topic Re: Dishonest buyer in Selling

Dishonest buyer

aristides52 — Fri, 26 May 2017 09:53:28 GMT

I recently sold a bluetooth speaker, which was used but in perfect working condition. I had provided accurate info and images on the listing. I had thoroughly tested it and fully charged it before sending it out. A few days after receiving the item, the buyer opened a dispute stating the item was "dead-on-arrival" and that he tried charging the speaker for days, but it wouldn't power on. I provided as much support and guidance to the buyer to get the speaker to work, but he was adamant that it was dead and eventually got ebay to initiate a return. The buyer simply put up one shady image and that was obviously without pressing the power button. I got the item and I tested it and it was in perfect working condition. I immediately shared images of the working item with ebay, including screenshots from my phone to prove that the speaker also connected with the phone. But ebay just didn't listen to my claim and simply went ahead and refunded the buyer. To make things worse, the buyer left negative feedback and now it's also a defect against my seller performance. Plus ebay has also refused to credit the selling fees for this transaction. I've argued so many times with ebay, but they repeatedly keep stating that they are unable to validate my claim and that the buyer had every right to return the item if it didn't work. And it wasn't rocket science to get a bluetooth speaker to work. I've sold several items in the past and there was not a single instance where I had sold a faulty item. Besides, I offered free postage and spent $10.50 out of my pocket and yet ebay won't listen to me at all.

Can someone please advise of possible options?

ebay is just over-protecting buyers who simply exploit the money-back guarantee. And the seller protection is purely on paper and good for nothing.

Re: Dishonest buyer

davewil1964 — Fri, 26 May 2017 10:36:43 GMT

Correct - the buyer is king.

You have no recourse, unfortunately. At least you got your speakers back.

Re: Dishonest buyer

kopenhagen5 — Fri, 26 May 2017 11:25:55 GMT

And no negative feedback.

Re: Dishonest buyer

rocket2retro — Fri, 26 May 2017 12:43:06 GMT

These days with eBay, despite your losses, you're one of the luckier ones to have got your item back & working (ie not deliberately broken by the buyer). Doesn't matter what you do the buyer is always right in their eyes.

Over 20,000 sales I've never been the benficiary of seller protection (not even once). It is just a rort to make it look like they're being fair.

Re: Dishonest buyer

justkidzbiz — Fri, 26 May 2017 23:55:17 GMT

Doesn't matter what you say, show (via pics) etc as a seller when it comes to SNAD. Ebay will almost ALWAYS side with the buyer regardless of anything you say. There bs response is that they physically don't see the item so they have to take the buyers word.

I even had one buyer return a totally different, faded well worn item, and guess what, the buyer was refunded. When I jumped up and down (over a $110 item), ebay just said "well the buyer returned "AN ITEM" so we must refund them." Plus I had to pay return postage.

I emailed led the buyer showing his returned item and the item I sold and his response was simply, "ah sorry, my bad" eBay refused to reopen the case.

Its almost getting to the point that you really only want to offer local pick up these days.

The he number of SNAD is getting out of control and eBay will not do anything about. 😟

Re: Dishonest buyer

kopenhagen5 — Sat, 27 May 2017 00:09:30 GMT

Wow, that's very poor form.

Maybe that's a good reason to stop leaving feedback until buyer has.

Then I would leave a pos with " xxxbuyers IDxxx returned wrong item, refunded.

A good chance that won't removed and everyone seeing it could add them to their party list.

Re: Dishonest buyer

imastawka — Sat, 27 May 2017 03:23:10 GMT

OP, you got your item back. That was when you should have refunded.

Ebay stepping in and refunding is what got you the defect.

So, in essence, you got the defect through your own actions, not the buyers.

At least the item still works for you to re-list.

Ring ebay to get your fees refunded.

Re: Dishonest buyer

digital*ghost — Sat, 27 May 2017 03:34:01 GMT

The other day, I was browsing the net and spotted this article in The Guarian.

