their staff told me they more or less could see this was what he was doing. Heck even the guy over the phone said he thought he was abusing the returns method. I don't know why I've posted this here...as I know no one can help. I just wanted to talk about it as I'm absolutely devastated to be honest.