Seller's Beware !! No protection for sellers !!

[happy_days5]

Sellers have no protection on eBay ... Something must be done

OK so this is my experience.... Been an eBay member for 19 years.

Have sold many items and have excellent feedback rating.

Sold iPhone 11 Pro, after a few days return request received stating Box was empty. I looked at buyers account only opened in August 2021 with 3 feedbacks. I could clearly see this was a scam... I looked on google maps and saw that the address was not apartments but an industrial site. So, I was confident that eBay would take all aspects into consideration and close the request in my favour.... Boy was I wrong.

They put a hold on my funds £485 and refunded the customer. when I called eBay to appeal the gentleman just said "we can’t do nothing". No investigating no common sense no passion to stop crime or protect sellers. He advised the buyer had sent in a police ref number (which you can get in 5 mins online) and that was the end of it. I explained to him that anyone could order a phone, get a crime ref number and say the box was empty... His response was "yes they could".

He tried to pass the buck onto the shipping company but looking at the photos of proof of delivery the package was as sent.

So, I Have a few questions and suggestion.

If anyone can help me how to get this investigated further internally or externally via regulator?

After looking for help online there seems to be hundreds if not thousands of posts regarding sellers that have been scammed. This is not acceptable and I believe action needs to be taken. As a collective much can be done, it’s not a matter of closing our accounts but rather ensuring eBay has policy in place to protect sellers.

One simple suggestion would be to send orders of considerable value to a service centre for new buyers or buyers with low feedback. The item could be checked securely sealed by eBay and sent to buyer. I know not everyone is a scammer but recently it has been getting out of control.

As I mentioned as a collective much can be done so may start an online petition, highlight on media or something along the lines.

The worst thing is I called my network provided who said they can’t block the phone as not brought directly from them, called apple they said they can’t block the phone either... So, the buyer has a free phone!!!

I took take the hit of £485, but for many people that could be life changing in this day and age. If someone was selling that phone because the needed that money for an emergency and this happened to them could put someone in a very dark place mentally and financially.  

[elitegiftsltd]

Buyers have protection - this buyer used it. Did exactly as I do when receiving empty box. 

At what point should seller protection trump buyer protection? 

Someone has a free phone. May be buyer, may be someone else. 
Couple of times I've had an empty box arrive, once in a royal mail bag as package was open, once simply empty with nothing to indicate lack of content except the weight. 

There's a common saying on ebay, been around for years. Never sell anything you cannot afford to lose. 

[happy_days5]

I’m focusing more on the seller aspect that is the point there are protections in place for the buyer if they receive an empty box.

The issue is if the seller has sent a box containing a phone and the buyer receive an empty box (or claims it’s empty) what protection is there for the seller ?

With respect I disagree with your point about if you can’t afford to loose it don’t sell on eBay.. ..

Doesn’t say much about protocols in place by eBay.

[elitegiftsltd]

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@happy_days5 wrote:
I’m focusing more on the seller aspect that is the point there are protections in place for the buyer if they receive an empty box.

The issue is if the seller has sent a box containing a phone and the buyer receive an empty box (or claims it’s empty) what protection is there for the seller ?

With respect I disagree with your point about if you can’t afford to loose it don’t sell on eBay.. ..

Doesn’t say much about protocols in place by eBay.

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Currently no protection. And protection for the buyer.

If you want protection you have to remove it from the buyer. Will that help you make sales?

Disagree away with the saying. Its been around a while, I didn't coin it. 

Doesn't say much about protocols selling anywhere on the internet.

You want to sell expensive items? Stick to offline sales or collection in person. You get better protection. 

Online sales are rigged towards protecting the buyer. Whether on ebay, another site or even your own site. 

[happy_days5]

I think your misunderstanding my point

Protection for buyers is great as I buy from eBay.
But there must be protection for sellers, it this is not uncommon if u look at 3rd part resellers on another popular marketplace they are covered.

And before you advice to take my selling there, it’s not about running away or giving up it’s about making positive changes for all.

It seems you have given up and accept whatever is given to you …..

