I sold an item through eBay’s international forwarding program and the buyer messaged me saying it didn’t work (it was a tech item and was working, but I believe he maybe didn’t know how to use it or set it up properly). He opened a return at the same time, and minutes later, eBay sent me another message saying they’d take care of it and the buyer would be refunded, but not at my expense:
We took care of this return for you
You don’t need to refund the buyer, and you will not receive the item back. Thanks for trusting eBay International Shipping with this order.
I also read this statement, which made it sound like eBay took care of all messaging, so I didn’t send the buyer a reply, since it appeared he was already refunded and eBay says they handle all return communications:
We handle the rest
Your sale is complete when your item arrives at our domestic shipping hub. We take care of international shipping, customs, returns, and post-transaction communication with buyers.
Fast forward to almost two weeks later, and the buyer messaged me today, asking why I didn’t reply to his original message and telling me he just mailed the item back(!). Has anyone encountered this before? I thought eBay handled everything and all was fine…the buyer should’ve gotten his money back and gotten to keep the item and I would still get paid. Now, he’s paid probably a decent amount sending it back to what I’m guessing is eBay’s forwarding center, and I have no idea what will happen to it from there.
Thanks, any advice on how to proceed? I replied to the buyer (trying to avoid negative feedback for ignoring him), stating that he should have already received a refund and said eBay should have communicated this to him. I feel bad for him spending money shipping it back, but I don’t really want to compensate him extra for something he didn’t have to do (plus I don’t think that’s even possible). Does anyone know what happens if the International forwarding hub receives a return it’s not expecting (I assume they will just offload it to a returned items reselling company)?
As long as remains in my hands the refund does not happen and the return can be cacelled at any time. That 's some you should know as a seller. I took the unit to a electronics repair technician and he said that there was no way that it was working before shipping. It was not damaged in shipping.
and
So now I have sent it back and it’s all cost me $80 in freight and internatioal shipping charges and I have nothing to show for it. And now, ten days later you finally respond to my messages. This won’t make for very positive feedback.
What a nightmare. Guess I’ll report it to eBay and let them handle him and I’ll block him.
You did everything you should. The buyer doesn’t know how the EIS program works.
You are protected from negative FB on EIS orders. You need not cave in to buyer extortion.
You could attempt to explain the process to the buyer.
This is a section from the seller help on EIS, you can paraphrase it or write your own equivalent.
When a buyer opens a return, we’ll refund your buyer and you’ll keep the sale. When the return is received at the eBay International Shipping inspection hub, it will be inspected to make sure it’s in the same condition. We’ll then issue the refund to the buyer’s original payment method, usually within 5 to 7 business days of the item being received at the hub.
IMO offering international shipping on an electronics item is always risky, but you have chosen the least risky alternative.
There is nothing for you to report to Ebay unless you can make a case for FB extortion. Blocking the buyer is often a good idea if there is any problem with an order.
Thanks, I did call eBay to ask them what I should do, and they were pretty much useless and said they would file a report to get more details from people more familiar with the International process.
I’m pretty sure if I got automated messages from eBay saying they would handle the return and the customer would be refunded, then the buyer also got messages like that. It’s possible they didn’t see those and didn’t check their credit card account to see that they had already been refunded, but I have zero idea why they thought spending $80 to ship back an $80 item was a good idea, especially when they didn’t have to send it back. I’m also 95% sure the whole part about bringing the item to a repair guy was made up because 1) he started the return on the same day the item was delivered and 2) how could a repair person determine computer hardware wasn’t working before shipping? That makes no sense.
I decided to just block the buyer since it seems like it’s just going to lead down a rabbit hole of him continuing to argue that the item was broken and trying to make me responsible for his return shipping plus original costs.
And it’s always also possible that they did see the messages and hoped that they had a seller that was not familiar with the system. If that was the case they might be looking for an easy mark to be able to double dip on a return credit by making some threats.
Of course, I could be wrong simply because I trust NO ONE to not be a scammer if they start threatening me.
The buyer must have ignored the return label that ebay sent them and is sending it back to you directly. They couldn’t follow instructions, hence no refund yet, or ever
Would he even have my address? I’d think the shipping label on the package he got would just have eBay’s US International Shipping facility’s address.
