Old for new switch - how to prevent this?

Strapped

I have some electronic games I want to sell, and I'm aware that these type of items carry a higher risk of attracting undesirable buyers than my usual ranges. For example, I've read here and on other forums of people selling new items and having them switched for old used ones. The usual advice is to mark the item (or take a serial number etc if there is one) so you know whether this happens. But my question is - if this happens, how do you actually prove it has? Obviously, you can take a photo of the item you sold, with serial number or security mark, but if you then get a different item back, is this photo evidence sufficient to, for example, win a SNAD case? Has anyone had this happen to them? Or am I worrying about nothing? :rotfl:

TIA.

Crowqueen

If you are a business you can't really pre-empt it because you have to accept all returns on BIN items and by next year that will expand to all auction sales as well. A private seller could reject DSR returns but would still have to accept returns of items which are not-as-described or faulty. Aside from lodging an appeal based on claim abuse, you might not be able to prevent the buyer getting anything back - the most eBay or Paypal do is to reimburse you for the fraudulent case from their pockets (but the buyer might also get flattened).

Off any marketplace site, you would probably have to resort to the courts to get justice, though you might have some protection if they paid you through Paypal.

Perhaps if you think there is a significant risk it's best not to sell them online at all, given your legal responsibilities trumping most of what you could do to pre-empt buyers being able to return them. Not everything is entirely suitable for selling online. Certainly there are only a few markets I've entered online - the last computer game I thought about listing I realised that, because of the key-code, the value did not lie wholly in the discs and I was opening myself up to being scammed for the code and having useless discs returned to me. As a buyer I would also not touch items with keycodes unless from an impeccable source (e.g. buying directly from Amazon rather than from their marketplace people) - for the reason, in reverse, that the seller might be lying about the code being unused.

Strapped

Crowqueen wrote: »

If you are a business you can't really pre-empt it because you have to accept all returns on BIN items and by next year that will expand to all auction sales as well. A private seller could reject DSR returns but would still have to accept returns of items which are not-as-described or faulty. Aside from lodging an appeal based on claim abuse, you might not be able to prevent the buyer getting anything back - the most eBay or Paypal do is to reimburse you for the fraudulent case from their pockets (but the buyer might also get flattened).

Off any marketplace site, you would probably have to resort to the courts to get justice, though you might have some protection if they paid you through Paypal.

Perhaps if you think there is a significant risk it's best not to sell them online at all, given your legal responsibilities trumping most of what you could do to pre-empt buyers being able to return them. Not everything is entirely suitable for selling online. Certainly there are only a few markets I've entered online - the last computer game I thought about listing I realised that, because of the key-code, the value did not lie wholly in the discs and I was opening myself up to being scammed for the code and having useless discs returned to me. As a buyer I would also not touch items with keycodes unless from an impeccable source (e.g. buying directly from Amazon rather than from their marketplace people) - for the reason, in reverse, that the seller might be lying about the code being unused.

So, in short - how to prevent it - you can't?

starrybee

Are these game particularly rare/likely to have people sitting at home with broken games desperate to send them back to an unsuspecting ebay seller?

I think you're probably overthinking it, unless I've missed something...

Crowqueen

No, you can't prevent it, not with the law as it stands.

I think you may be overthinking it, and I think you are also in danger of letting your mistrust of your potential customers come through on your listings.

There is no having your cake and eat it - you need to weigh up the risks and make a decision yourself. Not everything is suitable for sale online with the DSRs as they are. Thinking about it, if these are sealed games, then you can narrow down the returns criteria slightly - sealed media is exempt from DSRs - but not really prevent buyers returning 'faulty' items.

As with everything, including the Paypal on Collection scam, you have to make sure you are aware of the risk and make your own decisions whether that risk is worth the reward.