Scammed by Ebay and Paypal

smee121

I advertised an item on EBay auctions as used and none returnable, gave a full true description and posted a close up clear picture of the item. I was happy to see my item attract many bidders, watchers and finally sell. The buyer paid for the item by PayPal and thats when the nightmare. began.

I mailed off the item to the buyer who after a few days contacted me and said he wanted to return the item as it was ‘not as described’. Being new to selling on EBay I had not got a clue what he was on about as I had given a true description of the item on EBay. The buyer mentioned a serious fault on the item that was not present when posted and as the conversation progressed the faults became more and more and at one point he said the item was to small and I considered that the real reason why he wanted to return the item and was using the ‘item not as described’ facility to return the item. I did not under stand this reason as I had sold the item as none returnable, used facility in the listing.

We agreed to not agree and he opened a case against me where the argument continued until we both agreed to let EBay resolve the issue, me not knowing in 100% of all cases EBay go in favour of the Buyer. I protested to EBay and spoke to them on the customer care help line on the site; I was advised that I would not need except the return as I had advertised the item as none returnable but when I tried to produce the attached conversation as evidence EBay said they had a technical problem with my membership and this conversation had been deleted by mistake.

It really does get worse; I advertised the sale as a private but had the money from the sale paid into my business account and once cleared Iwithdrew to pay some bills; when I logged back into my PayPal account I noticed they had frozen my account and deducted the sale amount leaving my account in the red which freaked me out as I did not know until later research what EBay and PayPal can do as they are one and the same company. I have had to stop my online business as PayPal in my only form of payment excepted and allit was doing was paying of the false debt.

In panic I changed my EBay home address details and tried tochange my contact details on PayPal as I have since read all types of horror storiessimilar to mine. I started to receive more demands from EBay customer care andI asked them questions to try and put my side of the case over to them who neveranswered or listened to my side of the story and as predicted by others awarded the case to the buyer who openly admitted the item was too small. I was informed yesterday that they would look further into my case but later said I had lost the case as the buyer had not received the item and he had been awarded a full refund including packaging and postage? EBay have changed the refund reason from ‘not as described ‘to item not received when I mailed the item tothe buyer and have correspondence from the buyer and a case number to prove my point.

Today I have a demand from EBay that I should pay the full amount owing into my PayPal account along with selling fees. EBay customer care have been very aggressive and are bullying me into giving the item to the buyer along with a full refund, I also received a threatening email saying they will try to invade my private business bank account and take the money form that account to balance my PayPal account.

How can this be fair and legal? I have scoured the net to try and find help but can find none, this leads me to believe this is a common thing and PayPal and EBay are so powerful they are above the law and act without fear of being made accountable for their actions.

I have lost everything including:

My EBay item

My postage fees

The money paid for the item

My business has stopped trading

Stress caused by EBay bullying attitude

I would really appreciate some help in making EBay and PayPalaccountable for their policies that persecute and bully the seller. I do notwant any other person to go through what they have put me through and any helpor advice would appreciated as next level will be a visit from the bailiffs.I have all emails to prove my case but EBay refuse to resolve and ignore my emails for help and information.PLEASE HELP!

Ellejmorgan

You must pay what you owe ebay or it will affect your credit, you should have agreed the return in the first place..

Here are some golden rules for ebay selling..

No such thing as no returns, you will be forced..
Never post anywhere other than the buyers paypal address
Never post to Italy, Australia or Africa..
No such thing as seller not responsible for lost in post
Never send anything without recorded delivery under £46 or special
if over
Never blame the buyer for anything, it won't work..

CKhalvashi

Ellejmorgan wrote: »

You must pay what you owe ebay or it will affect your credit, you should have agreed the return in the first place..

Here are some golden rules for ebay selling..

No such thing as no returns, you will be forced..
Never post anywhere other than the buyers paypal address
Never post to Italy, Australia or Africa..
No such thing as seller not responsible for lost in post
Never send anything without recorded delivery under £46 or special
if over
Never blame the buyer for anything, it won't work..

