Misleading toilet roll add. People fall for this, but apparently i may not win the case if escalated

[from_mum_2_mum]

I refused to panic buy & stack up rolls and now pay the hefty price because of my duty of care.

Some shameless toilet paper seller is advertising rolls misleadingly. I called ebay to see if they can do anything to stop this before more people fall victim like myself, but it seems like they can't do much due to the cleverly placed ad. On top of that, the customer representative thinks i may not get a refund if escalated. 

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/254538369953

First of all the seller put a pic of a whole pack and put a price that resembles the price of a whole pack like other honest sellers. At a glance once would naturally think $16.95 is a price of a pack (where in Australia would you sell 1 roll for that much it just doesn't make sense). She described it as 1 roll in the description and added a picture of the 1 roll but cleverly cropped it in an angle and put it in certain way so it looks like an 'australian made' label or some sort of 'Australian made' parcel pack (you wouldn't notice this is a toilet paper if you don't zoom - well so many victims didn't notice it - including myself. The ebay representative had to tell me few times & made me zoom before i realised that's a picture of a roll). Seller also  cunningly opted for a no refund policy.

30% review apparently doesn't do anything to stop this seller. If only she puts a decent 1 roll picture with no label covering it or in an angle as the main picture, i bet $100, not one single person in their right mind will click and buy. Yet ebay thinks this is okay. I'm just in disbelief.

[imastawka]

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@from_mum_2_mum wrote:
1. I don't see any entitled attitude from my comment above. Only regrets not knowing my way navigating through the whole situation properly after i received the unexpected parcel.

2. The so called anxiety and fuss is not just about me. I certainly hope other buyers who have felt rorted would come to this discussion board if they didn't have any luck with refund & have a read through what other posters have suggested. I found those quite helpful (apart from the naysayers) and they might too. After-all this is a community for members to share and help others no?

2. I didn't overpay and regret. I thought i paid for what's shown on the picture (i know, i know, no excuses for my rushed buying) but it's pretty much the same as your rushed assumption without really reading what i have posted from top to bottom. But hey we're all human

3. And as for attitude, i believe mine is more pleasant than yours thank you.

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Starting to have very little sympathy.

I bought toilet rolls on-line - from a reputable hotel supplier. (as opposed to a numnut)

Reasonably priced and delivered within 4 days - no problems.

[springyzone]

This is for next time. There is another way to get a personal service if you need to talk to someone at ebay. I used it once.

It is to contact them online for a chat. You don't actually talk to a person, you type back & forth. I had a problem once and it was resolved quite well this way. (My problem was a pick up item not as described so i didn't pay, then had a non payment claim lodged. The rep wiped it off my record)

The good thing about this way is it is recorded and a transcript is emailed to you.

[from_mum_2_mum]

I tried the chat online but no one responded, maybe it was a busy time. Your advice noted, will keep that in mind. Hindsights, the call wait time was 7mins. If i was a bit more patient maybe i would have gotten a reply via chat by that time and as you said i'd have the transcript..

[from_mum_2_mum]

I have to thank Bato-breaks, Yourself and Springyzone for all your advices 

Today i found out Ebay closed the dispute in my favour. A full refund of $42 to include postage has been put back in my paypal account, i listed all your point of views in my last commentary before EBAY stepped in (since seller stopped replying to my message).

Big hug! (and big lesson for me) i sincerely hope the others will get their refunds too.

[davewil1964]

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@from_mum_2_mum wrote:

I have to thank Bato-breaks, Yourself and Springyzone for all your advices 

Today i found out Ebay closed the dispute in my favour. A full refund of $42 to include postage has been put back in my paypal account, i listed all your point of views in my last commentary before EBAY stepped in (since seller stopped replying to my message).

Big hug! (and big lesson for me) i sincerely hope the others will get their refunds too.

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$42? You claimed to have paid about $21. Or were you numpty enough to fall for the same trick twice?

[springyzone · Accepted solution]

Glad you got a refund.

I had a friend tell me that they have been informed that from 1 April, ebay is coming down hard on all sales of sanitiser, TP etc and only proper business sellers will be allowed to list it and not at price gouging prices.

I haven't seen or read an actual email about it myself, but the news does not surprise me.

The next few months present a good business opportunity for ebay as people are likely to be doing more online shopping for a while.

The last thing ebay needs is bad media publicity about allowing rip off merchants to flourish and doing nothing about it.

Amazon has acted and ebay needed to act too. It's a new situation.

I am not surprised ebay is giving buyers the benefit of the doubt at the moment on TP sales etc

If they have a new policy in place, then I imagine it could be almost automatic that sellers who had the slightest whiff of misdirection in such ads will have the buyers win if they complain. And there is no doubt in my mind that regardless of what the seller might have put in his ad to cover his backside, that putting up a photo of a whole pack as his main photo and then charging $21 for delivery of one roll was misleading and an example of price gouging.

Well done for following through and I hope in this case you don't even need to return the item, that the seller loses out.

[from_mum_2_mum]

I never claimed to have paid $21. I stated it's around $22 per roll (i see the problem of not reading in details & wanting to read/assume just what you want to believe seem to be more common than i thought).

That's why what Springyzone said above is very uplifting - if EBAY is coming down hard on all sanitiser & TP opportunists - at least for people like you and me.

[from_mum_2_mum]

I notice a funny trend here. People who have posted above 10k seem to be a little hardened, bitter & posses a pack mentality. Try spend less time online and spread more kindness in real life, grow up.. it will do good for your soul.

Couldn't really care about your sympathy to be honest. I'm too busy carrying on with real life and trying to harvest good Karmas. Outta here 🙂

[lyndal1838]

I have to agree with Stawks.....you should never have been issued a refund.  The item was exactly as described....ONE ROLL of toilet paper.

The reason those of us with high post counts are hardened is that we know the rules.....in many cases better than the ebay CS who takes your call.

As often happens here the loudest complainers get what they are not entitled to.

[digital*ghost]

I don't think the refund was undeserved, TBH. I also think impulse buying on eBay is a problem, and that in some cases buyers need to accept responsibility for their errors caused by oversights such as not paying attention to all of the information a seller provides in a listing. As I've said on numerous occasions before (and a phrase which I stole from someone else who posted this elsewhere) - Not as expected does not equal not as described.

But, I if I had to guess at what was behind eBay's decision here purely on a policy level, despite finding how they went about it very troubling - there is not supposed to be conflicting information in a listing - that includes images, titles, and text in the description. A photo of a full pack and a title / description for 1 roll is conflicting information. The seller shot themselves in the foot by creating a listing with conflicting info. It's a technicality for sure, and perhaps never formed the basis of how eBay approached this case, but for anyone saying the item was 100% accurately described - no, it wasn't.