Dishonest buyer - refund now or after case has been opened ? 25 December 2022 at 12:38PM in Ebay, auctions, car boot sales, post & parcels 10 replies 952 views

Inigo_Montoya

I rarely sell anything in ebay these days so was looking for advise from people who use it regularly

I sold a couple of cinema ticket codes which the buyer is now falsely claiming didnt work
- i have screenshots to prove the codes work although i cant see that helping in a ebay case

I assume due to the way ebay works I am going have to refund the toerag as some point but was wondering
if its better to refund now before he opens a case or let him open a case so there is at least some visibilty to
ebay of the issue ?

My thinking is that if he does this type of thing a lot then its better that he has to open a case
so ebay will at least know he is a "problematic" buyer ?

Are there any downsides to my "seller dashbaord" for cases which have been opened & then seller refunded ?

olgadapolga

Inigo_Montoya said:

I rarely sell anything in ebay these days so was looking for advise from people who use it regularly

I sold a couple of cinema ticket codes which the buyer is now falsely claiming didnt work
- i have screenshots to prove the codes work although i cant see that helping in a ebay case

I assume due to the way ebay works I am going have to refund the toerag as some point but was wondering
if its better to refund now before he opens a case or let him open a case so there is at least some visibilty to
ebay of the issue ?

My thinking is that if he does this type of thing a lot then its better that he has to open a case
so ebay will at least know he is a "problematic" buyer ?

Are there any downsides to my "seller dashbaord" for cases which have been opened & then seller refunded ?

No, as long as you refund before he gets the chance to escalate it to eBay.

I also ask for a case to be opened before refunding, both for the reason you give and also because then I'll get a refund of the variable selling fees.

Inigo_Montoya

olgadapolga said:

Inigo_Montoya said:

I rarely sell anything in ebay these days so was looking for advise from people who use it regularly

I sold a couple of cinema ticket codes which the buyer is now falsely claiming didnt work
- i have screenshots to prove the codes work although i cant see that helping in a ebay case

I assume due to the way ebay works I am going have to refund the toerag as some point but was wondering
if its better to refund now before he opens a case or let him open a case so there is at least some visibilty to
ebay of the issue ?

My thinking is that if he does this type of thing a lot then its better that he has to open a case
so ebay will at least know he is a "problematic" buyer ?

Are there any downsides to my "seller dashbaord" for cases which have been opened & then seller refunded ?

No, as long as you refund before he gets the chance to escalate it to eBay.

I also ask for a case to be opened before refunding, both for the reason you give and also because then I'll get a refund of the variable selling fees.

thanks good to know

currently my dashboard is "clear" but only has 15 sale in the past year

if I let him escalate to ebay & lose (which I assume is almost certain ?) then it looks like my  "Cases closed without seller resolution" will go to 1/15 = 7% ?

will that one "infraction" have an affect on my ability to sell ? (as I will go "below standard")

TripleH

I might be wrong, but I believe you only get a negative marker if EBay themselves close the case against you.

If the buyer raises a concern and you 'refund' quickly then I wouldn't expect any negative.

A case may be opened by a dishonest buyer that you can prove so why would you get a mark against you? If you did every time this happened, you'd get fewer people willing to sell.

Bobo_Brazil

TripleH said:

I might be wrong, but I believe you only get a negative marker if EBay themselves close the case against you.

If the buyer raises a concern and you 'refund' quickly then I wouldn't expect any negative.

A case may be opened by a dishonest buyer that you can prove so why would you get a mark against you? If you did every time this happened, you'd get fewer people willing to sell.

The ability to prove a buyer may be dishonest is of absolutely no relevance to ebay, I'm afraid.

Had this a few months back: buyer left brilliant feedback and messages to the effect he was extremely happy with the item, then at 11:59pm on the last possible day I had a case opened for not as described. Item came back to me a couple of days later but was a clear forgery.  The fact that I could document this I was told by an ebay rep. was meaningless - because I had no proof the buyer did it, and it could just as easily been the Royal Mail worker who intercepted the parcel, did an excellent forgery, resealed it & sent it back to me in my original packaging all tracked within approx. 48 hours. all that, apparently, was far more plausible than someone on ebay not being a perfect buyer.

