EBAY are at best stupid, at worse thieves... advice please??

Asker

In short:

I sold an item on ebay, guy clearly broke it, wanted refund, I accepted (no choice really - ebay always takes buyer's side) but not before the guy opened a case.

I immediately called ebay and said "hey guys yes I'll refund, no need for a case" to which I was guaranteed "yes that's cool. we'll arrange for a refund and we'll put on the notes to refund you seller's fees too as you've voluntarily ended the case - just call up when it goes through so you can talk to fees team to make sure they've refunded you this"

Wont' bore you all but in short I did call several times, and had several 'conversations' with utterly clueless people who could barely speak English from staff up to supervisors, all of whom eventually agreed that as it was promised I'd get my seller fees back and as I'd volunteered the refund, it would happen. I can't begin to tell you how hard it was to get have this simple conversation with the myriad of clueless so and sos who answer the phones.

Another thing that was bizarre in these phonecalls is that although I sold the item for £137 and postage was £20 (total of £157), ebay seem to think the refund should be £177 (£20 more). Each time they tried telling me it's £177 I corrected them, they looked at the invoice and realised it was a mistake and said they'd sort it.

Snip... snipp... cut to the chase....

i NOW see to my horror that

a) they've refunded but HAVEN'T refunded my selling fees after all (£15 or so).

b) not only that but they refunded £177 when I only sold it for £137 (plus £20 postage). (return postage was only £2.58 which they added on which is fine).

So in short - ebay clueless every time I called them, promised they'd return seller fees. Not only did they not return seller fees they persisted with a £20 overcharge error that I pointed out every time I talked to them.

Honestly I feel like I'm talking to monkeys whenever I call them and at best after an hour of talking they learn to regurgitate what I'm saying, but don't take it in mentally and certainly nothign comes of it. Whenever I call again it's the same BS right from the start, having to explain everything again from scratch (despite them having made notes) to a million different 'people' higher and higher up the chain only for the same thing to happen. And this seems to be the case as after all this NOTHING seems to have been understood and they've just gone and did the wrong thing on both counts.

I feel like banging my head against a brick wall.

I think part of the problem is these foreign call centres where these people are good at reading a script but don't seem like humans you can interact with. There is no way of talking to someone who can just understand you properly.

I@ve wasted so much time over a few quid.

I've just spent ages on chat now again with them and it's the same thing: "resolution centre will contact you".. like it's a computer talking to me. If I can't trust supposed people and superiors and managers over the phone, how am I now going to trust an email service.

I'm lost, what can I do?

Flyonthewall

Don't know what to advise about the refund other than keep trying. If you google it you may find contact details for someone higher up who may be able to resolve the issue.

For the case, the buyer opened the case, not ebay. There's nothing wrong with having a case open at all for a return, it means it's all going properly through the system so the buyer guarantees they'll get a refund if the seller refuses to refund. For you, it means if the buyer doesn't return it the case would time out and they'd be unable to open a new one (so no return, you keep the money and they have the item). If they do return you refund as you were going to anyway.

You'd have been best off just letting the return happen as normal through the case. Ebay didn't need to interfere and, as you can see, it can lead to issues.

I assume you got the item back from the buyer?

Also, if return postage was only £2.58 (and through ebay, that would have been tracked) that's a big difference from your £20. There are a lot of buyers who would mark you down for overcharging on postage. I'd maybe expect postage to be a few pounds different if, say, you went through Royal Mail rather than MyHermes or you added extra cover due to the item value, but not that much. I know it's nothing to do with what you asked, but thought I'd add it in case you weren't aware and it was something you could change for future listings.

Flyonthewall

Just an added thought, have you tried contacting Paypal? Although ebay really should be resolving the issue Paypal might be able to see if there was some glitch or extra charge to explain the £20 overcharge. They may at least be able to resolve that.

They may just tell you to contact ebay as they can't do anything, but could be worth a try.

It could also be that ebay are just slow at refunding the fees (depending on how long ago it was when you sold the item).

Hope you get it sorted.

mrcol1000

If the buyer opened a case, why did you do it over the phone? If you had refunded via the case then it would all be automatic, the refund and fees credit. Or am I missing something?

soolin

mrcol1000 wrote: »

If the buyer opened a case, why did you do it over the phone? If you had refunded via the case then it would all be automatic, the refund and fees credit. Or am I missing something?