Kind regards

[elitegiftsltd]

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@happy_days5 wrote:
I think your misunderstanding my point

Protection for buyers is great as I buy from eBay.
But there must be protection for sellers, it this is not uncommon if u look at 3rd part resellers on another popular marketplace they are covered.

And before you advice to take my selling there, it’s not about running away or giving up it’s about making positive changes for all.

It seems you have given up and accept whatever is given to you …..

Kind regards

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Then good luck getting ebay to change things. We do have some protections, up against buyer protections we have little.

How would you protect the buyer in this instance while protecting you? 

I've been in their place so I'm interested. 

[stebar123]

Lets just assume, like you, I get an order for a phone. I get the package weighed, insured, signed for and sent. In that package, I could put the ordered phone or a bag of sand, equil to the weight of the phone. Nobody knows what I am sending out. If I send nothing at all, in the package, it will not have enough weight, when registered and posted.

In between posting and shipping, it is possible, that a driver could open the box, take the phone and reseal the box again. then deliver the empty box. whatever gets delivered, ebay does not know exactly what gets sent or delivered to a customer and neither does anyone else!

Even if a package is weighed at both ends before final delivery, there is still, no proof of what I have sent to the customer.

Has anyone out their, got any idea, how a seller can prove exactly what he or she has posted and if exactly that, got delivered to the customer? Also what can ebay do about it?

[happy_days5]

I don’t think there is a way to protect sellers currently under ebay rules.

Sell at your own risk….

[retrore-92]

Hi,

I've suffered this many times over the years..
There is no protection for sellers, even though we're the ones that pay the fees.

I get sick of their lack of support for sellers, they clearly have no interest and certainly have a book of excuses of why they can't support us.

The worst replies I've had include that the seller should expect and anticipate losses, another where a customer clearly sent back their faulty board after claiming my sent item was faulty - ebay offer the option to report a buyer for returning the wrong item and after sending listing images and returned item images, very clearly different!! - they responded that as they didn't actually see the items they can not help!!

A recent one was a guy who purchased a motherboard for spares, then complained I sent the wrong item, it turned out he purchased in error as a connector was missing - as clearly shown in the listing pictures.
If he had opened the return honestly, so he had to pay return postage, that would be fine and within the risks we all take within distance selling regs, so losing the outward shipping costs.
But no, he claimed wrong item, leaving me liable for return shipping, neither he nor ebay would change the reason to the correct one so I had to lose out.

For me ebay is complicit in theft in these cases, allowing fraud and theft to occur without any care at all.

For me, there is no seller protection nor any interest to provide any.

[happy_days5]

I’m awaiting some documentation from certain stakeholders, and then I will present my case to eBay. If they do provide a satisfactory response I will commence legal action. Keep an eye on this thread I will keep you updated and share the outcome

[papso22]

You should also be aware that by operating from a private account while clearly a trader, you are giving your buyers the legal right to return any item, at your expense, for any reason, for 12 months after they bought it.  The ebay MBG is the last of your worries if a buyer knows their legal rights.

[retrore-92]

Hi papso22,

Totally agree and understand.

I'm currently clearing out my storage (lots of it), but is actually private sales.

For sure, if I was going to venture back into business level selling then I would use a business account.

Thankfully the items I'm clearing are minimal/no financial risk, it's either chew through it and  sell it off or pay to dispose, you could see it as hobby money really.

It's the principal of the matter that's the issue that has not improved over many years.

For sure, the distance selling regs didn't help in such cases - as you say a scammer that knows the legal aspects can use the ebay system and lack of ebay seller support to rip sellers off with great ease.

[shopper-at-bay]

Agree this is an important issue. I had a buyer winning my item but it was in the end established as a fake account. EBay said I should offer a 'second chance offer' to another bidder and avoid such situation by using 'buy now' and chose 'immediate payment required.'  Now we know what this means is sellers having to pay extra for these choices and no surprise more money for ebay. So out of a scam situation, the solution involves sellers paying more to ebay - what a great solution.  They did say they'll restrict/close the fake account in question. Well, what's point of doing that when the fake account was closed even before the investigation started. I am not actually sure who create fake accounts...buyers, sellers or ebay itself . If bidding by fake accounts raise the commissions paid to ebay this needs an independent investigation rather than ebay investigating it as if fake accounts could only be created by buyers or sellers. Lots of issues in ebay that needs more transparency. If they pay tax here for their income,  they need to be regulated and where applicable make it known to their users how ebay own activities  can be investigated independently.