This is the problem. PayPal have managed to wangle out of registering as a bank and are then using their dominance in favour of the buyer on 9 occasions out of 10.

CK

chancesare_2

So the buyer says it isn't as described and you say it is.

Who should we believe.

Had you accepted the return, this post wouldn't exist. You haven't been scammed, you've been silly.

Being new to selling on EBay I had not got a clue what he was on about

He was saying it wasn't as described and asked to return it for a refund. Not a scam.

And your actions thereafter put your into the hole you are now in.

Kingsd316

chancesare wrote: »

So the buyer says it isn't as described and you say it is.

Who should we believe.

Had you accepted the return, this post wouldn't exist. You haven't been scammed, you've been silly.



He was saying it wasn't as described and asked to return it for a refund. Not a scam.

And your actions thereafter put your into the hole you are now in.

Im with the OP on this one.

Although the original case was item not described how can they then change it to item no received, anyone with half a braincell at paypal/ebay would be able to see that the buyer has pulled a fast one, I'm just glad i dont sell on ebay after reading so many horror stories

RFW

Ellejmorgan wrote: »

You must pay what you owe ebay or it will affect your credit,

That is not accurate. It can only affect your credit rating if they take you to court and find against you. Paypal/Ebay won't have a credit agreement with the OP to affect credit rating if monies are owed.

I'm also not sure what the advice about not posting to Australia or Italy is about, plenty of people post there regularly (myself included) without a problem. Also recorded delivery is largely pointless for parcels.

Back to the OP, there is some recourse to Ebay/Paypal, you do need to separate which are the facts concerning them that they may have been able to handle better.

Some more points that spring to mind, did the buyer claim there were faults on the item that you hadn't described?

Where is the item now?

Also Ebay do not find for the buyer in every case, I have won several cases that buyers have opened, either trying it on or when they hadn't bothered to read the description.

Whilst you may get some good advice on here, you probably need some independent advice.

sgh1976

Ellejmorgan wrote: »

Never post to Italy, Australia

Can I ask why?

I sell a lot of stuff to Italy and even higher amount of stuff to Australia and if I compare the amount of issues I have as a % against the issues I have in the UK it is tiny.

RHemmings

Ellejmorgan wrote: »

Never post to Italy, Australia or Africa..

I've heard bad things about Italy's postal service, and some parts of Africa are known for scammers. But is there something wrong with Australia?

petersoftware

What sort of money are we talking here? It must be a lot if you have decided to close down your online business. If so its worth fighting for it, but if we are talking relatively small amount then I would advise putting this all down to experience.

As an aside - only issue I have had in Australia and New Zealand have been with personal parcels getting lost by outsourced courier companies. Very nice countries with lovely people.

soolin

RHemmings wrote: »

I've heard bad things about Italy's postal service, and some parts of Africa are known for scammers. But is there something wrong with Australia?

The bulk of my sales are to Australia most weeks but about 4 months ago I started having real issues with them. two items took several weeks and both buyers were extremely abusive about it and both opened cases without even contacting me first . Obviously I refunded both as soon as I saw the cases open (that was the first I knew about it) and in fairness one buyer did email later to say the item had arrived and repaid me. i also had two,other items take a month and again another buyer got angry and accused me of scamming him by not posting. That really put me off Australian buyers and for about 3 weeks I blocked the country, but decided I had just had a bad spell, so unblocked them and haven't had problems since.

I do have italy blocked though as I can't get anything there at all

Incidentally I sent a gift (not eBay) to the USA last week surface mail and it arrived in 5 days! Goodness knows what RM were doing but I was very impressed

RFW

soolin wrote: »

I do have italy blocked though as I can't get anything there at all

I occasionally get orders from Italy, haven't yet had a problem despite hearing the scare stories. Australia has always been pretty good and I think in ten plus years I have only ever had one order from anywhere in Africa, I remember it being quite a large one and that I was terrified there would be a problem, but they paid by bank transfer, arranged their own courier, were more than happy and even invited me to stay, I wouldn't mind a few more if they're like that;)