How long before a case goes to arbitration?

[5129frederick]

A buyer, without any forewarning, opened a "Not as described" case against me over a puzzle which, he alleges, had one piece missing.  This resulted in ebay freezing my assets (no clever jokes, please) so I didn't have enough funds to refund him electronically anyway.  I sent him a rather frosty email telling him I'd have to give him a cheque because of the situation, and why the hell didn't he just contact me direct and I would have been able to give him a straight refund there and then without involving resolutions?

"Oh no," he replied.  "if you're in the habit of selling not as described goods, ALL MUST KNOW AND BE WARNED.  That's the whole point of eBay.  A cheque is no good I want it some other way."  From that point on detante between us NOSEDIVED!  

"Fine, if that's your attitude.  The money is on it's way in cash via Recorded Delivery, WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO SIGN FOR.  Make sure you leave me negative feedback so that when I reply officially ALL WILL KNOW THE SCORE!"  You wouldn't believe the bad blood this has caused over one crummy puzzle.  It shows what a really nice man he is, deliberately setting out to cause the maximum amount of trouble possible i.e. setting out to get me official negative feedback which lasts a full year.

The long and the short of it is he received his money after having to sign for it this morning.  I sent him four photos as proof he had received it via track & Trace - I photoed the screen with his signature on it, plus an email saying will you now please inform eBay that you have received your refund and close the case."

I have heard nothing more.  If, through bitterness, he decides to  do nothing, even though he got his full refund - and a bit more, how long is it before the case goes to arbitration?  I'm not going to let this rest - he's a nasty bit of work who could well say he received an empty envelope just to spite me.  If he does, I've no proof I sent him £6.50.  Thus said, there is an old saying that runs very true - GOD PAYS DEBTS WITHOUT MONEY!  He'll get his come-uppance one day  - with interest.

One thing is certain - I'm such a bad ebayer selling dodgy items, I've got a feedback score of 328 while he hasn't even reached 90.  Little people stay little.

[geosacha007]

Sending him money was a really bad idea. Now he can keep that and get refunded via paypal (with your funds).  Ebay and paypal will not see that you have already refunded him.  You had better hope he does not escalate.

Whay you should have done was say return for refund in the case. He would return tracked at his expense and when it showed attempted delivery he would be refunded from the paypal payment.

If you have not done say say in the case return for refund.

[hyperrush]

The 6,50£ was the refunded price? Did you done in the paypal page? It's impossible to open 2 cases.

[5129frederick]

A 999 piece puzzle would be no good to me.  As I said there was already bad blood between us when he accused me of being a spiv.  There was absolutely no need to have taken things to resolutions - he shows himself up a a very bitter little man.  The type of person whod phone the police if he saw is own neighbour driving down the road without car tax.  I don't think he'd be that small, but as you say, there's nothing stopping him saying all he signed for was a letter of abuse from me.  So if things do have to go to arbitration and the Resolution Cerntre do get involved in making a decision, how long would to be before things are taken out of out hands - four weeks, six weeks, or what?  The only thing in my defence is the emai I sent him of which ebay have permenant records telling him he will get his money via Special Delivery but will have to sign for it.  All the email sent and received will, of course be read by the deciding panel.

[millielilac]

Think the case might time out in about 30 days...

As stated it was not a great idea to refund outside of the case as if the buyer does escalate the case then it is likely that they will be awarded a refund via PayPal.

For future reference the best thing to do when a buyer claims SNAD is just to grit your teeth and offer a full refund on return. Do not make the mistake of entering into a dialogue with them and keep everything calm, polite and professional ( no matter how much you are provoked ).

The problem is that if a buyer tries to contact a seller then a case is opened automatically unless the buyer ticks the " other " option when making contact. It would appear that this may have happened ...your buyer may have been completely unaware that they had even opened a case. It seems that you may have reacted badly to this so it was downhill all the way from this point.

Do not be tempted to escalate the case yourself ....just sit tight and wait ....if buyer does nothing it will time out.

[5129frederick]

Thankyou for your advice.  It's easy to wise on hindsight, but in this particular case I had the princely sum of 8p in my PayPal account, eBay then froze my assets so I couldn't give him an electronic refund and he then started breathing down my neck.  No, opening up a case wasn't unintentional at all - this *Bleep* knew exactly what he was doing.  By saying he had opened up a case against me because if I was selling items "Not as described"  "All must know and be warned" showd his true colours.  He is a 24kt. *Bleep*.

Yes, I took the bait, and took it bad.  I told him just what I thought of him and as I said, things nosedived from that moment on.  Maybe I should had bit my tongue, but I think a lot of other people would have climbed up the wall like me.  I am, as you can see from my signature, a practising Christian but thus said I am only human with human emotions.  £6.09 is not a king's ransome by any means.  What put my nose right out of joint was his self-rightiousness as if he'd never made a mistake.  I've made errors in the past, and had errors made.  When somebody sends me the wrong item, the first thing I do is sort it out with the individual, not go running to the resolution centre every time something goes wrong.

I liken him to a schoolchild:  "Sir, I saw Johnny taking..."

[5129frederick]

As many of you might be aware, I tend to specialise in quality puzzles - mainly Ravensburger, Gibsons and Falcon - the creme de la creme.  At any one time I have somewhere in the region of 140 of them.  Thus said unfortunately you will see them no more.  One rotton apple had indeed upset the cart.  I have had no option but to withdraw them all over this one case.  I just cannot take a chance on it happening again.  There's plenty of other quality items up for grabs, mainly collectors plates, but until I can recount the pieces in each puzzle twice, they will be off the board, many of them going to charity shops because I just doon't have the time.  It's not just a case of counting out 1000 pieces - both Falcon and Gibson have 1008 pieces in their1000 piece puzzles, but round it down fo ease of reference.  You might get one or two come up, but you certainly won't get thirty or forty Gibsons  again even with a free weekend.   One rotton apple has spoilt the whole cart.