Ebay "Item not as Described' / Paypal dispute

raven999

I recently purchased a logitech universal remote control from ebay for 85.02. The listing stated brand new, 2 year warranty and detailed the contents of the box. I paid via paypal and received the item a few days later. When I opened the box I found that the charging cradle, charger and USB were all missing. I immediately contacted the seller advising them off the problem and wanting to know how to resolve it. I then connected the remote to the PC with one of my own USB cables and tried to register the product with Logitech. Logitech's registration page said that that the remote was already registered to another user. I sent a follow up mail to the seller, informing them of the latest issue and stated that I believe the item fell into the ebay category "[FONT=arial,sans-serif]Item Significantly Not as Described" for the following reasons

[/FONT][FONT=arial,sans-serif]1) USB cable detailed on the listing is missing.
2) AC adapter for recharging base is missing.
3) Recharging station is missing.
4) Item was listed as "brand new and boxed" and "never been registered", product has been used, as it's already been registered with logitech. The CD software plastic bag was opened and the sticker that should be on the LCD screen was stuck to plastic container.
5) 2 year warranty invalid, as I can't register the product.

The seller's response was "[/FONT][FONT=arial,sans-serif]it was brand new from pc world so pi** off and try your pi** taking with someone else mate just cos you have a broken one and you think you can stitch us with it your mad ok i personally checked it and it was all there now do one"

I felt I was left with no other choice than to open a dispute on paypal and try to get my money back. Several messages were sent back and forth between myself and the seller, to no avail, so the paypal dispute went to a claim. I contacted Logitech and got them to confirm in writing that the remote serial number was already registered and they confirmed that it was registered in 2006! This was forwarded to Paypal. During the claim Paypal asked me to fill out a police report, so I went to the local police station with the remote, all the emails and paypal request. The police officer reviewed the details and created an incident report, which I faxed off to paypal.[/FONT]

I received a response from Paypal yesterday that my claim has been denied. "Based on PayPal's definition of significantly not-as-described, this claim does not qualify for a refund.We found the seller to have accurately represented the item(s) in question." . How can they say that the seller accurately represented their item when key components required for the remotes functionality are missing, it's clearly not brand new and there is only 1 month left of the stated 2 year warranty.

Does anyone know if you can successfully challenge a Paypal dispute decision once it's been made? Any advice on what I should do now? I feel like I done everything I can and justice has not been done.

I tried calling my credit card company today to see if they can do anything, but they said I would need to wait until 45 days after the transaction. I'm not even sure if they can help, as it's under 100 pounds, but I thought it would be worth a try.

rosekitten

Sorry I cant be of much help to you
but I am amazed that in this case
you were refused a refund.

I am sure others on here wth more
experience of this will give better
answers,is there no way you can
appeal this as its so obvious that
the seller is at fault here.

Usualy it mostly goes on the side
of the bidder in these claims and
you have been asked to provide
so much proof on top as well.

just stunned at the outcome of this.

but if all else fails definatly persue your
credit card company because it will
force paypal to take another look at this
if your credit card do a charge back.




.

emsywoo123

rosekitten wrote: »

Sorry I cant be of much help to you
but I am amazed that in this case
you were refused a refund.

I am sure others on here wth more
experience of this will give better
answers,is there no way you can
appeal this as its so obvious that
the seller is at fault here.

Usualy it mostly goes on the side
of the bidder in these claims and
you have been asked to provide
so much proof on top as well.

just stunned at the outcome of this.

but if all else fails definatly persue your
credit card company because it will
force paypal to take another look at this
if your credit card do a charge back.




.

I cannot help further I am afraid, but I second all of these thoughts.:o

Time2Go_25

As the eveidence you already have seems substantial, if you do not get any joy from Payapl there is always the courts. There is quite a lot of information here: http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/claims/index.htm

jacksons_mum

not much help but i vaguely remember reading something on this site about the credit card £100 rule, i think that they dont advertise it but they do offer protection on purchases under £100. try having a search on here and see what you can find.

soolin

I am amazed you lost as well..usually where buyer claims an item sold as 'brand new' was actually used it is an almost automatic win.

