Buyer breaks item then wants money back

[deresi-18]

Morning all as I cannot get through to e bay i thought I'd try this as I am at my wits end. I sold a mother board for a hot tub at a reduced price. The buyer messaged to say it arrived, fitted and was working as expected.  Two weeks later I get a message to say one part of the system wasn't working and they want their money back. It had been professionally removed from my tub and was fully functional. I don't know who they had fit it or whether it was compatible to their tub. Now ebay are threatening a debt collection do I except back a broken item and pay the £300 or just keep fighting and risk a fine as well. Where am I protected in this ?? I did nothing wrong and now have to pay 

[red_magpie]

Where am I protected in this ??

You are not protected. Even on this board we hear endless "it was fine when I sent it" disputes between buyers and sellers.

eBay doesn't even see the items involved and it's default policy is clearly to take the buyer's word against the seller's. A typical reply that other sellers tell us they received from eBay was "We do no actually see the item so do not know what your stock was like when it was posted" and "As we did not see the item, either as received by the buyer or as returned to the seller, we are not in a position to determine who has the valid case, or take sides".

In every case, eBay's idea of not taking sides was to give the benefit of any doubt to the buyer, and enforce a refund.

In accepting the user agreement you gave eBay the power to decide disputes between members, and agreed to accept their decisions. As eBay's money back guarantee is unregulated there is no right to any independent appeal.

eBay is a very risky place to sell things. 

[deresi-18]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, the only reason I sold the
bits was to try and recuperate some of the cost of disposing of the old
tub. Guess it's another £300 gone that really i cannot afford. I have used
physical auction sites for years and you always take the risk, buyer
beware. But to have them say it was working then it "broke" I feel very let
down by e bay and will not be purchasing or selling anything through them
again. So I guess I wait for the debt collectors

[red_magpie]

So I guess I wait for the debt collectors

Waiting for the debt collectors is not a good idea.

It's not clear why eBay was unable to recover the cost of refunding this buyer from the bank account you were required to register with eBay for this purpose.

If you refued payment and eBay had to refund the buyer themselves then one way or another you will have to repay them. I again remind you that in accepting the user agreement you gave eBay the power to decide whether a buyer must be refunded, and you agreed to accept their decisions. So like it or not, you owe eBay this money.

My advice would be to cut your losses and repay them asp. If you continue to resist paying you will risk lasting damage to your credit record and could even also become liable for eBay's legal costs.