Ebay dispute

jack_121

Hi And thanks for reading. I’m having trouble with ebay.

I sold an item on ebay, which was subsequently lost in the post.

The seller complained and I refunded the £100 he paid for the item.

Or so I thought. Ebay contacted me later and told me that due to a fault on the ebay site, the £100 refund did not go through.

Ebay sent me a one time payment ( otp ) link, which I clicked on, but again the refund did not go through because of a fault on the ebay website.

This has happened 5 times now with each otp link failing due to a fault on the ebay website, which ebay acknowledges is their fault

Now I have a debt collection agency threatening me over the £100 I owe ebay, which I cannot pay as ebay has not resolved the website problem.

Ebay says I must pay the £100 first before they will call off the debt collectors. I have told ebay i am more than willing to pay, as i have stated right from the very first instance, but am unable to due to their website problem

It has been a month now and ebay has still not resolved the problem with the otp, and the debt collection agency is ready to go to court.

What should I do.

GadgetGuru

Please clarify….

You say you sold an item for £100, but then say that the seller complained and you refunded the £100?
I assume you meant the buyer complained??

If so, then eBay have refunded the buyer and are reclaiming their costs from you. 
Have you had £100 come out of your account at all from any of the attempts at paying the £100? If so, provide this evidence to eBay.

If not then you still owe eBay £100. What’s stopping you from paying the debt collection agency, who are acting on behalf of eBay? Is there any particular reason you don’t want to do this?? The agency will then pass the funds across to eBay instead.

All you can do is continue to comply with all attempts to pay. Log each and every attempt. Even if it goes to court you can show evidence of you trying to pay all along.

Jerry_Cornelius

I had the same issue with a refund. I could not get the refund to process because of the OTP link not working, as I recall, everytime I tried to hit the button to get it to send the text, it sent the text to my phone OK, but on the website it closed the OTP link almost instantly with no way to enter the text i'd just recieved, and then it said the transaction had failed (obviously). In the end I had to ring them up and ask them to put the refund through, and I was told they could take the refund from the same account as the managed payments are made to, which was fine.

Cue about 14 days later, when I get an email from ebay saying i have an outstanding debt. I look into it to discover although they have refunded the buyer, they have not taken the money from the MP account as they said they would, even though on the page it says you can make a one time payment or let ebay automatically take the funds from your account. I assume thats whatt they would do, but 7 days later i get a more threatening email stating they will suspend my account if I do not make payment. In the end I tried to make the payment manually, but as before when trying to make the refund originally the OTP failed to work. Even trying a different browser had the same issue. In the end I had to add a completely different card from a different bank and that managed to go through - the OTP was slighlty a slighlty diff. interface for some reason and the OTP window didn't disappear when i got the text but i had as devil of a job getting the box to highlight so I coulod enter the text - the mouse would not work, in the end i had to use the TAB key on the keyboard to select the box, then the TAB key again to select the Enter box. It was a right faff. But I have no idea why the originaly refund or payment to ebay would not process.

Did you try a different payment source?

jack_121

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

Sorry, i do mean the buyer complained, and i issued the refund - my mistake.

I don't want to pay the debt collection agency because they have raised the bill from £100 to £140 to cover their costs.

I'm not sure how the otp  links are supposed to work,when i phoned ebay customer support they said the link will take me to a page where i can pay by any means i choose, but when i click on, a message pops up stating " Error, please try again later " So i can't enter a different payment source as i cannot proceed past this error message

tightauldgit

Have you tried doing it on a different computer? Or on your phone maybe? Can you make payments on the app? I cant remember

martindow

I think it might be wise to settle the debt collection bill under protest before the costs increase further with court fees.  Then pursue eBay for the £40 extra you have been obliged to pay becaue their system wouldn't work.

You need to mitigate the costs as if they open a claim with the court the total bill will only get larger.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

jack_121 said:

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

Sorry, i do mean the buyer complained, and i issued the refund - my mistake.

I don't want to pay the debt collection agency because they have raised the bill from £100 to £140 to cover their costs.

I'm not sure how the otp  links are supposed to work,when i phoned ebay customer support they said the link will take me to a page where i can pay by any means i choose, but when i click on, a message pops up stating " Error, please try again later " So i can't enter a different payment source as i cannot proceed past this error message

Debt collection company won't claim their £40, eBay will never refund it if you pay it and if I were you I wouldn't pay it as unless the eBay terms state fees for collection of debt charges can be added then the debt collection company can only claim actual costs they've suffered which isn't going to happen in small claims for £40 (their actual costs are probably less).

Worth writing a check and posting to eBay's address in London, then tell the debt collection company you've paid eBay and not to contact you again. 

jack_121

tightauldgit said:

Have you tried doing it on a different computer? Or on your phone maybe? Can you make payments on the app? I cant remember

Thanks! I haven't tried that, but ebay did say it is a recognised problem and other ebay users are suffering from it, so did not think it is worth pursuing too much, but i will try this

jack_121

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

jack_121 said:

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

Sorry, i do mean the buyer complained, and i issued the refund - my mistake.

I don't want to pay the debt collection agency because they have raised the bill from £100 to £140 to cover their costs.

I'm not sure how the otp  links are supposed to work,when i phoned ebay customer support they said the link will take me to a page where i can pay by any means i choose, but when i click on, a message pops up stating " Error, please try again later " So i can't enter a different payment source as i cannot proceed past this error message

Debt collection company won't claim their £40, eBay will never refund it if you pay it and if I were you I wouldn't pay it as unless the eBay terms state fees for collection of debt charges can be added then the debt collection company can only claim actual costs they've suffered which isn't going to happen in small claims for £40 (their actual costs are probably less).

Worth writing a check and posting to eBay's address in London, then tell the debt collection company you've paid eBay and not to contact you again. 

Thanks! That is a good idea, but i don't have a cheque book, is there any other way to do this, just send ebay the money and get rid of ebay once and for all.

jack_121

martindow said:

I think it might be wise to settle the debt collection bill under protest before the costs increase further with court fees.  Then pursue eBay for the £40 extra you have been obliged to pay becaue their system wouldn't work.

You need to mitigate the costs as if they open a claim with the court the total bill will only get larger.

But won't the court see that i have tried to pay the bill and take my side

martindow

jack_121 said:

martindow said:

I think it might be wise to settle the debt collection bill under protest before the costs increase further with court fees.  Then pursue eBay for the £40 extra you have been obliged to pay becaue their system wouldn't work.

You need to mitigate the costs as if they open a claim with the court the total bill will only get larger.

But won't the court see that i have tried to pay the bill and take my side

One would hope that you are right, but success in court is never guaranteed.  Judges can take a jaundiced view if they feel that people, opening the case or defending it, have not taken sufficient effort to solve the problem.  Someone above suggested sending a cheque - there is no dispute that you owe £100, is there?  As you don't have cheques can you get a friend or family member to write a cheque for you to send? You could pay them back cash or with a bank transfer.

There was a case on here where someone had sold a caravan and the buyer had disputed the description after it was delivered.  It ended up in court and people commenting on here were unanimous that the poster was certain to win.  They didn't.