08/13 - eBay User Agreement, User Privacy Notice and Money Back Guarantee

[sweatingforabuck]

Quit selling because of rotten people looking to get things for free and reported the new seller policy to inspector.general@usdoj.gov because no way should seller be forced to accept a return they disagree with and especially not have to lose their original shipping costs and be threatened with also paying return shipping costs if they dare to request return of the item.

Too many people are using this to renegotiate the price after purchase because they know if they move forward to ebay the seller is on the hook for the cost of shipping -both ways. And those are the "decent" ones who will take a partial kickback. The really rotten ones want a full refund - and "offer' to do you the favor of saving you return shipping by keeping the item too.

Ridiculous - a seller should be able to deny a refund period - and once they ship it - they're job should be done - no retailer is on the hook for delivery damage or failure to deliver. If it really was damaged let the buyer file for USPS insurance - they have the proof - not the seller. All the seller can do is say - wasn't damaged when I shipped it and it was carefully packaged. I had buyers claiming unbreakable objects were broken - never once did I get a photo when I asked.

Then there are the buyers that troll ebay looking for small discrepancies in the listings - instead of sending a note to seller and saying - hey just checking - the photo says cotton but it says corduroy - they say jackpot -free cotton shirt. You can see the picture and the written description is all cotton and it clearly isn't corduroy but the automatic ebay box that ebay makes you fill in accidentally came out corduroy and you didn't notice so you just wound up paying to ship a free shirt to a rotten buyer. Stores ads all say not responsible for typos or mistakes - but ebay will not let a seller do that. Buyer knows what they are getting and get exactly what they pay for but ebay will give it to them free.

Then I had buyers that say not as described because a used shirt had a tiny mark on it or a loose thread or some ridiculously mundane thing that you wouldn't even notice and doesn't affect the overall appearance and should be anticipated since they are buying used and not new anyway - they can even lie and make it up -doesn't really matter since they don't even have to prove anything- or something ridiculous like the shirt is ivory and the photo made it look white and I wanted white not ivory - even though you called it eggshell - and you just gave them a free shirt. ALL THEY HAVE TO DO is allege something is NAD or damaged - and they know they get it free.

And if it is an item you want back - you pay. They upload the shipping label info and you pay - you refund first then they ship back - but they don't. Or they send you an empty bag. Or you get their old rags. Or your nice clean, practically brand new item or brand new item comes back destroyed. And you paid shipping on it - now twice.

My favorite was when a buyer claimed only 2 items in a shipment of 5 things got broke - impossible the way it was shipped that the things on the top and bottom were fine but what you put in the middle mysteriously got cracked -and even then -aside from the fact they are lying about the 2 items - they still got 3 perfectly fine things - but ebay will require a full refund anyway.

I am not a charity organization that is giving ebay and paypal fees and commissions so that I may pay to ship my stuff around the country for free. So now I list my clothes on tradesy, my vintage stuff on etsy and got together with my friends and we hold rummage sales twice a year to clear out household things - we have fun. Maybe not getting as much as it would sell on ebay but we're not continually getting threatened and harassed by ebay and buyers trying to bully us into giving away free stuff either.

And this new return policy also apparently only applies to us sellers so on top of enabling buyer fraud - and all these lying buyers costing sellers money should be getting arrested for mail fraud - but it is anti-competitve as well since asian sellers don't have to comply.

So basically ebay has become one step beyond craigslist - it is filled with sellers who are selling stolen merchandise, fake stuff, chinese sweatshop produced junk that doesn't work or will break within a few months - all sellers that can't unload their crap anywhere else and buyers that think ebay is the new welfare center - where they push a few buttons and get free stuff.

Oh and then there are these asian sellers that sell beads and fabric and things to us based people who produce items and then use different profiles to sell for the asian producer while they also have a buyer profile that runs around trying to take out as many small us based sellers as they can before they get caught - which is a long time since a seller can't give them negative feedback. Even if ebay doesn't want negative feedback to count against a buyer who paid - they should be able to leave a comment after an unwarranted refund as a tracking system.

[sweatingforabuck]

Originally Posted by doodlemagic

I get why ebay protects buyers if buyers can't buy with confidence their whole business is down the drain. I also understand favoring buyers a bit because we are dealing with individuals and not professional businesses who have a business reputation to upkeep however its been heavily slanted towards buyers for a longtime to the point of sellers leaving and they take it even further which makes no sense.

Yes but then ebay should fork over the refund - not the sellers. This is not a company or so ebay keeps saying even though they rate sellers, advise them how to do business, force them on refunds, evaluate performance, etc - pretty close control for a company that claims not be a seller's employer -

but ebay should refund the buer and pay their return shipping - let ebay take the item back and resell it or dump it in the garbage. Ebay is making money off the sellers and wants the seller to assume the full risk of shipping on top of responsibility of returns.

Ebay will never be amazon because ebay is already too saturated with oversees crap items and thieves which their policies created. They have found a way to weed out honest sellers and buyers because they won't get hands on with returns and refunds and the business cost to those honest people is now too high.

It used to be fun to sell - and fun to buy - now I do a search for something and can't find it or the price is so high I may as well go to Macys and buy it. Price is high to compensate for all the free stuff sellers have to give away. Or it was stolen, is fake, or will fall apart. Search for something then narrow the search to US sellers only - will be 1/4 of what is being sold. Alibaba should just buy ebay already and get it over with.

[howard555]

Originally Posted by sweatingforabuck

If it really was damaged let the buyer file for USPS insurance - they have the proof - not the seller.

Buyers can not be required to buy insurance on an item purchased.
And the seller is the only one who can insure it, as it is an option when creating the shipping label.
The buyer then uses the seller's purchased insurance to file a claim through the post office. The post office and insurance claims is another issue. They will do everything they can to deny the claim. You did not use our boxes, you did not pack it with the materials we sell, or you did not pack it to meet postal service requirements and regulations. They send an agent to the house to examine the item, the box, the packing material. If the buyer who opened the package does not carefully set it aside without throwing away any of the packing material so that it can be viewed the exact way it was received, the postal service can easily deny the claim. And they do their best to deny a claim.