fraudulent returns, no seller protection

[mclovinmonkfish]

Hi,

I have been a seller on and off on ebay for around 4 years now, unfortunately I have now been a victim a giant loophole within your system and think my selling days will come to an end. You see I recently fell victim to the fraudulent returns scam which even though it states in your terms of service I would get my money back if i were not returned the same item. However ebay refunded the thief, after admitting i was defrauded may i add,  and still took over £600 from me leaving me in debt also declining all my appeal requests even after an action fraud reference number was given. The employees at paypal who have been chasing me about this debt say this this is an awfull situation however the responsibility of resolving this case and getting my money back lies with eBay. I have been in contact with ebay for over a month now and most staff give me different, mostly automated responses that dont really help me at all. 

I know i have been told to take this matter to court but what happens if he still does not pay then? and alo does ebay pay for the court fees and bailiff fees since they refuse to resolve this. 

I also provided eBay with the live unboxing of the package returned which was just shrugged off ("as only legal offices can take evidence into account" which means that claims in general are illegal in my understanding of this )

 anyone had similar experiance with ebay not giving any help, i cant even contat them via email as it looks like i have been blacklisted, and managed to get their money back?

Thanks

             John

[red_magpie]

I appreciate what an awful situation this is for you, but a bit more factual explanation of what's happened would have helped.

I think you're saying that the item the buyer returned was not the same item as you supplied?

This is a regular, if fortunately not a frequent, source of questions. EBay's money back guarantee requires the buyer to return the item in the condition supplied. However, although it doesn't say so anywhere, eBay's policy seems to be to almost rubber stamp cases once the buyer has provided proof of delivery. Numerous sellers have told us that eBay has still made them refund buyers who have returned items which they have damaged, removed parts from or even switched for a different item. Some have said, as you seem to be saying, that they've been told it's up to them to sue the buyer.

The huge problem is that, unlike PayPal, eBay is unregulated. There is no resort to any independent appeal, although eBay's default seems almost always to be to support the buyer. We have all agreed in the user agreement to accept eBay's sole decisions on disputes. As all transactions here are governed by eBay's user agreement I'm not even sure what scope this allows to even challenge outcomes through the courts.

You could try giving us a bit more information, but I doubt whether anyone here will be able to help you if this is what's happened. EBay has become a frighteningly risky place to sell anything of value.

[mclovinmonkfish]

Thanks for the comment, so basicly i sold a pair of £660 shoes to a buyer in london (im from scotland) done high value sales and sales to people with low feedback (buyer had fairly new account and 3 feedback, i understand i should not have sent them because of this) before with no problems so i took his offer. I shipped special delivery so he recieved it the next day 20 mins after he recieved it he filled to return on item not as described (i accidently accepted this but as iv heard i would have had no choice). Immediatly i phoned ebay who said not to worry just dont pay for the postage and we will get him to prove they are fake as you have given us information to prove they are authentic. However the buyer paid the shipping and returned them with tracking to me off his own back and opened a claim the day i recived them i thought the package was alot lighter than it would have been so i recorded the unboxing. I was returned a metal tray.
So i phoned ebay to open a case where i got a lady who had no idea she said “the item is over £250 so we cant do anything”.

The next day i phoned and emailed again this time i opened an appeal which was closed after 1 hour with an “your appeal has been declined as we cannot tell if the fault does not lie with the buyer”. I also proved via time and date on iphone that the live unboxing was the original package he sent me.

I then phoned paypal ect who said its up to ebay and gotten the police involved. I have given all this information to ebay who now admit i have been defrauded and still they refuse to grant me an appeal. It has been over 40 days of back and forth messages to ebay which has led me to being blocked on the email list from my account. On the 24th of november after he was refunded he attemted a chargeback on the paypal transaction aswell.

The only thing they have told me to do is take it to small claims court.