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

tc1992

theoretica said:

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.

i will have bought 1000s of CDs off them over the years, we'll have to see how things are now "going foward".
Yes good idea about buying direct, it was suggested and i'd totally forgotten about it.  May give that  a go.  Thankyou.

MalMonroe

eBay prefer you to register as a business if you are buying and selling on a regular basis -

(from the Buying and Reselling page from eBay under 'customer service') -

"Tip
If you're buying items to resell on eBay, you should register as a business seller."

Amazon may be the same, I'm not sure. 

If you're making a living out of it then maybe you should be registered as a business with HMRC?

Although a friend of my daughter's was recently warned by amazon that she'd been requesting a lot of returns and her account would be terminated if she didn't curb it. She was shocked to say the least as she's not buying to sell. She's now too scared to buy anything at all. Which isn't a bad thing.

Undervalued

I think you only have to look at this forum (and many others) to see that some people are determined to use (abuse?) their "rights" without any consideration for the implications.

Obviously all buyers quite rightly want any genuinely faulty items to be swiftly replaced or refunded, without them being in any way out of pocket. These are generally not the fault of the retailer. Although the retailer will usually have a claim against the manufacturer or wholesaler and recoup at least some of the costs, they still have all the overheads in dealing with it and won't generally get back the money they have spent on carriage both ways.

"Change of mind" returns are a bigger problem still. Often it will not be possible to resell the item as new. Even in perfect condition the packaging will generally be damaged so any future buyer will expect a discount. Many larger retailers end up selling customer returns to clearance companies for a fraction of their list price. Ultimately, this all has to be paid for and that cost is spread evenly over the buyers that don't abuse the system as well as those that do.

Consumer rights are great but they need to be exercised responsibly.