Amazon and Ebay: How many returns is too many? Buyer abuse policy

RFW

tc1992 said:

RFW said:

Amazon are fairly reasonable, so if you outlined each case and told them you considered it unfair they may be prepared to give more information, or overturn their decision if they did ban you. My guess is, though, that these will be small value purchases, if they're being sent by marketplace sellers then Amazon don't earn much out of them and they won't lose much seeing you go. All the same, while you can, if you can, itemise each return and the reason for it. At the very least you'd probably get some publicity out of it, the media likes a good Ebay or Amazon bashing story.

Incidentally it's not a new thing exclusive to online traders. A friend of a friend was banned from one of the major supermarkets for returning to much stuff. It was quite a while ago so I won't name them but it was a blanket ban across all their stores. Whether they could police it I don't know. It's certainly easier for Amazon and Ebay to do it.

Yes, will be photographing any future returns from now on.  Yes i am complete irrelevant small fry to them

Interesting about your friend of a friend.  This does sound strange, without knowing the details, as it all New stuff that you literally can see before buying, so there should be only rare problems.  Never heard of that before.  Heard of people being banned from the bookies though haha.

She was a nightmare customer, fussy about everything and used to boast about it. I've been in retail and probably would have banned her too had she been my customer!

B0bbyEwing

I haven't read through the responses so maybe this has been addressed.


You say you buy a lot of CDs. 

Could it be that such a product can very easily be bought, copied/ripped using EAC or dbpoweramp for example & then returned as faulty, when in actual fact the person is just building their CD library?

Not saying that's what you're doing, just saying that's possible for someone playing the system to do & maybe eBay flag this?

anotheruser

B0bbyEwing said:

Could it be that such a product can very easily be bought, copied/ripped using EAC or dbpoweramp for example & then returned as faulty, when in actual fact the person is just building their CD library?

Which is a good point.

OP:  Would you be better to go digital with Spotify or something similar?

tc1992

B0bbyEwing said:

I haven't read through the responses so maybe this has been addressed.


You say you buy a lot of CDs. 

Could it be that such a product can very easily be bought, copied/ripped using EAC or dbpoweramp for example & then returned as faulty, when in actual fact the person is just building their CD library?

Not saying that's what you're doing, just saying that's possible for someone playing the system to do & maybe eBay flag this?

just checked back on this thread.  That is an interesting point, Bobby and not one i considered.  It's not something I would do because it is wrong , but more specifically because i am buying to resell.  Again it is hard to tell what ebay are looking for, but it would make sense though and would be kind of unique to CDs.  So maybe this reason could make them less tolerant for returns, good point.

i know EAC and dbPowerAmp well they are really usefull tools, i use them for checking for any errors / playback problems on (badly) scratched CDs

tc1992

anotheruser said:

B0bbyEwing said:

Could it be that such a product can very easily be bought, copied/ripped using EAC or dbpoweramp for example & then returned as faulty, when in actual fact the person is just building their CD library?

Which is a good point.

OP:  Would you be better to go digital with Spotify or something similar?

thanks AR, use spotify and such.  But i am buying these CDs for business, to resell them.

Undervalued

Obviously yours is a specific requirement, buying CDs specifically to re-sell, which puts you in a difficult position. You may have a decent small business going but it is peanuts to eBay or Amazon.

I think the general problem with excessive returners is going to get worse. You only have to look at some of the attitudes on the Consumer Rights section of this forum. Some people need to stop and think that if everybody behaved as they did retailers, both traditional shops and online, would go out of business. It also makes it harder for those who don't generally behave like that but have a one off genuine problem.

"I know my rights" is fine as long as the person also knows their responsibilities!

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

B0bbyEwing said:

I haven't read through the responses so maybe this has been addressed.


You say you buy a lot of CDs. 

Could it be that such a product can very easily be bought, copied/ripped using EAC or dbpoweramp for example & then returned as faulty, when in actual fact the person is just building their CD library?

Not saying that's what you're doing, just saying that's possible for someone playing the system to do & maybe eBay flag this?

Such things are not necessarily of a concern to eBay and Amazon.

There has been a vast, vast volume of counterfeit media sold on eBay over the last 20 years, from sellers sitting at home copying VHS tapes and putting new labels on to mass sales of counterfeits from China.

I just ran a search now and it took me 5 seconds to find a counterfeit DVD for example.

Amazon are an algorithm and given I've seen sellers in China with stock in FBA, all counterfeit, no VAT numbers (which legally they must have), people obviously find ways around the rules.

Both sites learn and adjust, one more than the other, but with the limits on returns it's doubtful such niche specifics have been considered, it's likely to predominately be number and value of returns vs number and value of purchases.

