Dishonest Sellers who do not honor warranty

[bargain4me2]

Online sellers must believe they are above the usual merchant laws because they are selling in foreign countries and seemingly protected by multiple layers of protection from eBay's slow and minor reprimands.

I think there should be swift and decisive trading sanctions placed on Sellers who falsely advertise features of products they sell.

The 45 day Seller liability seems like an effective measure to make buyers more efficient in their complaints but it protects the dishonest seller in two obvious ways and I believe these should be addressed.

1. Goods being slowly shipped from China to Australia. It should only take 10-12 days, but some sellers delay this so the goods arrive around 30 days and then keep making excuses like 'Dear friend we are sorry the postage is slow, we have no control. Please wait one more week and if still no arrive we will send you a new one and you can please give 5 star feedback'

The 45 day seller liability window is all but used up before the item arrives, or it never arrives because the seller just makes an empty promise, costing them nothing. They might eventually refund money 3 months later. No cost loan to them at buyer's expense.

2. Goods are dead on arrival (DOA) which could be transit damage but could also be a SCAM to unload intermittent or suspected faulty goods. (They arrive without retail packaging which probably means they are second or third quality). The seller probably bought them as a lucky dip of unwanted items from the manufacturer and decided to sell them to buyers in far away places, where return shipping costs for warranty replacement would be cost prohibitive. Beware of special deals that will operate outside of eBay and PayPal to rectify the situation. Even though eBay and PayPal can't protect our money after it has been taken, they still protect our identity and bank accounts.

So the faulty item doesn't work, won't be replaced unless the buyer spends a lot of money to ship back and then there is no obligation on the seller to replace the item because the time for complaints is well and truly over. If a replacement is sent, it will probably be another 3rd quality intermittently faulty item. You might get a refund. So how much did that refund cost the buyer compared to the seller.  It was really a free loan.

The only way eBay can guard against dishonest sellers taking advantage of their buyers is to put a full review section that goes much further than the single line feedback, with really obvious links to the sellers adverts. They should make it very easy to sort the reviews by date, item, value of item, warranty support, customer complaints, etc. eBay could make this even more transparent than shopping in the real world.

Customer service will become a real priority for sellers because right now it is just a joke to the dishonest sellers because they can ignore and block the buyers complaints and no one really sees it or can link it back to them.

My recent experience involved a faulty product that took 29-30 days to arrive from HK/China.

(Should have got a refund and just viewed it as a $$loan to a dishonest seller)

I reported the LED projector as faulty DOA to the seller.

They requested that we sort it out by me sending the faulty item back to them via airmail to China. If I attach copy of receipt they will ship new one. They want me to close any ebay report dispute first.

(All I am thinking is there goes the bargain, since I have to pay return shipping for their faulty item)

There was a bit of back and forth email and messages through ebay message in my*ebay.

It didnt occur to me that they might be playing me just to delay until the 45 day Seller liability expires.

They stopped communicating, ignore email and messages now.

No new product was shipped back.

I contacted eBay and because I sent back the faulty item and it has been 3 months since they banked my money, this is really a Seller who is not honouring warranty, Seller not responding and dishonest trading.

So I have reported them.

Ebay needs to make an example of Sellers without ethics because they just highlight all the badfeatures of online commerce and tarnish the eBay site.

The seller is still ignoring me (they also banned me from their eBay store) so I am still hopeful that eBay can get thru tk the seller because I am owed 3 months compensation and my purchase price.

So waiting to see who runs eBay out of the 

dishonest sellers or eBay?

I haven't publicly named the seller (not much point as they can change name or use one of their other ID's)