I was about to ask the same- perhaps OP could clarify?

The process should be that buyer opens a case, seller provides return label via ebay, when item is returned seller refunds via case and fees are returned automatically. I can't quite see why phoning ebay was necessary, or account for the discrepancy between outgoing and incoming postage charge.

One possible explanation, and it still doesn't fit really, is that seller didn't respond through the open case- so buyer somehow persuaded ebay to allow him an additional £20 for the return as per the original postage (which frankly seems unlikely) and then got the rest refunded as soon as tracking showed item was on its way back. If seller had phoned ebay and not gone through the case it would count as a defect as seller basically allowed ebay to intervene and didn't refund willingly, hence FVFs not being returned. OP would also have a defect which they haven't mentioned.

My theory thought doesn't really fit the OPs explanation so probably best to wait for OP to come back.

Asker

Buyer took aaages to respond when I asked him some simple Qs. When he did finally respond he decided to open a case.

My wife had bad experience regarding ebay, a dodgy refund request and she lost her ebay selling fees too because a case was opened. (Unfair, theiving ebay, but that's their rules.)

So when buyer opened a case I called ebay asap to say "hey there's no case needed here I just want to refund as requested, so I shouldn't lose my sellers fee" and they said "yep sure that makes sense you're volunteering it so we don't need to try to decide an outcome. sure, you'll get your seller's fee back when you refund". I called because there is then no way whatsoever to just press "send a return label". Sure you can press refund but you need your item back first!!! Even speaking to ebay and asking them to let me do a return label so I can give a refund they said "no we cannot do this. the case has been opened so it has to go through the case." this is why I had to call. there was no other way around it. I tried everything.

Re: £20 postage: Irrelevant point, but to answer it yes £20 seems a lot but I made it very clear in the ad I want collection only as don't haev teh time or inclination to post but £20 would cover my time/ finding box/ driving down to post office etc. Have always done this and ppl never complain. Or if they don't like it they won't bid as it's in black and white. Buyer had no issue with it and is quite happy just to get back what he paid. A bit of a tit for (probably accidentally) breaking my item and asking for a refund, and a bit of a tit for not responding for 2 weeks then suddenly opening a case... but not so much of a tit for wanting to con me out of £20.

Re: over-refund. Even before the whole refund saga when the item sold it said "£177" sale price even though it was 137 plus 20 postage. Seems a random glitch in teh system. Even other stuff I sold that weekend were all classed as being sold for £20 more, even though they had different postages and prices. A glitch in the system that I've pointed out to ebay repeatedly and they acknowledged (at least some monkey acknowledged it on the phone) several times.

in short - ebay said they'd return seller fees, REPEATEDLY. they haven't.
ebay acknowledged the wrong sale price, btu have still deducted the wrong sale price as part of the refund.

They are utterly clueless. And they hide behind foreign humanoids who just seemingly read a script and regurgitate stuff assuring you everythign will be ok when none of it is noted.

Is there a UK based English person who understands simple English I can just talk to? It is beyond painful trying to talk to call centre monkeys. (ps My parents are foreign but they can speak the language properly, so this is not some Trumpophile rant).

mrcol1000

When you refund you have to refund everything, inculding what they paid for postage. So they refunded the correct amount. In a returns case, you have the option to refund without having the item back. However Ebay will only force you to refund once tracking shows it has been delivered back to you.

Really you should have dealt with this via a returns on Ebay rather than phoning them and confusing things.

ballisticbrian

It's not how cases are opened, it's how they are closed which affects the fees. Cases is how we do everything on eBay now, returns, items missing in transit, refunds...

Asker

mrcol1000 wrote: »

When you refund you have to refund everything, inculding what they paid for postage. So they refunded the correct amount. In a returns case, you have the option to refund without having the item back. However Ebay will only force you to refund once tracking shows it has been delivered back to you.

Really you should have dealt with this via a returns on Ebay rather than phoning them and confusing things.

Oh my gosh it looks like I'm getting the same responses here - what chance do oversees guys have?

ITEM = £137
POSTAGE = £20

TOTAL PRICE HE PAID AND TOTAL AMOUNT I RECEIVED = £157
Total refund therefore, as you say item plus postage = £157

NOT 177

Ebay should not have immediately put £177 for the sale (even before this refund saga) - clearly a glitch in the system WHICH THEY HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED. THIS IS NOT FOR DEBATE. NOONE INCLUDING EBAY DISAGREES.

