Whats the protection for a seller who recieves a fake item BACK in a return?

[follettscomercialgymkit]

Have sold my Breiling watch for £1050 will send signed for service. What protects me against a buyer "claiming" its a fake and sending me back a cheap replica or some other rubbish and keeping my watch and ebay giving a refund? Its a private sale not commercial so ebay have attached a buyer protection fee but that wont help me if the buyer is setting out to defraud?

[wintersdawn1]

Yes, they can send back a fake/different watch and ebay will say - 'we don't know that you didn't send them a fake' and you will have to refund.  No evidence will make any difference - photo's/video packing up the real item - ebay doesn't accept such evidence.

Sellers rely on the honesty of buyers on ebay as they can easily scam a seller.

[tommystrezures]

That needs to be sent special delivery, with the correct insurance, not signed for due to the insurance on the item in transit. Signed for service only covers you to £20 and really isn't appropriate for an item of this nature.

I presume the item has some form or serial numbers etc, which you will record or made mention of in the listing, to cut down on this.

The old addage on ebay only sell what you can afford to lose is true, there is no guarantee that the item could be switched. Unfortunately as the item is under £1500 it doesn't goto the authentication centre which would provide you some protection.

If you are that concerned a B & M auction house may provide a much safer alternative with an item of this value.

[papso22]

Isn't that covered by the authentication service?

[jckl1957]

There is no protection from Ebay.

Proving a different item was returned is difficult and stressful with no guarantee of success.

Have a look at the feedback the buyer has left for other sellers.

If they have a history of buying high end items and leaving positive comments for the sellers that suggest smooth and mutually satisfactory transactions, then it will hopefully all be fine.

Any doubts or 'red flags', don't proceed.

[marco@ebay]

Hi follettscomercialgymkit, thanks for your post.

Due to the value of the item, I'd suggest contacting our customer service team, so they can look into it for you, and see what options are available for you at the moment. However, if this was a Authenticity Guarantee item, they might have even more options available, so I would recommend contacting our customer service team as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Marco

[classic-brochures]

Marco, this looks like a problem the seller *believes* could happen...not one that *has* happened, yet 

[follettscomercialgymkit]

It's one that appears to happen regularly on ebay with no protection from ebay. Tge outcome for such a predictable and presumably common event seems to be that ultimately the fraudster buyer simply executes a chargeback on his funding source, who grab the money back off ebay, who then find themselves out of pocket so pursue tge easy target who is the poor seller. He ends up with a plastic watch returned to him and the money taken from his account by ebay so they're not losing. In other words the risk to the buyer is huge if selling and posting valuable items on eBay. Only way around it is to insist on collection which is how I've amended my ad.

[*vyolla*]

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@follettscomercialgymkit wrote:

 Only way around it is to insist on collection which is how I've amended my ad.

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That won't make any difference to an eBay item not as described claim, a PayPal claim or a chargeback.

Any electronic payment can potentially be reversed.