False claim from buyer

[shanm_9847]

Hi all.

I sold a slightly pricey item via GSP to a buyer overseas. She received it, and claimed she got the wrong size. She took a picture to make her point, whereas I'm sure I sold her the correct size. I only had one item, which was exactly the one sold to her.  The size can be clearly seen in a picture from the listing. Also, she then made up nonsense saying the item being used. The item was a jewelry piece and it has slight vintage effect. Many famous retailers's pictures can prove that, not to menetion I took my own pictures.

Anyways I have a feeling that she wants trick me into partial refund or return, so I contacted eBay. As you can imagine, their CS tends to side with the buyer, and advises me to take accept the return if the buyer requests it. I'm hugely upset. Because they also ask me to offer free shipping label to the buyer, which means I need to pay for £20 or more for the postage as the buyer is not based in the UK. Also, a different size will be sent back to me if the buyer does swap it and try to trick me. So what's my protection???

Any advice? Thank you.

[john1297576]

Seller protection is virtually non existant, and one of the risks every seller takes selling on ebay.

Returns can prove expensive for sellers, even more so when selling overseas.

Apart from Countries Blocked by Ebay you are committed to sell to every country in the world, I would suggest you do some editing to eliminate overseas sales, if you do not want this risk.

[red_magpie]

they also ask me to offer free shipping label to the buyer

It isn't even as easy as that, as eBay doesn't provide prepaid labels for international returns. The seller somehow has to arrange and pay for the return themselves. Someone here may be able to advise you how to do this from the UK; personally, I wouldn't have a clue.

The "obvious" answer would be for the buyer to arrange the return, and for you to pay them for this. But we have heard from sellers whose buyersin the US have flatly refused to cooperate. The sellers eventually just refunded them without the item being returned. At least two sellers believed their buyers had opened false return cases in the hope of keeping their items for free.

[shanm_9847]

The item has been swapped I believe. The buyer just wants to make it as  a wrongly describled case but in fact it's just change of mind. She also complained about the item being worn, however, that's just minor vintage effect and pictures from major online retailers can easily prove that.

I can't let her to pay for the postage first and reimburse it.  Reasons are:

*She might not have a PayPal account.

*Wise transfer or PayPal etc. will incur surcharge or service fees, and the conversion rate is bad.

No way to let her keep it. It's more than £150. Not a cheap item.