The issue is purely they've cocked up and have said they'd sort it but computer just works automatically it seems and noone I talk to over the phone can even grasp the language enough let alone help me. And now I can see the alleged complexity of it if even you guys can't grasp the maths.

So who do I talk to, what can I do without spending ages on the phone to school leavers in the Philippines or whatever.

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AS FOR PHONING THEM AND CONFUSING THINGS I've already explained this above.

Once the stupid buyer decided to open a case the option to do a simple return vanished. Case was opened. I didn't want the case to be decided upon by ebay (who'd have only deiced in buyer's favour anyway) as I'd lose seller fees (unfairly) so I called ebay to say "I have no option of doing a return label can you let me do this so I don't let it go through the whole case process?" they said "no it's too late it has to go down this route now... but seeing as you called us to put a voluntary stop to it, that's cool we'll end it and put a note on the system to say you get seller fees returned too."


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edit: apologies, don't mean to come across belligerent when you're only trying to help. Clearly my frustration is spilling over.

Asker

ballisticbrian wrote: »

It's not how cases are opened, it's how they are closed which affects the fees. Cases is how we do everything on eBay now, returns, items missing in transit, refunds...

Don't understand this.

I could've djsut done a simpel returns label and sort it out.

Then suddenly that option was taken away from me because ebay said "the buyer has opened a case". My wife's experience (which ebay have confirmed is the policy - ridiculous as it is) is that once a case is opened and ebay have to spend monkey-hours looking through it all they punish you as a seller for it having to go through what they call a "case". it could have been sorted beforehand if I'd just pressed "accept refund, print return label". As a result they keep the seller fees, even though you've refunded the item. Yes, unbelievable but true.

But due to the buyer taking over three weeks to reply to my suggestions of what to try (in case he got it wrong and it was actually working) and then randomly just opening a case with ebay, this simple preliminary "yes I agree to refund just send it back to me first" option vanished and it went down case route.

Flyonthewall

Asker wrote: »

My wife had bad experience regarding ebay, a dodgy refund request and she lost her ebay selling fees too because a case was opened. (Unfair, theiving ebay, but that's their rules.)

If by that you mean she didn't refund so ebay stepped in, then that would be why that happened. It didn't happen just because a case was opened, that's not how it works.

Re: £20 postage: Irrelevant point, but to answer it yes £20 seems a lot but I made it very clear in the ad I want collection only as don't haev teh time or inclination to post but £20 would cover my time/ finding box/ driving down to post office etc. Have always done this and ppl never complain. Or if they don't like it they won't bid as it's in black and white.

Irrelevant to this, yes, but doesn't hurt to cover extra points if it can help someone. Fair enough reason for the difference. However, you can not assume because it's in black and white or people have agreed to that price that they're happy with it and won't mark you down. Many people don't read properly and being willing to pay and actually being happy with that charge are two very different things. You've been lucky to have good buyers so far.

Re: over-refund. Even before the whole refund saga when the item sold it said "£177" sale price even though it was 137 plus 20 postage. Seems a random glitch in teh system. Even other stuff I sold that weekend were all classed as being sold for £20 more, even though they had different postages and prices. A glitch in the system that I've pointed out to ebay repeatedly and they acknowledged (at least some monkey acknowledged it on the phone) several times.

Does sound like a glitch. What does your Paypal account show? Does it show an extra charge or does it show a refund for that sale, in which case even if the figures are wrong it should be the same in and out?

in short - ebay said they'd return seller fees, REPEATEDLY. they haven't.
ebay acknowledged the wrong sale price, btu have still deducted the wrong sale price as part of the refund.

They are utterly clueless. And they hide behind foreign humanoids who just seemingly read a script and regurgitate stuff assuring you everythign will be ok when none of it is noted.

It could be, as has already been said, because ebay got involved with the case. The staff are basing their answer on a case resolved by a seller, not a case where ebay were involved (even though there's a reason for it and it's not because you refused to do anything).

That, of course, doesn't really help you, but it would at least explain it. Maybe instead of explaining everything, just say a case was opened and I refunded the buyer, but I haven't had my fees returned. Keep it simple and to the point.