I'd phone paypal up and ask them for more information as this is nonsense especially since you have a crime number and everything.

raven999

I tried calling paypal and they put me through to their resolution center. They say they denied the claim for the following reasons:

1) Police report is invalid
2) item was accurately described by the seller
3) seller offered a replacement.

The say that it won't be re-opened without any further documentation being sent to them.

I asked them to clarify these points.

She said that it's a back office that processes the police reports, and they concluded that it's invalid. Even though I faxed them through an incident report number, that clearly identifies the police officer that took down my details. I also sent a follow up email that said that the officer would be happy to discuss the matter if they needed to follow up. So I don't understand why they've come to this conclusion that it's invalid.

I also don't really know how they can say that the seller accurately described the item, when I questioned this part, they said that was that they had found. I guess it's ok to leave out 3 key items that were listed and it's ok to say its' new, when it's not and Logitech confirmed it's used! It's ok to say it has 2 years warranty when in fact it only has 1 month left. I guess they're basically concluded that I'm lying about the parts missing and that why it's accurately described.

The seller eventually did agree to replace the item, but only after after several messages back and forth. During this time, the seller accused me of committing fraud and trying to pull a scam, which was totally untrue and unfounded. Why on earth would I go to the trouble of going to my local police station if I had committed fraud!. I didn't want a replacement, as the seller had initially told me to "pi** off", always a good start, then started accusing me of fraud. I didn't want to take a chance something going wrong with the replacement. As far as i was concerned the item clearly fell into the "item no described" and that the buyer protection would enable me to get my refund, after sending the remote back. I would then go and buy the remote elsewhere. I did explain to paypal my reasons for wanting a full refund rather than replacement.

Anyway I've basically been told that once it's been closed, nothing I can do, just have to accept it. The only way they will consider re-opening it would be to submit new documentation. I'm totally dumbfounded, I don't see what else I do. I feel like i've done all the leg work, tried to be civil with the seller, tried to use the buyer protection only to be let down. Worse still, I don't see what I could have done differently to stop this type of thing happening in the future. The seller was a ebay power seller >97% rating, they had ~16 negatives and 30 mutuals withdrawns, but who goes through all the bad ones, when they have >1000 good. Sadly, the only way I think I can stop this happening to be me again is to stop using ebay / paypal. I think it's a shame that it's come down to this, as my experience on ebay has been pretty good, sure there's been the odd problem, but I've always managed to resolve these with the seller or buyer.

My 45 days is up very soon, so I can call the credit card company on Monday and see what they make of this and clarify if I have any comeback from there side.

The other option I guess is the small claims court, which I will take a look at over the weekend.

Any further advice / comments are welcome

soolin

If you were offered a replacement then that is almost certainly why you lost the paypal chargeback. Under sale of goods and stuff a refund OR a replacement is required and paypal tend to sort of half follow those rules to suit themselves.

Therefore the seller had complied with one of paypal's requirements, ie to provide a replacement so they won the dispute.

I would though take very strong issue with paypal over the suggestion that the police claim was invalid..maybe the police station would be interested to hear that :eek:

Time2Go_25

You should try your credit card company, no need to wait until Monday and explain the situation to them.

I'm assuming the seller is a business so you may also wish to report them to trading standards.

Make sure you leave appropriate feedback, without being rude, don't want to risk it being removed.

Make sure you leave appropriate star ratings, 4 lots of 1 should do it.

It might be worth finding out from Paypal why they think the crime report is invalid.

soolin

pdel61 wrote: »

I'm assuming the seller is a business so you may also wish to report them to trading standards.

.

Will this still work though if they have complied with trading standards requirements and offered a replacement item?

Kron

The more I hear about Paypal's way of dealing with things the more unbelievable I find it. What set of rules does this company work under? To claim a police report is invalid is disgraceful. I certainly wouldn't have wanted a replacement after being sworn at and accused of fraud. I don't have any advice I'm afraid - I'm just so angry for you.

Karen