Ebay: bought faulty item, seller is refusing a refund/exchange

NV187

I posted the camera back on friday and entered the tracking number online. I checked the tracking information and an attempted delivery was made on saturday morning, and a card was left for the seller. Its now tuesday, but the item has stil not been picked up yet. Paypal will not do anything until the seller has confirmed receipt of the item, and I'm not so sure if the seller will collect the item from the Post Office. What should I do next?

good_fella7777

all BIN purchases are covered by distance selling regulations and as such the buyer has to offer by law a 14 day return policy. so whatever the seller says, hes bound to refund

custardy

NV187 wrote: »

I posted the camera back on friday and entered the tracking number online. I checked the tracking information and an attempted delivery was made on saturday morning, and a card was left for the seller. Its now tuesday, but the item has stil not been picked up yet. Paypal will not do anything until the seller has confirmed receipt of the item, and I'm not so sure if the seller will collect the item from the Post Office. What should I do next?

damn wish i had seen this
for a business i would always send SD items monday to thursday as items arriving on saturday are often undeliverable & carded
leaves the seller 3 weeks to pick up
consider arranging an online redelivery yourself to the sellers address
https://www.royalmail.com/redelivery

NV187

I've checked the online tracking information today and the item has been picked up today after all. Paypal are now reviewing the claim, so I'm assuming the seller must have provided details of receipt of the item. Hopefully it won't take too long now before the matter is solved.

kingboyk

So what was the outcome?

It really annoys me how eBay let obvious business sellers register as private, and not mandate return policies which comply with the Sale of Goods Act and the Distance Selling Regulations. Seems they're perfectly happy to take their extortionate fees from these cowboy sellers and leave buyers to fend for themselves. (I'm well aware that sellers aren't protected from dodgy buyers too, btw )

king-arthur

It doesn’t matter what the seller states as "His/Her" terms and conditions within their auction / buy it now description - if they contravene the distance selling regulations they mean nothing and can sometimes be in fact criminal. Most people don't realise that if an item is delivered and has never worked correctly from day one they are perfectly within their rights to obtain a full refund AND the costs involved in returning the item. The biggest problem is that most buyers think they have to pay to return a faulty item when in fact they don’t.

In the case of small items costing less than a fiver to send back using RM you can still insist that the seller refund you that amount as well (keep receipts) - there are no excuses to this but because consumers don't realise this the sellers get away with it. It becomes even more interesting when you buy a large or expensive item such as a television, hoover, laptop, etc, etc. Most buyers are unaware that they can demand that the seller arranges the collection themselves - the consumer only has to safely pack the goods up as originally sent and make them available for collection - e.g. ensure they are at home for the courier to collect. In my experience if you pay for a large, expensive, heavy item to be returned to a seller you will have to jump through hoops to get your money back - so stand your ground and insist they arrange for it to be collected. In the case of Paypal disputes just remember the maximum amount they will refund is the original price paid. So what about that £20 it cost to send that hoover back?

If you don't want these headaches and in the case of ebay ensure you buy from a seller who has the "registered as business" below their user ID and don't worry too much what the seller has stated within their terms and conditions because if it doesn’t ring true with what’s stated within the consumer regulations it basically means nothing. Statements such as the following should be disregarded in the case of items received faulty from day one or at time of delivery:

"Original shipping costs are non refundable" - o yes they are!

"Return shipping costs are non refundable" - o yes they are!

"Items must be returned within 7 days" - o no they don't - you just have to notify the seller by email, fax, or letter within 7 days. Once notified keep proof of it and ensure the item is returned within 28 or 30 days if I remember rightly.

Obviously the above does not apply to private sellers but it does in fact apply to both new and used products. Also the above will not apply if you simply changed your mind and nothing was actually wrong with the item.

Another liar, liar, your pants are on fire is the following statement:

"I am not responsible for items lost or damaged in the post / shipping system"

OR

"If any item is lost or damaged I will supply proof of posting for the buyer to make a claim"

The above is complete nonsense and it is a business seller’s problem to follow these scenarios up.





