Waiting over 10 weeks and counting for eBay to acknowledge my complaint and offer a refund.

[byron_gayle]

KEF Coda 9.2 Floor standing speakers
£75.00 Item subtotal
Sold on: 9 Jan
You marked as paid

a) I listed the above item for sale in the UK, stating collection only late 2023  b) Some guy from Poland buys the item. c) I contact him and he informs me he made a mistake and will not be buying it. d) I remove the item from auction and sell independently from eBay e) I try and remove the soldi tem from my Selling feed and mistakenly marked it as paid for, even though it was never sold or paid for. f) I am now being told to despatch the item by eBay which I no longer own as I sold independently of the platform g) I have also incurred selling fees for an item that I did not sell on eBay. I have been charged about £9.50. I dont necessarily want to report the guy, but equally this is not a problem of my making and of course I do not expect to incur selling fees for transaction that never took place. All I was trying to do was remove the item from my Selling feed as it was not sold through eBay. Please help The only way I could see to resolve the issue was to report the user which I did. As a result on 8th Feb I received a mesage from eBay stating they were Reviewing my report.  Here we are in late April. There has been no update from eBay and I am still £9.50 out of pocket with no indication as to when (..or even if...) I will ever be reinbursed.  It seems very unfair and is unacceptable both from a timescale and resolution perspective

[tressygirl]

If a buyer doesn't pay you have 30 days in whch you Have to open a case for unpaid item, you can do this after only 4 days of no payment, only then, is the case closed correctly,  and your seller fees are refunded.

You are far too late to do this now,  so the fees stay to be paid.

All I can suggest,  is to contact eBay Customer Services explain you did not understand / follow the process properly,  could they pease refund your seller fees.  They may,  make a discretionary refund.  No guarantee they will,  but worth asking.

To Contact Customer Services it's a Live Chat, or you can select to speak and request a Call Back. Click on this link:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/eua?id=5275&mkevt=1&mkpid

On the left sidebar you can see Have us Call you or Chat with Our Automated Assistant.

On weekdays lines open between 8 a.m. and 10 .m.

On weekends they open between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

@byron_gayle 

[jckl1957 · Accepted solution]

There was no need to report the buyer.  They made an error in agreeing to purchase an item which was collection only when they could not do so.

As previously advised, reporting a buyer does not start any sort of a process.

There is no way that Ebay would connect you reporting a buyer to your belief that you have incorrectly been charged fees.

You agreed a collection only sale and then marked the sale as 'paid'.  Collection only sales can be cash on collection so Ebay took their fees from you.

As advised by @tressygirl you may be able to get the fees back if you speak to a Customer Services agent.

One of the forum rules is that you must not name other members so your posts may be moderated.

[papso22]

You made a mistake at d) by not cancelling properly, and compounded it by an error at e) and  now you are blaming ebay for the repercussions, it doesn't work like that!

[byron_gayle]

I totally accept I screwed up by marking the item as paid for.  However, this whole situation only came about because another eBay user "brought" the item by mistake. I emphasise the words "another eBay user", who was the one who initially made the mistake.

I am certainly blaming eBay for not reponding to my request after 10 weeks which I think is justified. The person who instigated this mess is "another eBay user" so I dont quite see how you absolve eBay from respnsibility for his mistake. 

It doesnt work like that

Either way I should still get my money back. Regardless of who is to blame and how we got in to this position, eBay still took £9.50 from me for a transaction that never took place and its not unreasonable for me to expect it returned. 

Anyway, thanks for your thougts

[*vyolla*]

There is no request for eBay to respond to. When a buyer is reported eBay don't tell you what, if any, action has been taken (in this instance no action would be taken because there was nothing to report the buyer for).

eBay is a selling platform which is largely automated, and you had a collection item that you marked as paid for, so eBay would assume that you'd received payment on collection.

The path of action to get a credit for your eBay final value fees would have been to deal with the issue as outlined by the previous responders. All you can do now is to contact eBay Customer Services and let them know that you accidentally marked the order as paid.

[byron_gayle]

Thanks for your thougts but I am struggling to understand where you are coming from. 

The only way of highlighting the issue as far as I could tell was to report the buyer who placed the order, but please do enlighten me as to how it should have been expedited if you dont mind. I am the first to admit I am not the best at navigating my way through these situations, hence my mistake in the first place. 

Having reported the user and having outlined all the points I made in my statement above within my complaint, I dont see how eBay could do anything other than connect me to the buyer.

After all it was his order that lead to the situation which necessiated me raising the complaint in the first place. I  just dont see how they could do anything other than join the dots, but perhaps I am missing something.