Ebay accused of failing its sellers as fraudulent buyers manipulate the system

There's two particularly interesting things within that article.

The first is this:

"“There is something wrong,” eBay admitted last April. “The system (they are referring to the MBG) was built on the premise that most people are honest. It needs to be more intuitive.”

Under the experimental scheme, a seller can ask eBay to intervene before issuing a refund if a buyer returns a damaged or substitute item. Ordinarily, they have a week to resolve the dispute before having to part with their money, but an unscrupulous buyer can ignore contact and open a claim directly with eBay. In many cases it issues an automatic refund without any evidence from the seller being considered."

It's interesting that they claim the system was built on the premise that most 'people' are honest, because aside from the fact that "most' inherently implies that some are not, I can virtually gurantee that the majority of sellers do not feel like they are being presumed honest when dealing with this system and that a more accurate statement would have been 'built on the premise that buyers are honest', but I digress as that seems to be what the second paragraph intends to address - that there is some acknowledgement not all people are honest, and that sellers may have an opportunity to prove their particular buyer isn't.

-But-

Then we get to the last paragraph of the article. It speaks of a seller who had received a return of a damaged product, sent images to eBay of the damaged product (presumably via the trial program, which to my knowledge has never been conducted here), but the evidence was ignored and the buyer refunded. Eventually, this happened: "Ebay decided to refund him as a goodwill gesture after an Observer investigation, but claimed that since it never gets sight of items it could not judge whether the correct item was returned."

So, one wonders what the actual point of acknowledging some buyers are dishonest, implementing a program for sellers to show when they are not before the buyer gets a refund, but then saying "well, that doesn't prove anything" and refunding the buyer anyway. False hope (via their ever-traditional lip service to sellers) IMHO is worse than no hope, and the mind boggles at the lack of logic - if they don't sight the items, they can't judge whether the correct item was received, either (which takes us back to the previous statement, "but buyers wouldn't lie, so that must mean only sellers would").

This trial seems to have been taking place for over a year, meaning that it has been since at least April of last year when eBay openly admitted their system is allowing this, and they have done nothing - not a single thing - to change or address it in a real or practical way.

If you ever wondered how eBay feels about sellers, that evidences it.

Re: Dishonest buyer

the_dutchess_of_dork — Sat, 27 May 2017 04:57:20 GMT

The whole dishonest buyer / seller dichotomy is artificial. The fact is some people are dishonest ... they may be buyers; they may be sellers; they may be both. There will always be ways to rort the system. But at least buyers can seek redress through PayPal when they encounter a dodgy seller.

I can't understand ebay's slavish commitment to the buyer experience, at the expense of sellers. Sure, without buyers there is no ebay ... but without sellers there are no buyers, thus, no ebay. In addition, ebay derives all its income from sellers.

The "we can't inspect the item, therefore, we will refund the buyer" makes zero sense. If they admit they have no access to the item, how can they make a judgment either way?

The concerns of buyers should not diminished but be fair to sellers too. I'm not sure what the answer is. Certainly, I think a seller's reputation and previous history should be relevant in a dispute. It's unlikely a seller with years of honest trading will suddenly go rogue.

Re: Dishonest buyer

kopenhagen5 — Sat, 27 May 2017 06:03:54 GMT

I agree.

The sooner eBay invests time on assessing cases on an individual basis, determinations/decisions made according to evidence presented will improve the site immensely.

Re: Dishonest buyer

springyzone — Sat, 27 May 2017 14:31:31 GMT

@kopenhagen5 wrote:
I agree.
The sooner eBay invests time on assessing cases on an individual basis, determinations/decisions made according to evidence presented will improve the site immensely.

I agree,

Part of the problem seems to be (according to the article) that those employed by the call centre have to wrap things up fast. Any reps who don't soon lose their job.

In the first case mentioned about the swords, once ebay investigated properly, it found a 'pattern of suspect behaviour'. I presume they mean the buyer had made several other claims or had had other sellers complain about the buyer.