As far as the megasellers go they are basically algorithms as well, albeit on a smaller scale, if Magpie were bothered about the OP's returns they could block him/her, on eBay at least. 

OP if you are buying to resell then from a philosophical viewpoint there is winning and losing and of course the consideration that you are benefiting from the way they do business and adding value presumably by offering your buyers the guarantee they won't be treated the same way and will in fact get a decent CD that plays. 

Even if you were buying brand new from a distributor you'd get damaged stock, although you could return you might for example find life easier to sell the odd item at break even/a loss because it's quicker.

I don't know what your returns add up to in comparison to your profit but if the % is small and you run the risk of losing buying privileges from a business perspective you might it wise to write of the losses rather than return items  

tc1992

Undervalued said:

Obviously yours is a specific requirement, buying CDs specifically to re-sell, which puts you in a difficult position. You may have a decent small business going but it is peanuts to eBay or Amazon.

I think the general problem with excessive returners is going to get worse. You only have to look at some of the attitudes on the Consumer Rights section of this forum. Some people need to stop and think that if everybody behaved as they did retailers, both traditional shops and online, would go out of business. It also makes it harder for those who don't generally behave like that but have a one off genuine problem.

"I know my rights" is fine as long as the person also knows their responsibilities!

I do have a decent little business, which is why i am so concerned.

Very tricky one this.  I think there are good and bad on both sides - sellers and buyers.  From my experience as a seller, i think most people are honest.  I can count on the fingers of one hand then number of times i feel that i have been blatantly scammed as a seller, and this in over 10,000 transactions.  And i don't think any of those attempts worked

Makes me think about clothes returns which is probably the most notorious sector for returns.  Just looking quickly on Google around 12% returns on clothes.  Another CNBC article quoting 16% returns (and not on any specific retail area).  So i guess Jo Average clothes buyer is sending back  12% - are they all now getting banned as well?  Who knows.  I think if i have a return rate of 1:15 on second hand goods, is not unreasonable.

tc1992

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

B0bbyEwing said:

I haven't read through the responses so maybe this has been addressed.


You say you buy a lot of CDs. 

Could it be that such a product can very easily be bought, copied/ripped using EAC or dbpoweramp for example & then returned as faulty, when in actual fact the person is just building their CD library?

Not saying that's what you're doing, just saying that's possible for someone playing the system to do & maybe eBay flag this?

Such things are not necessarily of a concern to eBay and Amazon.

There has been a vast, vast volume of counterfeit media sold on eBay over the last 20 years, from sellers sitting at home copying VHS tapes and putting new labels on to mass sales of counterfeits from China.

I just ran a search now and it took me 5 seconds to find a counterfeit DVD for example.

Amazon are an algorithm and given I've seen sellers in China with stock in FBA, all counterfeit, no VAT numbers (which legally they must have), people obviously find ways around the rules.

Both sites learn and adjust, one more than the other, but with the limits on returns it's doubtful such niche specifics have been considered, it's likely to predominately be number and value of returns vs number and value of purchases.

As far as the megasellers go they are basically algorithms as well, albeit on a smaller scale, if Magpie were bothered about the OP's returns they could block him/her, on eBay at least. 

OP if you are buying to resell then from a philosophical viewpoint there is winning and losing and of course the consideration that you are benefiting from the way they do business and adding value presumably by offering your buyers the guarantee they won't be treated the same way and will in fact get a decent CD that plays. 

Even if you were buying brand new from a distributor you'd get damaged stock, although you could return you might for example find life easier to sell the odd item at break even/a loss because it's quicker.

I don't know what your returns add up to in comparison to your profit but if the % is small and you run the risk of losing buying privileges from a business perspective you might it wise to write of the losses rather than return items  

Very decent post LIIMH.

Yes one of the areas i add value is to do the things that Magpie claim to do and blatantly lie about.
I believe their line is "meticulously refurbished products".  They literally do nothing to the product.
So, many example is that I find a collectable  CD from them, change out the dirty broken case, clean the finger marks off that are covering it, check it actually plays without fault, and resell. 

To be clear they do not all arrive in that sort of condition but a decent percentage do.

As for going forward, I think you offer good advice, and the key as you say is to take a philosophical viewpoint.  The fact  is that i know what i am dealing with with the megasellers, and will simply have to work around it and maybe write of the occasional total dud rather than open a return.

theoretica

tc1992 said:

The fact  is that i know what i am dealing with with the megasellers, and will simply have to work around it and maybe write of the occasional total dud rather than open a return.

I think that may be wise - rather than thinking about an individual purchase and if it is good or dud, think about purchasing 100 cds from them and whether overall you came out ahead. 

You didn't answer about buying direct from https://www.musicmagpie.co.uk/ - if they don't like your returns it shouldn't affect your other accounts.