Do ebay simply find in favour of dodgy buyers/scammers or investigate for real?

[jeisner23]

So I sold a bunch of camera lenses mentioning they came from a deceased estate (which they did). 

A buyer with a long history of buying and reselling lenses, bought one of them and immediately complained of a missing part (an accessory I said wasn't included in the listing) trying to get half his money back and keeping the item, counting on me not knowing enough to know he was misleading me, I pointed out the clarity of the listing and he changed his story. 

He then claimed the auto focus was broken on the manual focus lens, pretending he was new to camera lenses and didn't know it was not auto focus based on my description. He lodged a return request saying this. I proved the listing was clear and not my fault he didn't know, he kept arguing until it was clear he was in the wrong and has changed his story again as to what is wrong, now pointing out he runs a business selling lenses and knows about this lens (complete change of story).

I fear he may return a different item (was using me to swap over his faulty one) or something else dodgy is going on as ther was so much dishonesty already. I have blocked him from buying on my auctions again but am concerned what ebay will do when I don't accept the return and let ebay investigate it?

I did contact the escalation team 3 times, lol. Twice I was told they will ALWAYS side with the buyer, it doesn't matter if he is lying, and once the guy knew about lenses and said he is clearly lying and not to worry about it, letting ebay investigate before I accept.

Has anyone been through the escalation proceedure when refusing a return, do they even do due dilagence or just find in the buyers favour. I am getting a bit sick of how buyer centric ebay has become, it seems to be the perfect place to scam sellers.


Interestingly I accidentally posted this on the US forum and was assured ebay will never contact you and just refund the buyer and let them keep the item if you let it escalate. I called ebay support and they once more denied this and said they "would never do that" but multiple people said on the ebay US forums that is what happened to them.. so who's telling the turth?

[luvmaboyz2010]

I have an ongoing problem with a woman who bought a $200 kaftan.  3 weeks later lodged a return claim saying it didn’t match photos or description.  I sent photo evidence of listing photos that she was lying and it did match, but eBay ruled in her favour.   She returned it to the wrong address, required signature on delivery and was returned to her.  eBay refund3d her even though it wasn’t successfully delivered to me.  She now has refund and 5he kaftan and is refusing to return it.  I sent letter of demand which sh3 has ignored, now I have to take her to court!  eBay won’t do anything to help me.   They support dishonest buyers, not honest sellers

[justkidzbiz]

Phone ebay or request a call back and ask to speak to a supervisor.  Give them all the details including the fact it was delivered incorrectly and returned back to the buyer. They may refund you as a courtesy, in good faith.

you can also try and lodge an appeal