Fraudulent buyer

[pooley92]

Hello.

looking for some advise on a fraudulent buyer.

im a gas safe registered engineer who sold a brand new flue manifold to a buyer.

the new manifolds are designed different to the old ones and the buyer is trying to say i sent an old used manifold. The pictures he's included show an old used manifold that is dangerous and could leak carbon monoxide. Now as a gas safe engineer and having a duty of care I would very clearly not sell a dangerous item that could potentially cause harm by carbon monoxide. The buyer clearly needed a new manifold and has swapped the new one I sold for the old dangerous one. The buyer is claiming I sent the old used dangerous one.

how do I deal with this? I don't want to be out of pocket for a liar! I don't want bad feedback when I have 100% and I don't want buyers believing I would sell dangerous items! Do eBay help sellers with things like this or side with buyers? Please help

[*knight-rider*]

if the buyer opens a return for not as described, your fighting a losing battle really and will need to provide a label for it`s return and then refund once it has. They may well be swapping one for another, but Ebay won`t know that untill after the fact and if that`s the case, all you can do is report it to ebay afterwards.

[*vyolla*]

Has your buyer opened a return yet?

You may have a problem here because I can't see a photo of the manifold unwrapped in your listing.

[pooley92]

Yes. I’ve accepted and when it arrives a different item I will raise a complaint

Sent from Outlook for iOS<>

[*vyolla* · Accepted solution]

You did right, that's all you can do here.  If you don't accept a return eBay will force it or refund the buyer and let them keep the item. 

The usual way foreward 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 Action Fraud 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 and issues a "courtesy refund" to the buyer out of eBay's own funds. 

[rjwilmsi]

As advised by *vyolla*, if the buyer returns a different item then in eBay terms it's return fraud, so you complete a report to Action Fraud online and once you've provided evidence of that to eBay you should not end up out of pocket.

[pooley92]

That's because it's sealed

[bladerr6]

He's says he's from Brazil but in Yorkshire I do not want to sell to him

[jckl1957]

If you have a question to ask, start a new thread, explain what has happened, and then ask your question so other members can offer advice or opinions.

[weedeochandoris]

Hi @pooley92 , i had a similar issue recently although not for an expensive item ( original post here https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Buyer-has-sent-me-the-wrong-item-back-after-claiming-... )

and after receiving advice from a few members here, i went ahead and contacted eBay who sided with my version of events, i did include photos of the item i received back so i don't know if that helped my "case".

So yeah you should go ahead and try it. 😀

I don't agree with @ knight-rider saying you are fighting a losing battle though as it just proves that sometimes they do side with the seller.