But that sort of investigation takes a little bit of time, and time is exactly what the call centre reps don't have. It seems they get penalised for sending queries further up the system.

Maybe that is what needs to happen though. Ordinary queries that can be answered quickly, fine. But where there is a dispute, especially with serious money involved, then both buyer & seller records & history need to be investigated. Maybe whenever there is a claim, or a protest, or a photo submitted, ebay needs that to go into records each and every time.

Re: Dishonest buyer

chameleon54 — Sun, 28 May 2017 00:15:14 GMT

@the_dutchess_of_dork wrote:
The whole dishonest buyer / seller dichotomy is artificial. The fact is some people are dishonest ... they may be buyers; they may be sellers; they may be both. There will always be ways to rort the system. But at least buyers can seek redress through PayPal when they encounter a dodgy seller.

I can't understand ebay's slavish commitment to the buyer experience, at the expense of sellers. Sure, without buyers there is no ebay ... but without sellers there are no buyers, thus, no ebay. In addition, ebay derives all its income from sellers.

The "we can't inspect the item, therefore, we will refund the buyer" makes zero sense. If they admit they have no access to the item, how can they make a judgment either way?

The concerns of buyers should not diminished but be fair to sellers too. I'm not sure what the answer is. Certainly, I think a seller's reputation and previous history should be relevant in a dispute. It's unlikely a seller with years of honest trading will suddenly go rogue.

Whilst I totally disagree with the way the money back gaurantee works ( or doesnt work.... ) I can understand ebays logic.

The company is struggling to maintain any sort of presence in the online market against more succesful established companies and new entrants. It is only growing sales by several % per year and basically has more sellers than buyers. Because it has so many people wanting to sell goods, compared to buyers, it is sacrificing sellers in a desperate bid to try to retain buyers and retain some sort of presence in the market.

If it cant keep the few buyers it has, it will start actually going backwards, its share price will drop dramatically and it could start a landslide, all downhill into oblivian. Basically the company is fighting for its survival after a string of very poor management decisions have damaged the company.

The biggest failure has been to move away from the used and collector market to the brand name mega mall and $2 Chinese shop model. When the company was focussed on private sellers of unusual and used items it had a total market dominance that no-one else could come close too. Once it changed focus to new brand name items and Chinese carp, it faced intense online market competition from other competitors who have proven to be more nimble and effective in the online space.

Re: Dishonest buyer

digital*ghost — Sun, 28 May 2017 03:07:16 GMT

@chameleon54 wrote:
Whilst I totally disagree with the way the money back gaurantee works ( or doesnt work.... ) I can understand ebays logic.

The company is struggling to maintain any sort of presence in the online market against more succesful established companies and new entrants. It is only growing sales by several % per year and basically has more sellers than buyers. Because it has so many people wanting to sell goods, compared to buyers, it is sacrificing sellers in a desperate bid to try to retain buyers and retain some sort of presence in the market.

If it cant keep the few buyers it has, it will start actually going backwards, its share price will drop dramatically and it could start a landslide, all downhill into oblivian. Basically the company is fighting for its survival after a string of very poor management decisions have damaged the company.

The biggest failure has been to move away from the used and collector market to the brand name mega mall and $2 Chinese shop model. When the company was focussed on private sellers of unusual and used items it had a total market dominance that no-one else could come close too. Once it changed focus to new brand name items and Chinese carp, it faced intense online market competition from other competitors who have proven to be more nimble and effective in the online space.

I can understand what you're saying, and it could well be what eBay are thinking / doing, but the logic is flawed IMHO.

Is there really such thing as "too many sellers"? Or is it more that eBay don't categorise and display the resulting listings in a way that's congruent with how buyers want to view and shop while on the site? And that they don't do anything about the sellers bending or breaking the other rules (to manipulate and / or swamp search results)?