Inigo_Montoya

I seriously considered just refunding the buyer without resorting to an ebay case and the likely negative feedback but couldnt quite bring myself to do it even though I know I will have to refund them eventually - just felt to much like bending over & taking it up the *****    

I have told them I will refund them if they have some actual evidence to support their claim of the codes not working such as a screenshot showing the error (which they wont have of course) so their next step will be them starting an ebay claim  

at least there is the "report a buyer" feature available so I used that to make me feel a bit better about the impending shafting - however I suspect a lot of these casual scammers are not prolific enough to warrant any ebay attention

soolin

If you refund without a case how are you going to recover your FVFs? Buyers can leave feedback regardless of whether a case is opened or not and I can’t see any point in losing your fees just to make some sort of point?

fenwick458

I sold my club Lloyds cinema tickets a few months back, the buyer said they didn't work a day later and sent me screenshots. I did wonder if they had just booked their tickets already and were just trying it on to get their money back?
but as I had no way of sorting it out, and the tickets were free anyway I just let it go and refunded them

Inigo_Montoya

fenwick458 said:

I sold my club Lloyds cinema tickets a few months back, the buyer said they didn't work a day later and sent me screenshots. I did wonder if they had just booked their tickets already and were just trying it on to get their money back?
but as I had no way of sorting it out, and the tickets were free anyway I just let it go and refunded them

I know some people who sell lloyds codes accidentally put either the QR code or the voucher number in the auction picture allowing some toerag to steal them - hopefully you didnt do that ?

In my case I am very close to certain that they have just tried to use the codes after they expired for a few reasons due to how our conversation went (eg they contacted me two days after the expiry date claiming to have tried them two days ago) 

Because it looked like they had not actually used the codes I initially offered a 50% refund unless they had some evidence they codes didn't work like the screenshot you mentioned but they didn't have anything (as I expected) and didn't accept my offer so they  just raised an INR case with ebay forcing me to refund in full as there was no postal tracking

It vaguely crossed my mind to send the codes in the post so I could provide a tracking number to fight the INR case but it simply wasn't worth the effort for £10 and the tracking would have shown delivery after the code expiry date anyway which would not have helped if a real person looked at the case rather than some automated system - even if the automated system ruled in my favour due to the tracking number then I suspect the buyer would have have been able to convert it to an INAD case & win in the end anyway  

looking at the buyers feedback they do seem to have a history of being a troublesome customer - I do tend to look at buyers feedback before I dispatch an item but in this case it wasnt obvious there might be an issue without going through the comments in detail - "bad" buyers are harder to spot now as sellers cannot leave -ve feedback - also if you try to leave a "false" +ve thenI have read that the buyer can ask ebay to remove it

pinkshoes

Inigo_Montoya said:

looking at the buyers feedback they do seem to have a history of being a troublesome customer - I do tend to look at buyers feedback before I dispatch an item but in this case it wasnt obvious there might be an issue without going through the comments in detail - "bad" buyers are harder to spot now as sellers cannot leave -ve feedback - also if you try to leave a "false" +ve thenI have read that the buyer can ask ebay to remove it

You don't have to leave a false positive. Just word it carefully. "Buyer paid quickly. Sorry you had a problem with the code and couldn't get it to work. Full refund given".

Negs for buyers are pointless as you don't know who is going to buy it hence they were stopped.

Just leave positive feedback but politely apologise for the problem. If another seller is having an after sale problem, they can then take the hint from the feedback that this buyer might be a scammer rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt..

soolin

pinkshoes said:

Inigo_Montoya said:

looking at the buyers feedback they do seem to have a history of being a troublesome customer - I do tend to look at buyers feedback before I dispatch an item but in this case it wasnt obvious there might be an issue without going through the comments in detail - "bad" buyers are harder to spot now as sellers cannot leave -ve feedback - also if you try to leave a "false" +ve thenI have read that the buyer can ask ebay to remove it

You don't have to leave a false positive. Just word it carefully. "Buyer paid quickly. Sorry you had a problem with the code and couldn't get it to work. Full refund given".

Negs for buyers are pointless as you don't know who is going to buy it hence they were stopped.

Just leave positive feedback but politely apologise for the problem. If another seller is having an after sale problem, they can then take the hint from the feedback that this buyer might be a scammer rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt..

You are still awarding the buyer a positive star though to increase their feedback score.