I also love how he chided me for not replying in 10 days when he sent me that initial message and immediately opened a return with eBay after it. Exactly why did you need a reply from me at that point? Do what eBay tells you to do and leave me alone. Just when I thought eBay was less stressful than Amazon Marketplace
I have been back on Ebay awhile now and I can say it really is, if you can change the way you react to problems. Orders through EIS are the lowest stress business I have every had, online or offline.
I made an obvious mistake, shipping an item which was almost identical to the item I listed.
The item passed the Ebay inspection and reached the buyer who noted it was wrong.
Ebay allowed the buyer to keep the item, and he ordered the correct item from me, again.
Are you saying eBay actually opens every parcel sent to its processing center in Illinois before sending it along? I can’t see how they could possibly do that or even want to. I would think that would be prohibitively labor intensive and economically infeasible.
Yes, the package is opened and inspected by contract help. A new invoice and a customs declaration are generated. Some Ebay sellers have had their shipments rejected due to defects which are detected,
I doubt they actually open every single package. Certainly ones that are damaged, or maybe over a certain value, or if they have some question about whether it can be exported. They may also take extra care when something is bound for a country that has a lot of import restrictions for various reasons. There’s an eBay-produced Youtube video (granted, it’s from 2023) that says they don’t mess with packages except under certain circumstances, and it shows an X-ray machine, so maybe they X-ray most packages.
I pack very well, and I’m particularly careful with international parcels. I certainly hope they are not slicing open my carefully packed books or CDs. There are, however, some horror stories on the eBay forums about items badly repackaged at the Illinois hub.
Do you believe that EBay would guarantee, with its money, the accuracy of any seller’s listing without taking steps to protect themselves?
That behavior is implied by your position.
As for bad packaging, there are many Ebay sellers who do not know any other way to pack. And I would believe the badly packaged items arrived badly packed at the seller hub.
I have been led to believe that the hub reuses the seller’s packaging.
In my 25 years of online selling, I can tell you there are buyer out there who are just completely clueless, and sometimes it needlessly costs them money and stress. You might have a scammer on your hands, but the buyer also might just be A) So disorganized that they haven’t noticed they’ve been refunded by eBay, or B) Cannot wrap their head around getting their money back without returning the item.
Believe me, the airheadedness of human beings knows no bounds. I have had people send me back items even after I told them they would not receive any refund whatsoever due to restocking fees. I have encountered buyers who cannot comprehend how to navigate their online accounts. Some people literally do not know their own address. I once received a return packed in a used Pizza Hut box, grease stains and all.
In this instance, eBay’s stated policies say you’re off the hook.
My position is that it would cost eBay far, far too much money to open and inspect EVERY package that goes through its hub, contract labor or not. Yes, eBay is a for-profit company, and opening and inspecting EVERY package would be shockingly unnecessary, wasteful and costly. I’m also sure eBay is acutely aware that a majority of sellers are, in fact, trustworthy and at least reasonably adept at packaging. The company has had many years to evaluate this fact. Online sellers are not all careless, cheating dunderheads.
I don’t think either one of us has ever actually been to the Illinois hub, much less worked there, and neither of us are eBay managers who could state the hub’s practices with metaphysical certitude.
Now, @lake, I am not going to get into a long debate with you, so you go ahead and have the last word. Ready, set…go!
Yes, I also thought international orders were great, until all messaging from eBay told me not to do anything and they would take care of it. In hindsight, I probably should have just replied to the buyer and told him to follow eBay’s directions. If he messaged me and didn’t immediately start a return, I would’ve replied, but I woke up to his message telling me he couldn’t get the item to work, followed by an email from eBay minutes later:
We’re contacting you about a return request your buyer opened. This order was sent through eBay International Shipping, so we handled the return on your behalf.
You don’t need to take any action and you won’t be charged for this refund.
Then the eBay website said on the returns page:
We took care of this return for you
You don’t need to refund the buyer, and you will not receive the item back. Thanks for trusting eBay International Shipping with this order.
and:
Your sale is complete when your item arrives at our domestic shipping hub. We take care of international shipping, customs, returns, and post-transaction communication with buyers.
I didn’t bother replying at that point, since it seemed like the return was already in progress and being handled. And I got a bit unlucky with the buyer seemingly not reading/following any directions from eBay or trying to purposefully go around eBay for whatever reason.
