Buyer made a false Returns claim and supported by eBay.

[lukmcall]

Hi Everyone,

A buyer purchased a product for around £280 and when they received the item they claimed they received the wrong item.

I asked for photos of the item received, and they sent me a item that is completely different to what I sell, so it is impossible for them to receive this item by mistake.

Anyhow they returned the item to me, which when I opened it was damaged, covered in scratches, clearly used for what looked like years. I contacted the buyer asking what on earth have they sent me. The claim was that they received the wrong item, so why has this item been clearly used?

The buyer did not respond but proceeded with eBay to claim for a refund.

eBay supported the buyer and refunded them the £280 and left me with a completely useless broken item that i have never seen before.

When reaching out to eBay all I have received is comments like, unfortunately you have to factor in loses to your selling costs, and that they basically returned something so nothing we can do.

I have proof and photos to support what I sent, and what I have received back, but no support from eBay, other than accept what this scam buyer has done.

Is their any more I can do as I feel that eBay is maybe no longer worth my time as i cant afford to keep loosing money?

Thanks,

[*vyolla*]

If your buyer has now been refunded then there may be nothing you can do here now. 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.