Buyer refunded and received item finally and making a mess

Selling on other Platforms eBay
1

I just posted this on the eBay help board but am hoping someone here has some suggestions. The PO sat on an item for over a week. The buyer demanded a refund and since it was not moving I refunded him AND told him when it came to mark it as REFUSED so it would come back to me. It arrived yesterday and instead of refusing it he opened it and used the item.

I told him he MIGHT be able to have eBay recharge his card (I have no idea how that would work). Instead he ordered another set of the item and tells me to NOT send it since he already has the stuff.

If I don’t send it I don’t get paid. He is now being pretty unreasonable.

If I print a label and put in a tracking number to show I shipped it it will never get scanned OR I put it on a SCAN Form and don’t put these in the bag. In that case I actually get charged for the postage because of the SCAN Form use.

In addition to blocking this guy when I am all done here, any ideas on how to get this fixed at the lowest cost?

2

Sorry, but my only input is of a negative sort. That is, I would urge you not to commit fraud for a good reason. Too many possible problems.

I would suggest you have the buyer cancel their order.

3

Your options are, in no particular order:

  1. Cancel the order, let the buyer have the free item, find something more constructive to do. I suggest getting a snack.
  2. Buy a label, and send a piece of paper with their previous messages printed out on it. The buyer is happy, you get paid, ebay will be pissed if they ever find out, but I don’t think they read our forum… Yes, you are charged for postage, but you also recoup the cost of the item. Depends how much the item costs I suppose.
  3. What happens if you confirm the order on ebay without valid tracking, or buy a label and don’t ship it? I have never run into this on ebay, but I assume that as long as the buyer doesn’t complain ebay will still pay you?
  4. Ship them a new one, as ordered. There is no reason to do this other than because they are bothering you and I’m in that kind of mood.
4

It’s been an ‘interesting’ half hour on support with eBay. At least they have real people, but not much better than Amazon. Might even be in the same offices!

‘(My Name), please know that as per eBay policies, it is not stated to refund the buyer before getting an item back, no matter whatever the situation is.

So now nothing can be done through eBay. However, I have a workaround for you.

I’d suggest you to kindly share your PayPal Id or any payment method with your buyer and ask them to make the payment for an item outside of eBay.

And please keep all the information on eBay messages regarding the payment.

So that everything will be documented and there will be no issues from yours’s end.

To get your issue resolved regarding reporting that buyer, I’ll need to transfer you to a specialist. I’ll make sure to provide them with all the details you have shared with me. Is this okay?

No, I know how to block people. My experience, after over 20 years here is that you will BLOCK my email if I try to put it in a message.

(Name), there will be nothing like that. So please be assured for that.

I am documenting this situation from my end and allowing you to do so as an exception.

Pragya

Pragya

Pragya

sure, this should be fun…

Thanks for contacting eBay Customer Service. My name is Jenny, and I’ll be assisting you today. Please allow me a moment to catch up on your conversation so far.

07:46:47 UTC Agent

Hi NAME, I hope you are having a wonderful evening.

07:46:54 UTC

NOT really.

07:47:47 UTC Agent

Oh that’s concerning. Allow me to review your issue and I hope I will make your day better.

07:49:39 UTC Agent

To make sure I understand your issue, you wanted assistance on the case opened by the buyer where you refunded them before the item get back to you, is that right?

07:50:18 UTC

Yes. It was lost in the mail and arrived AFTER I refunded them.

07:50:59 UTC Agent

Thank you so much for confirming.

07:51:14 UTC Agent

It’s a good thing that you contacted us today, rest assured that I’ll do everything to better assist you.

07:52:20 UTC Agent

Is this for the order 04-143

07:52:38 UTC

yes

07:53:45 UTC Agent

Checking here, I can see that the buyer did not open any item not received case for the order, may I know why did you refund them considering that there was no case opened?

07:54:24 UTC

They messaged me multiple times demanding a refund.