[byron_gayle]

Thank you for your reply. I will certainly follow up with Customer Servicesand see how I get on

.

You say I had 30 days to open a case for an unpaid item but I dont know why I would feel the need to do that if I never shipped him anything and there was never any transaction. 

If this is the only way to close the case properly and get my fees refunded, the timescales and 30 day window is irrelevant

There is absolutely no way I would have imagined raising a unpaid claim against an item that I never despatched was the correct course of action in this situation. Whether it was 30 days or 300 days  it would have never cross my mind. It seems a strange thing to have to do to satisfy the system's criteria to get a refund.imho

I apreciate these things are not in your control, but I am struggling to understand why this should be discretionary.To recall the facts.....

1/ The guy orders my item by mistake which costs him nothing and causes me grief.
2/ I, in response to his mistake ,compound it with one of my own and mark it as paid for when there was no transaction

3/ It ends up costing me £9,50

I cannot think of any scenario where you or eBay would think that is fair or acceptable.

I know we are only talking modest amounts on this occasion, but I have sold luxury watches on here for £1000s. If that were the type of item in question I would be £100s out of pocket, yet my funds being returned for a mistake I did not instigate is dicretionary?

And all this whilst the bogus buyer and root of the problems has none of the headache and incurs no fees?

That does not sound fair to me at all

Anyway, I appreciate your suggestion and thoughts on the matter.

All the best.

[byron_gayle]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I do understand what you are saying. Any action for a complaint I raised against a user would be between eBay and the party I complained about. There would be no obligation for eBay to update me on anything they decide to do or not do

But that being the case, can you please enlighten me as to what I should have done when this situation first arose? I can see no way bringing this to eBay's attention other than report the user who made the false purchase and explain everything in the message associated with the complaint which is what I did.

I get that the infrastructure is mostly automated and that eBay would assume a transaction had taken place when I marked the item as paid for.

Howwever, once the complaint had been raised agaiinst the user (rightly or wrongly) and once I had explained the course of events in the assosiated message was it so unreasonable to expect a resolution and a refund?  I get that when things run smoothly there is minimal human intervention but when it comes to complaints and disputes surely the associated message  has to be read by someone somewhere along the line? Computers, AI and bots cannot be objective or have opinions to resolve matters

What else was I supposed to do to get eBay's attention other than report the user?

Please do enlighten me. Thanks in advance

[byron_gayle]

hanks for your thoughts on this. This is frustrating because I just replied to your message but rather annoyingly, my reply seems to have disappeared after editing.  Not the first time this has happened, but I will reluctantly retype it

First and foremost thank you for your suggestion of contacting Customer Services. I will most certainly do this and will see how I got on.

However, I dont see why it sould be necessary for me to open a case for an unpaid item in order to satify the system's criteria to get a refund. I would logically have no reason to do this because I was still in possession of the item and as such did not expect payment for something that not been despatched. Whether it was 30 days or 300, there is no way I would have imagined this was the correct thing to do to resolve the issue.

If this is the only way to correcly close a case to get a refund the I would argue the systems logic is flawed because I am sure many would follow my line of thinking in this situatio and not think to open a unpaid item case given there was never any transaction

I also fail to see why any payment should be discretionary. To recall the sequence of events....

1/ An eBay member from Poland buys a 'collection only' item from me and following my enquiry he confirms he ordered the item by mistake. There is no recourse or penalty for him to worry about, so he goes on about his sweet way.
2/ I compound his error by adding one of my own and marking the item as paid for. This triggers a process which entitles eBay to collect selling fees from me.
3/ I raise a complaint againt the user to get eBays attention on this matter as I saw no other way of doing it. I explained everything i have said in my initial statement above in the message associated with the complaint
4/ I hear nothing after several weeks and am left £9.50 out of pocket

I dont see any scenario where you or eBay would think that fair or acceptable

On this occasion we are only talking about modest sums of money. However I have sold luxury watches on the platform for £1000s and if this was the type of item in question I would undoubtedly be £100s out of pocket. I have a Rolex Datejust listed for £7,800 as we speak.

Yet a refund is discretionary?

And all this whilst the bogus buyer who initiated the unfortunate chain of events has none of the headache or feels any consequences whatsoever as a result of his errant actions?

That does not sound fair to me at all

With regard to the last point, I have come to recently realise that eBay are under no obligation to inform me of the outcome of any action taken against a user that I have reported and as such, I should not expect a reply regardless of the number of weeks I have been waiting.

However, once the complaint had been raised (even if it was not the correct thing to do...) surely the message and explanation associated with it has to get read by a human somewhere along the line and that person can sort it out?