To my mind, if eBay were genuinely comitted to retaining buyers, they'd to look at what turns them away from the site, other than having a bad purchase experience with a seller. I stuggle constantly to understand why they don't have a greater focus on the more simple user experience aspects, they continually say they are trying to eliminate things that discourage buyers from shopping here, but what do they think the following things do?

Doing nothing about those manipulating variation listings with cheap, unrelated items to game search results

Doing nothing about those misrepresenting item locations

Doing nothing about those (either with the same or multiple accounts) creating scores of identical listings for the same product

Lack of genuine fraud prevention (eg "policing" of scam listings is primarily done post-sale)

Lack of preferred search refinements

Cart & Payment issues (this deserves a sub-list)

Not being able to combine BIN items while using mobile apps (the thing they say is taking over shopping)

Postage discounts not applying in the cart or during checkout, or applying on one service but not others (like if express is offered)

Orders / Payments being rejected inexplicably

Implementing immediate payment required on listings and forcing buyers who want to purchase multiples to pay separately as the 'add to cart' button also disappears

Lack of clarification re: MBG policies, contradictory and/or changing policies, failure to uphold policies (in cases where they should have been)

Convoluted and frustrating help pages, with unannounced policy changes happening on a continual basis

A message system and policies that thwart communication and sucessful sales

A message system that fails, but alerts no one to said failure (in email systems, usually if a message doesn't go through, the sender is alerted, rather than allowed to think they're being ignored).

Complete denial of the existence of these issues

And those are just the major, ongoing ones.

People will tread the path of least resistance, and every single one of those issues is a barrier on the path.

I find myself wondering if perhaps one day, I'll be contacted by a buyer who is experiencing difficulty in purchasing an item, and will have to respond thusly:

"Ok, wow, it's awesome you were able to find my listing. It's been a long time 🙂 So, to purchase X item, make sure it's exactly 12pm and that it's not raining (if it is raining, the process is a bit more complicated but I can walk you through that if needed). Open up the listing in one tab, and then another random item from my store in another tab - if you can't find any other items, click this [link] and it should take you to one. Now, this is important - add the random item to the cart first, then go back to the listing for the item you do want to buy and add that to the cart. Switch back to the tab with the random item, and click 'save for later' to remove it, then go back to the other tab and refresh the page. This should get the postage to show up and allow the 'Proceed to checkout' button to work.

"Once you click that, click on "change address", even if it is displaying the address you want the item to be sent to, re-enter the details and confirm (if you don't do this, the postage amount will disappear and you'll have to start again). Once that is done, you can proceed as normal to PayPal, but try to ensure the previous actions have taken at least 7 minutes, otherwise the system will be a bit overwhelmed and reject your payment.

"I should see your order and payment come through in 2-3 days, at which point I will already be late in sending the package, so don't forget to take advantage of eBay's offer and get your money back. Thanks for shopping with me and have a nice day. 🙂 "

Re: Dishonest buyer

porcelain_dolls_by_me — Sun, 28 May 2017 04:07:40 GMT

Claims of "Transaction Defects" are a problem.

I scored a "defective transaction" as a result of a customer opening a Not as Described case.

Claimed was not the same colour as her last purchased, to which I pointed out was because she purchased a different colour last time.

Offered a refund to which she never (initially) responded and only when EBay intervened to say the time limit was about up then she said it was not worth paying the return postage.

EBay took it upon themselves to close the case and hand me a transaction defect notice.

Appealed to EBay Australia and USA but appeal was denied as they only lookat the opening of the case (not as described) and despite pointing out buyer purchased different colour to last time and I offered a refund I got nowhere. Asked what more could I have done?

Interest appeal process in each case. Operator asks for details and then says "give me a couple of minutes", repeats this 3-4 times and then, as you haven't hung up they say I will need longer to investigate so I will send you an email shortly with the resolution. You guessed it - I never heard back in either instance.