07:54:40 UTC

The messages are in my message thread

07:56:40 UTC Agent

I see, as you may know once a refund has been issued, we may have no option to reverse this back.

07:57:21 UTC Agent

I can see that the buyer stated that they will send back the refund to your PayPal.

07:57:36 UTC Agent

Were you able to see that on their messages today?

07:58:20 UTC

My experience on multiple sites is that you will BLOCK me from sending my email address to him AND it can be cause for account termination.

07:58:35 UTC

And YES I saw it.

07:59:28 UTC

I get paid outside of eBay and you don’t collect your fees. Account terminated for off site activities.

08:00:29 UTC Agent

Oh yes, actually the system block the personal details such as bank details so we advice you to reach out to the buyer through email to process the payment. Or the best option is for you to relist the item for them to purchase it and you won’t need to ship as long as they confirmed that they received the item.

08:02:07 UTC

Well, all of these put my 20+ year old account at risk so it’s not worth my time or trouble.

BOTTOM LINE –

I have a suspicion this ‘buyer’ has been around the block like this before and it is a new SCAM being done on eBay and i got suckered in because I trust the site more than I trust anything on Amazon.

I’m just going to message the ‘buyer’ and let him know he made a complete mess of the process (likely intentionally) and gets free drumsticks.

And then he gets added to my blocked buyer list.

I think I may have a Corona NA in the fridge with my name on it…..

5

Now there’s an idea! Make it two.

One of my main reasons (besides just avoiding mail fraud) for advising thus is that it allows the buyer to succeed in maniputing you. Whether intentionally or not.

6

Yeah, I cancelled it and blocked the ‘buyer’.

7

Too late I realize my meaning is most ambiguous.

I do not mean my urging is for a good reason; I mean that the fraud would be for a good reason. (but still fraud)

8

This may not help you but I had a similar situation happened to me a little over a month ago. Item shipped, got lost in transit, they asked for refunds, they get one, CD gets delivered 2 days later.

Only in my case I asked Ebay support for assistance during this and the agents kept insisting I refund the buyer.

After delivery, I contacted chat support again, demanded a supervisor, and after 4 initial refusals by the agent finally got through to one. Pointed out that I everything would be fine if ebay support didn’t repeatedly insist I refund the buyer and asked them to find a way where I am made whole without punishing the buyer. Settled on a digital gift card on the value of the sold CD.

9

An infuriating situation, to be sure. Mostly, though, I’m just surprised that they gave you the gift card. Try to imagine Amazon doing that…

10

Having the chat transcript on hand helped, especially when pointing out the specific instances of bad advice and commentary the agents said to me in it and how I was looking for assistance in finding an applicable airline for both the buyer and myself the whole time

11

Just saw this, sorry, could have helped.

What the rep suggested is precisely what I would have done. I would have sent them a Paypal bill. Ebay will allow buyers to send their email to you so long as they’ve ordered from you. We occasionally do this if a buyer wants faster shipping after they’ve already ordered. It’s not against the rules, either, in these circumstances.

Actually, if there was a scan on the package, I would not have even refunded them. Ebay puts cases on hold for 10 days if there has been any scan within the last 10 days….and they will protect you from bad feedback in these cases, too, so long as you shipped and got a scan within your handling time.

Now, if the post office just didn’t even scan it accepted or anything for 7 days….then you would have had limited options because you would have had no proof it actually got mailed.

Also, as to customer service…..depends what level of support you have on the account. Ebay’s anchor store reps are AMAZING……Amazon has never had 10% of that level of customer service. It’s literally the difference between fire and snow. If you don’t sell much on there or have a basic store, you probably were dealing with overseas support which is….well, overseas support.

EDIT: Just saw he reordered. At least you got your money. Just remove that tracking number from the first order and upload it for the second. All will be fine. Or don’t upload any at all…doubt he is going to do anything nefarious if he went to the trouble to reorder and said not to send it. He was being honest.