[happy_days5]

Have sent letter of intent to eBay a few days ago will keep you all updated with responce.

[elitegiftsltd]

We can probably guess the response overall....

[happy_days5]

!! Update !!

It took a while for them to get in touch, responce as follows :

Dear *****,

My name is *****, I am a member of eBay's executive escalations team. I am following up from the letter we have received to our Dublin office recently from you. I apologise with our delayed response to this issue.

Firstly, I am sorry to hear that you have had a negative experience with one of your buyers recently on eBay. I can understand how difficult a time this must have been for you.

It is disappointing to see that you were unhappy with the level of service provided by our Customer Service team. We consistently aim to provide our members with an excellent level of service. We have noted your comments, and we are currently reviewing your customer experience internally. Please accept our sincere apologies for this.

I have reviewed the case related to the item number: 27********* and I understand that the buyer, in this case, has claimed the item was not in the box when delivered.

I am sure you can agree that a case of this nature is quite difficult to handle from eBay’s perspective as we never see the item from when it is shipped to when it is delivered so we have a limited view of the transaction.

Although we know that you as a trusted seller have sent the item to the buyer we cannot know if the item has become lost or was stolen while in transit to the buyer's address. I understand that it is your concern that the buyer has acted fraudulently and in all cases of this nature we will do a full review of the buyers account to see if there is any reason, we should be concerned that the buyer is trying to abuse eBay’s policies.

In this case when this review was carried out, we did not find enough information to be able to take action and we would be unable to deny the buyer the refund they were entitled too in this case.

Although by our policy we would not usually be in a position to cover this transaction, we would like to offer to do so as a one-time courtesy from eBay.

Can you please kindly reply confirming your PayPal email address to allow us to make a manual payment in this case.

Please also be aware it may take between 3-5 working days to hit your account once you have responded.

I hope this has brought this issue to a positive resolution, and we wish you all the best in the future.

Kindest Regards,

******

I have received the refund today, and have changed the way I sell now. I won't sell to anyone under 50 positive feedbacks and must have been with ebay for more than a year. It was a very negative experiance but im glad eBay were able to resolve the issue even if it did take over 4 months.

[emilycream]

Similar has happened to me, I will never sell on ebay again. And will be deleting g my account. Its disgusting it's disgusting 

[r.soles_sneakers]

eBay should just offer a place for items to be delivered to where they can be checked and then forwarded on to buyers. As annoying as they can be because like authenticity guaranteed eBay mess up sometimes too and send items back, but it would  be much more safer and limits fraudulent claims on both sides. 
also just like for sellers where it's obviously at our own risk to sell , should be same for buyers too but with eBay inverter to check that items match description etc. 

I'm having an issue with a buyer now who has received an item i sold and now they want to return it even though theres nothing wrong with it. In their opinion its a bit too big for them and now decided they would never use it even when all the photos are clear and measurements are there . They clearly understood what they were buying and stated they are covered by buyers protection. 
what, in this case is this buyer protected from? Receiving something they decided to purchase , in perfect and as described condition and they read the description, Seen all the photos and stats and proceeding with buying! - there needs to be a line drawn

[mondayjon]

I was able to prove that a couple of buyers had pulled a fast one.   One had part swapped the other said there was no power lead (although it was a battery operated item? )  and tried to get partial refund.  
EBay refunded/reversed the payments back to buyers for me.  The annoying thing is the buyer still got the refund, oh and the item.   
IMHO all that does is promote theft and also promoting people trying to get partial refund to.  

[hill-walker]

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@shopper-at-bay wrote:
EBay said I should offer a 'second chance offer' to another bidder and avoid such situation by using 'buy now' and chose 'immediate payment required.'  Now we know what this means is sellers having to pay extra for these choices...

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The vast majority of my listings are BiNs with immediate payment required - costs nothing extra.