Re: Dishonest buyer

aristides52 — Sun, 28 May 2017 05:08:30 GMT

Well, that's the ridiculous bit. There's very limited options once a dispute has been opened by a buyer - either refund the full amount, or partial amount or accept the return with postage cost. I anyways offered free postage on the item and spent $10.50 on shipping, so didn't want to spend any further. You have no option but to ask ebay to step in and expect them to provide a fair resolution, which unfortunately goes against the seller.

But that's not the point, when ebay is unable to decide or validate either the buyer's claim or seller's claim, then the decision should be neutral. No defects for the seller (if the seller has provided sufficient evidence) and refund of selling fees. The buyer anyways is eligible to claim the return shipping cost either from ebay or PayPal.

Re: Dishonest buyer

aristides52 — Sun, 28 May 2017 05:10:22 GMT

Well, ebay removed the feedback as it had some nasty comments. The buyer still continues to send abusive messages via ebay and despite repeatedly flagging this with ebay, they're not doing anything to block this buyer. Pretty sad state of affairs.

Re: Dishonest buyer

aristides52 — Sun, 28 May 2017 05:13:45 GMT

Well, I agree. But the buyer informed ebay that I had swapped the faulty item with a working item in the images that I shared with ebay. That was the only item I had and I don't have all the time in the world to sit and photoshop stuff for an item worth $25. And ebay accepted the buyer's claim and decided the case in his favour. They didn't bother to verify the one shady image the buyer put up and I provided 8 clear high-res images to support my claim.

Re: Dishonest buyer

aristides52 — Sun, 28 May 2017 05:15:42 GMT

Re: Dishonest buyer

aristides52 — Sun, 28 May 2017 05:22:05 GMT

Exactly my point. I had never had any negative feedback or defect for any item I've sold on ebay, while the buyer had several negative comments on items he had sold and how he had swapped some of them. And when I asked ebay to request the buyer to provide additional images or even share a video of how he was using the item, ebay simply didn't do anything about it. I provided 8 high-res images, yet ebay decided the case in buyer's favour simply based on one shady image he shared (which wasn't clear and pixellated).

Re: Dishonest buyer

springyzone — Sun, 28 May 2017 05:32:14 GMT

chameleon wrote

. Basically the company is fighting for its survival after a string of very poor management decisions have damaged the company.

The biggest failure has been to move away from the used and collector market to the brand name mega mall and $2 Chinese shop model. When the company was focussed on private sellers of unusual and used items it had a total market dominance that no-one else could come close too. Once it changed focus to new brand name items and Chinese carp, it faced intense online market competition from other competitors who have proven to be more nimble and effective in the online space.

I can identify with this. Often when I browse now, I see page after page of exactly the same item. Or else loads of stuff from China.

The other day I was looking up super king quilt covers and it got so tedious scrolling through dozens of listings (even the same design over & over) that I clicked out and just did a google search and was able to look at a lot of different manchester websites that way. It was a much smoother experience as I was able to go straight to each shop's section on quilt covers & scroll through without seeing repetitions.

Ironically, I came across a couple I liked at one site and then looked up the 'about us' section. It was a business that started up initially on ebay then moved to their own website.

When I mostly bought (and sold) on ebay a decade or more back, it was mostly second hand items.

Ebay still has a bit of that but it's not like it was.

Ebay did have problems though with no safety for buyers, so that had to be addressed.

But ebay definitely needs to change the call centre emphasis so that seller/buyer disputes can be investigated in more depth. We've seen people come on here and complain about a buyer who was automatically refunded and when you see the feedback record, it is obvious that buyer is a serial claimer or complainer. If we can see it within 2 minutes, it should be clear enough to ebay reps that the buyer might be in the wrong.

As mostly a buyer these days, my concern is not mainly with bad sellers as i find it's safer than the past.But if I am going to buy new (and that's what ebay mainly does these days), I am just finding a lot of other sites easier to find what I want, with things in categories, more convenient.

But ebay is still better for some things.