If you want complete piece of mind stick to the following:

1. Only buy from a seller registered as a business on ebay and try to use "Buy it now" on high value items.

2. Don’t worry too much about their terms and conditions in respect of faulty or damaged items received. The DSR's protect you from this

3. In the event of "War" stand your ground and point the above out to a seller if they fail to treat you properly.

4. If a seller won’t listen, get trading standards involved -they love that

5. Don't bother with the ebay resolution process - they can't get your money back, log straight into Paypal and open a dispute from there - half the time the ebay process cannot be entered into for at least 10 days anyway so let that seller know you mean business. Go straight into paypal and launch that dispute - that puts a hold on the sum you paid and really winds a seller up to make them listen - especially the small ones who open up ebay businesses but don’t bother understanding the law. Paypal place a hold on those funds until everything is resolved to YOUR satisfaction. If the seller still doesn’t listen just escalate for a Paypal rep to determine the outcome. And if Paypal still get it wrong like they often do keep pressure on them and dispute their decision by any means possible.

6. And finally use your brain - if I'm looking to buy something on ebay and the description has lots of spelling and grammar mistakes I "walk" away and look elsewhere. What do you think will happen if you buy from them and then problems arise - communicating with them WILL become a tedious task and you are likely to have major problems resolving any issues. I know this sounds harsh and I know not everyone loved English at school, but it just may prevent headaches.

Don't forget that a lot of "business" sellers on ebay don't let the Inland Revenue know about it - by law they have 3 months to file. If you suspect a seller who is registered as a private seller to actually be a business let ebay know about it OR better still just email the user ID to the Inland Revenue direct. It's not hard to see if they have a hundred items for sale or consistently sell a lot of new items.

Also remember it is a criminal offence for a seller to lie within an auction description. Statements with false or misleading information that is easy to prove could render a seller with a criminal conviction – my favourite being “Authorised Distributor” OR “Authorised Re-Seller”.

I hope this helps people stand up for themselves – I have at present declared “War” with one of those so called “Business” ebay sellers and I intend to win !


If anyone disagrees with or thinks anything stated above is incorrect please give me an ear bashing. The above is not written from a buyer only perspective - so please no ear bashing from ebay business sellers - because I have been one for the last 6 years and have seen and heard it all.

zenseeker

king-arthur wrote: »

"Return shipping costs are non refundable" - o yes they are!

That's as maybe, but enforcing it in a PayPal dispute is next to impossible.

king-arthur

I would agree that paypal can't help with that "zenseeker" - in my case it was a large expensive item and I have refused to pay the return shipping costs. I notified the seller within 3 hrs of delivery that the item was faulty and that I will not be paying for the return shipping - he refused to even refund the original shipping costs so I opened an immediate dispute and told him to arrange a collection. Trading standards would tell you exactly this - but yes I can understand on small items this may be a pain. I was expecting a more professional response from this so called "business" seller, who I might add has 100% feedback (for now), and had sold a fair few of what I purchased which gave me considerable confidence in purchasing from him in the very beginning. What the seller probably didnt bank on was a professional from the same field purchasing an item from him - I now know he is a complete amateur, at least I have the certificates to prove I trained in what I do, I doubt he does.

Maybe a few pounds to return an item isnt a great deal but in my case it was nearly £20. The fact that the item was poorly packaged to begin with has prompted me to go all out to make this sellers life one big hassle. The original packing was so bad and the fact the sellers so called terms and conditions state that all items must be returned within 7 days as originally packaged has made me furious, since I have no confidence in the item being shipped back to him without being damaged. So I have therefore insisted on him arranging a collection using his own courier. However I kindly offered to use my own packing methods at my own expense. All this hassle today has put me behind on work I needed to complete - hence I'm still sat here at my PC working away and ranting on here at silly o clock.

The old saying treat others as you would expect to be treated yourself applies to this situation. The item I purchased was a surprise gift for my partner- it just so happened to be the kind of item I sometimes sell on ebay. I would never dream of sending such an easily damaged item the way this seller has to me - it is pure suicide. If I were him I would personally take this on the chin as a lesson learned in business - and he thought he was saving a few quid on packing !

I can safely say that none of my customers have ever needed to open a Paypal dispute against me. I have asked for items to be returned and notified the buyer that should the fault be "Our" fault - including damage within the shipping process, they would receive a FULL refund as well as the return shipping costs. Maybe that is why I have 100% feedback with 2000+ customers because I simply do not have the time to waste fighting refunds - I simply take it on the chin and don't make the same mistake again. In fact the one time I actually got a negative feedback comment on ebay was from a non paying bidder - that really made me furious, the tit for tat scenario. Thankfully ebay changed the feedback rules and that one red mark dropped off the 12mth feedback scores and reverted back to 100%

And dont even start me on the new star rating system either - it sucks :mad:

Right bed time - hopefully tmrw will be a much better day for me.