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Got burned today on eBay

Mike Kavanagh

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So I've been dealing with a person on eBay who stated the item I shipped to him didn't work. I tested it before it left me. I know for a fact it worked 100%

I didn't feel like dealing with it so I told him to ship it back and I'd give him a refund of the product price and partial shipping.

I got it back today, in pieces. I'm quite frustrated right now, and PayPal has already reversed the entire transaction.

What I've learned:

State your returns policy fully.

Avoid escalating it to a claim in PayPal as long as possible, it seems they side with the buyer more than the seller. They reimbursed him without hearing both sides of the claim.

USPS Insurance is a joke.


Chalking this one up as a total loss.
 
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Mike Kavanagh

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Exactly what happened to me.
 

LightHouse

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Cost of business dude, get over it and move on. This is, in reality, not worth a thread. That same time you could have listed 5 more products and made up for the one terrible buyer.

There are TONS and TONS of customers out like this. A lot of people think every business is rich and try to "stick it to the man", no big deal, that's all apart of the game. Do volume and you won't care.
 
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Vigilante

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We recently had a buyer order 2 of something. We made a rookie mistake of not shipping 2 separate packages. Buyer claims to only have received one. BOOM. Paypal claim. We of course sent them a third unit, free of charge as we would have lost the claim either way, and this way it couldn't escalate into a claim that would hurt us.

Word to the wise. When customers order multiple items on eBay, send multiple packages even though it will cost you more. Multiple packages = multiple tracking numbers, and reduced fraud.

In this last case for us, it was a cost of doing business and a cost of not correctly watching the shop. Take the tax write off for the loss and move on to the next deal.
 

Ravens_Shadow

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Since we're talking about ebay, I'm gonna go into the consumer side a bit. I bought 5 silver bars off of ebay (bad move) turns out it was silver plated copper. Filed a claim and got my money back after sending the fakes back, but learned my lesson to buy from JM bullion or some other reputable place.
 

Avus

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I luckily have never had issues with Ebay. Ioffer on the other hand... What a train wreck
 
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Mike Kavanagh

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That same time you could have listed 5 more products and made up for the one terrible buyer.
I understand I was really frustrated at the time I posted, it was the first time it happened to me. Although I don't have more product to post right now I should of let it roll off my shoulder.
. Multiple packages = multiple tracking numbers, and reduced fraud.
Yep, will definitely do that when I have to ship multiple packages.

I bought 5 silver bars off of ebay
With silver or gold, I only trust places that have a solid reputation. If word got out that it is only copper plated, they would lose all credibility.
My last purchase I used Providence Metals.
 

sk24iam

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What happened with your USPS insurance claim? I have filed USPS claims before, and while it can be a hassle, they will honor it if you keep pursuing the reimbursement. If you think the item was damaged in the mail, file a claim. Every time I have filed a USPS appeal, they have denied it. And I have followed every denial with an appeal and it was always accepted. I think their protocol is to deny 99% of claims and if the customer appeals, they look into it more carefully.
 

nitroheadz28

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I have been selling on ebay for close to 15 years now, I state a firm no return policy. I have had many experiences on both sides of the fence and generally as a seller- its a lose lose situation. As you've observed, they side with the buyer 95% of the time unless you have some kind of hard evidence. I've stopped selling there entirely if I can avoid it.

Another thing I found interesting is that someone tried to scam my brother out of a $2500 iMac. My brother wasn't the winning bidder, the seller offered the item as a 2nd chance offer, and of course they never produced tracking numbers or the item after the transaction. I've run into several sellers like that, not sure how they scam paypal that way. Regardless paypal reimburses the buyer in this type of scenario.

Sorry to hear about the experience.
 
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Mike Kavanagh

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I'm not going to change my returns policy based on this one transaction since I'm going to stop selling hard lines on there.


What happened with your USPS insurance claim?
I took it to the post office and they declined the insurance claim.
 

funkj25

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I have a no return policy for my eBay account, but if someone says something doesn't work my first reaction is to say send it back to me and not fight it. My first line of defense is to be proactive in getting the product back with a refund or replacement for the buyer. I mention that if it doesn't work I'll give a full refund and if it does work I'll give a refund minus fees incurred and provide documentation(in the form of videos typically). That way you're able to control the amount of money that goes out to some degree and prevent getting knocked down by Paypal or eBay and have your seller profile hurt because you don't want any escalation or to lose a case decided by eBay. If they have a real problem you take care of it and if they're just screwing with you either they'll typically disappear or send you back the item and you call their bluff with documentation and authorize a partial refund. It's the best scenario I've come up with, but I'm sure its not perfect.

In most cases it's the cost of business essentially, just my two bits how I handle things when I have issues. I've had zero escalations for eBay decisions with this approach as of yet and I ship 100-300 items a month just depending on what my hustle brought in that month.
 

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A "no return policy" is not a viable option for a serious retail company. It's OK if you are a casual eBay seller, but not for a PowerSeller and building a viable, vibrant business.

eBay has 100,000,000 registered users. We happen to share one thing in common with eBay. We want access to their 100,000,000 registered users, of which more than half were active in the last 6 months, and only 1% of which have ever sold anything on eBay.
 
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Kak

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If people are pissed off enough they will force the issue to the point of a refund anyway. I have a very liberal return policy up and my return rates have not changed at all. I bet my products are more attractive though.
 

