Buyer Requesting Refund for Damaged Item

[mouserzzz]

I sold a TV on eBay in the UK and dropped at my local Fedex depot a week ago last Friday (14/02). I used FedEx Next Day at a cost of £45. The seller advised me this Friday (21/02) that upon uponing the package, he found the TV to be severely damaged, but no damage to the outside box. The TV was packaged in the original packaging, very well. Weirdly the small mark on the TV that was also mentioned and photographed on the eBay listing is no longer present. I have images of both the before and after.

I submitted a claim to Fedex on Saturday starting all of the above, and attached the images. I received a phonecall today from Fedex stating that they could not progress my case as all reports of issues following a delivery need to be made by the next working day. I can't find this listed in any terms and conditions, and it seems completely ridiculous as I know a lot of businesses or also personal deliveries cannot be opened within 24 hours. In this case, it was due to the TV being 65" and so the person it was sent to had to wait for her son to travel on the weekend to help remove the TV from the box.

TL;DR - 1. TV sold on eBay arrived damaged / potentially not even the same TV as original mark on screen no longer present. 2. Fedex told me there's no recourse as the case wasn't logged by the next business day 3. I'm potentially out of pocket to the tune of £250 due to this as my only current option is to give my eBay buyer a full refund, INCLUDING SHIPPING

[tressygirl]

If a case for item not as described is opened, you will have to accept the case within 3 days.  Cases are all automated no point challenging it at that point.

If you want the item back,  pay for a fully tracked return postage,  and only refund through those case details,  when the item is back with you.  You will have 48 hours to do so.

Stick within those timelines,  and your seller performance will not be affected.

If you think the refund was unjustly granted,  and the buyer has abused eBay's 30 day MBG,  Money Back Guarantee policy,  you can appeal the decision.  I won't lie, it's not always easy,  and does favour the buyer in most cases. 

This explains the appeal process:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/managing-returns-refunds/appeal-outcome-case-seller?id=4369

@mouserzzz 

[*vyolla* · Accepted solution]

To be honest, a TV is something I'd have made collection in person, it's a difficult item to ship without potential issues.

I agree that the time that FedEx have given you to report a damaged item is ridiculously short.

Do you think that your buyer is trying to swop the TV for a damaged one that they've got? If so, you can report them to eBay but will need to pay to get the TV (whether it's yours or not) back. In theory, you could be throwing good money after bad.

Did you make a note of a serial number, or did you take a photo of it? 

The usual way forward in these situations is that the seller accepts the return and gets their item back, if it isn’t their item they then immediately file a report with Actionfraud and get a reference number.

The seller then clicks the "Report a problem" link in the case, selects "Different item returned" as the reason and provides the Actionfraud reference number and report. This stops the automated returns process that would ultimately force the seller to issue a refund.

Then, someone at eBay reviews the case. As to what happens next depends on a few factors - if the buyer has done this before, if the seller is a long standing eBay member who's had no issues like this before etc.  We've seen a good few threads recently here in which the sellers have been in a similar scenario but have not lost out. 

[mouserzzz]

Thanks for both of the responses. In this instance I opted to forget about it, have left the TV with the buyer and fully refunded them as the cost of getting the broken TV back seemed pointless. I will try to forget about this as quickly as possible, except to remind myself to never use Fedex ever again (in the UK anyway).