I understand the platform is driven by computers and that there is no human intervention when transactions run smoothly, but I would have thought things are very different when it comes to complaints and disputes.

Computers are unable to have opinions nor possess any of objective human reasoning necessary to resolve contentious matters like this, surely?

Anyway, thanks for your suggestion and all the best

[papso22]

There is nothing more we can do to enlighten you.  You are expecting far too much of ebay, an organisation with few staff and hence rigid automatic processes which leave no room for correcting errors other than those that are already built in.

Buyer errors such as yours made, are dealt with by cancelling, either for non payment or at the buyer's request, seller errors, such as yours, have no systems to deal with them.

EBay systems are a one way street and you can't reverse a process when you do something wrong. 

[*vyolla*]

---

@byron_gayle wrote:

But that being the case, can you please enlighten me as to what I should have done when this situation first arose?

---

As soon as you marked the order as paid and realised that you couldn't reverse this you should've contacted eBay by live chat or their call back route to let them know that you did this in error.

Reporting the buyer was the incorrect route (there was nothing to report the buyer for so I'm not sure what reason you selected for your report). The (largely automated) system could see that you'd sold an item and marked it as paid.

[byron_gayle]

Thanks for your comment. I appreciate there is a set time period and process to get back my seller fees.

I cannot pretend I dont find this constant "You did it wrong, this is how eBay does it" narrative to be frustratingfrustrating though. 

How anyone is supposed to know this stuff in advance of being presented with the adverse situation is beyond me. This is especially true specially when the correct solution provided seems to be in no way intuitive. 

I was planning on selling on teBay much more going forward but the responses I have received to my recent queries leads me to think this would be a mistake and if anything I should be doing the opposite and cutting back on eBay.

I have a Rolex Datejust currently listed for £7,800 and I would like to think that the Authenticity Guarentee process (something that is straight forward that I do actually understand) would protect me from anything like this happening when I sell my Rolex but who knows?

You may recall from my other recent post about the scam buyer who issued a refund request for a no returns item that was 100% as described and lied about it being faulty.

Yet I am the one who has to adhere to his nonsence and issue a return label and process his refund?

I find eBays logic to be very wacky tbh and it kind of scares me. I have unoqivical evidence in the messages between me and the scammer that he is indeed a scammer, but no one seems interested in that. "Just do what you are told or else...." is the overriding message.

He should be booted off eBay to stop him scamming the next innocent seller and to clean up the platform but who knows what eBay will do? It just leaves me feeling cold and unsatisfied. It also teaches me a lot, not least that there are bogus buyers out there who know how to manipulate the very obvious flaws in the platform much bettter than me.

Maybe my Authenticity Guarentee confidence is misplaced and perhaps its not beyond the realms of possibility I could find myself in a simiiar situation with my Rolex and be owed the best part of a grand in selling fees. Maybe its just not worth the risk to me any more because there seems to be a "you should have done it this way" answer to everything.

I do not have time to read the small print of every possible negtative scenario that could occour in order to protect myself should the adverse situation arise and neither would you or anyone else. I have no confidence in eBays logic or have confidence things will get resolved in my favour when I am exploited on the platform.....even when the situation is black and white against the other party like with the bogus GPS watch refund.

If it not obvious I write a lot. I use the exact same energy to provide detailed descriptions for absolutely everything I have ever listed on the platform, and always provide loads of photos of the item in question whether the listed price be £1 or £10,000

That seems to count for nothing as the dishonset buyer can simply ignore everything i said and continue with his cunning plan to scam regardless.

eBays got his back and he knows it. Sadly for me I didnt.

Silly me.

I really need to rethink my use on this platform and perhaps sell my Rolex elsewhere but anyway, I appreciate your thoughts.

[john1297576]

Just one small point when you were blaming the buyer for buying a collection item, you do say he is in Poland. His mistake could have been purely down to a language problem. Not all Poles are fluent in English.

As far as the watch is concerned I would never sell anything of value on ebay, there are far too many buyers ready to take advantage of the system to get a freebie..

[byron_gayle]

Nothing against Polish people and there are a few here in Slough, Berkshire  that I consider to be friends.

But with the greatest of respect if their English is poor they should not be looking at UK based listings.

Furthermore, regardless of the level of comprehension buying is a two step process so there was plenty of time to back out, He could also have asked me to cancel his order when he realised he made the mistake. That is what I would have done.

Added to that, I would argue that words like "Buy" and "Continue " or "Are you sure" would be understood by those with even the most limited grasp of the languge, but anyway,I appreciate your thoughts.