FreeMan

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If people are pissed off enough they will force the issue to the point of a refund anyway. I have a very liberal return policy up and my return rates have not changed at all. I bet my products are more attractive though.

I currently have a 60 day return policy but noticed that the top seller of my product type also advertises a 12 month warranty.

I was initially reluctant to put down a 12 month warranty as I haven't imported products before and wasn't sure of the product quality and how long I'd be importing it for (it's not a branded product but rather I'm doing some importing arbitrage). In Australia, there are laws which protects consumer rights whether you include a written warranty or not, though it isn't specific in the duration of that warranty.

The manufacturer says they will replace faulty products in the first 60 days but after that up to 12 months it needs to be returned to their factory for repairs (not likely given the shipping cost). And I hear that most products that fail do so within the first 60 days (which is also the PayPal refund period), so it may not add much risk for me to promote a 12 month warranty to give buyers that extra piece of mind. But also be willing to absorb any faults after the 60 days since I wont be sending the item back for repairs.

How are you guys specifying your warranty periods for imported products that you have never sold before? And don't have a history of the product's reliability.
 

brycer9

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I currently have a 60 day return policy but noticed that the top seller of my product type also advertises a 12 month warranty.

I was initially reluctant to put down a 12 month warranty as I haven't imported products before and wasn't sure of the product quality and how long I'd be importing it for (it's not a branded product but rather I'm doing some importing arbitrage). In Australia, there are laws which protects consumer rights whether you include a written warranty or not, though it isn't specific in the duration of that warranty.

The manufacturer says they will replace faulty products in the first 60 days but after that up to 12 months it needs to be returned to their factory for repairs (not likely given the shipping cost). And I hear that most products that fail do so within the first 60 days (which is also the PayPal refund period), so it may not add much risk for me to promote a 12 month warranty to give buyers that extra piece of mind. But also be willing to absorb any faults after the 60 days since I wont be sending the item back for repairs.

How are you guys specifying your warranty periods for imported products that you have never sold before? And don't have a history of the product's reliability.

14 days, and you can only return if the product is in the original condition AND in original packaging
 
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Kak

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I currently have a 60 day return policy but noticed that the top seller of my product type also advertises a 12 month warranty.

I was initially reluctant to put down a 12 month warranty as I haven't imported products before and wasn't sure of the product quality and how long I'd be importing it for (it's not a branded product but rather I'm doing some importing arbitrage). In Australia, there are laws which protects consumer rights whether you include a written warranty or not, though it isn't specific in the duration of that warranty.

The manufacturer says they will replace faulty products in the first 60 days but after that up to 12 months it needs to be returned to their factory for repairs (not likely given the shipping cost). And I hear that most products that fail do so within the first 60 days (which is also the PayPal refund period), so it may not add much risk for me to promote a 12 month warranty to give buyers that extra piece of mind. But also be willing to absorb any faults after the 60 days since I wont be sending the item back for repairs.

How are you guys specifying your warranty periods for imported products that you have never sold before? And don't have a history of the product's reliability.

I do a nonbinding kind of promise that we will always take care of issues. Think Ruger handguns, shit warranty but send them a 100 year old gun that is rusted out and they will send it back functioning for free.
 

TopChef

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This is indeed the cost of doing business. Keep in mind that if you were to run a B&M operation you would have to account for an even higher amount of waste due to shoplifting.
 

liquidglass

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When I used to sell on ebay I had a very hot ticket item that I stopped selling because my profit margins were so slim. I ran into multiple chargebacks because I was trying to save money and not document every little thing. Here are my suggestions, it's time consuming but it saves your butt.

- No return policy if possible
- get a tracking number or at least delivery confirmation
- take a picture of the item beside the shipping label for the person
(remember to have the date stamp on the camera)

After I did these few things, anyone that tried to return the items and file a claim were met with a tracking number and a photo with date stamp. I asked them to supply a picture through paypal of the current condition of the item. As a result my chargebacks went down 80%.

Paypal is on the buyer's side every time but when presented with infallible evidence usually the person handing your case will drop the claim.
 

Luke12321

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Just wanted to reply to this quickly for anyone selling on ebay...

If you sell multiple items to a customer, you can invoice them all together in one order, so that when you print your shipping label and package all (3 items for example) in one box, tracking is uploading for all 3 items automatically.

What I have ran into is customers unwilling to wait for the combined invoice, hit buy it now on say 5 items. In this instance, I still ship them all together but print the label on ebay for just one item. After printing the label, copy and past the tracking info into all four and you are covered for the four and get credit for mailing them out.

Just wanted to point this out as mailing out multiple items is really not the best solution and you can still CYA if you do it correctly through ebay.


We recently had a buyer order 2 of something. We made a rookie mistake of not shipping 2 separate packages. Buyer claims to only have received one. BOOM. Paypal claim. We of course sent them a third unit, free of charge as we would have lost the claim either way, and this way it couldn't escalate into a claim that would hurt us.

Word to the wise. When customers order multiple items on eBay, send multiple packages even though it will cost you more. Multiple packages = multiple tracking numbers, and reduced fraud.

In this last case for us, it was a cost of doing business and a cost of not correctly watching the shop. Take the tax write off for the loss and move on to the next deal.
 

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