topic Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please.... in Selling

Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

miss_ebabe — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 08:09:05 GMT

I am in the middle of a dispute with a buyer who purchased a Franklin Mint Scrabble set from me.

I insured the parcel for the full purchase cost. I described this item as 'used' but looks just like the day it was purchased. It also came with a couple of hard to find extras too (Glass Lid and Dictionary).

She is threatening to open a PayPal claim as she has described some very minor imperfections.She wants to return it for a full refund but has not bother to explore her insurance option. (Sent with extra Aus Post Insurance cover). She has not offered photos and when I asked for some as proof, she says she can not send photos through eBay email (wrong - you can attach 5 photos per message). She has asked for my personal and business email address. To my knowledge this is not allowed on eBay and is a policy violation.

In her emails she says she bought my scrabble set only for the glass lid because she already has a scrabble set which she intended to sell once receiving mine.

I am very suspicious (understandably so). I think she is trying to claim damages on HER old game as being mine.

The sets are indentical. How would I, eBay or PayPal know (for sure) which scrabble set is which??

She refuses to claim the damage under her insurance with Australia Post (and I have sent her a photo of the PO receipt via eBay messages).

I am thinking of reporting her to eBay but should I wait and see if she opens a claim with PayPal?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

*sparklz* — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 08:40:42 GMT

If she will not send proof of any damage then do nothing and ignore her.

If she opens a dispute she will be told to return at her cost to get the refund.

If she not willing to take to AP with all the packing to see if she can claim there then something sounds wrong there.

If she opens a dispute make sure you get her to say in there her refusal to send proof of damage.

If she really wanted to contact you via email all she has to do is look at the paypal payment made to you as your address is there anyway.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

miss_ebabe — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 10:14:11 GMT

Thank you for your helpful opinion, I do not feel obligated to grant her a return or refund. The item was described acuratelty but in my personal subjective view....which is always open to debate. I think for a used item, her expectations were too high. I am fearful that if I were to grant a return, what is to stop her from putting her old board in the box instead of mine? I end up with an older damaged item that I can't resell, and she gets a free upgrade. Also, her alledged damages are very minor (slightly bent knob etc.)

Rather than opening a case in the resolution centre, she is "going to think about her next step will be while she spends a week in QLD", I guess I will have to wait and see what she does. Do you think it would help my situation any (should the need arise) that I report this to eBay ahead of her making a claim against me?

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

putney32 — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 10:26:48 GMT

eBay will not have anything to do with a claim and NO they dont want to know ''in advance'' what may happen

any dispute will be between the Buyer, the Seller and PAYPAL. no one else.

if she disputes'not as described' then it will be thru paypal and you can state your claim then, before she escalates to a CLAIM thru Paypal and is instructed by paypal to return for a full refund.

once you have it back, then you can contact paypal and tell them item returned was not item sent..etc.etc.....just keep all her emails as proof of the situation to date.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

create_fashion-com-au — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 06:19:54 GMT

Hello,

In this situation, it's very difficult to deal with the buyers as they believe that they are right and they want what they want and thats all that matters. You wont be able to reason with this person.

I'm personally in a similiar matter myself at the moment.

In your particular situation, I would lodge a complaint through Paypal. This way they are the mediator and you dont have to speak directly with the buyer.

You put your case together and the buyer puts theirs.

I would put this person on your block list so they cant buy from you again.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

thecatspjs — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 10:43:51 GMT

If it ends up to the paypal claim stage and you have the opportunity to provide further information to paypal, I can only encourage you to include - in the most factual objective manner that you can, references to messages between yourself and buyer through ebay, your concerns about the buyer potentially swapping over the goods for her items, references to photos and comments in your description that support the condition it was in when sent, including highlighting any details of the buyers claim that can be disproved by the photos in the listing.

If you do not reference this type of information and adequately defend why the item is as described, you will have to return it, however it is not a given. IMO paypal do give consideration to the evidence that is presented to them from buyer and seller, but I imagine more often than not people think a return is inevitable and don't bother to present their case to paypal.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

phorum_junkie* — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 11:49:24 GMT

She is actually under no obligation to take it to the PO and try to make a claim through them, it would probably be turned down anyway as AP do not offer a fragile service and pretty well say the packaging wasn't good enough unless there are actual tyre marks or a large footprint on the packaging.

IMO if it really was damaged then she would have opened a Paypal dispute as soon as you didn't respond with an imediate offer of a reurn.

Reiterate that you are not going to refund without photos and then stop any communication.

If a dispute is opened make sure that your response is very detailed and specific, contrary to popular belief Paypal do not always side with the buyer and if you present the better case you should win, if you don't coe back here and we will tell you how to appeal the decision.

If it gets as far as the buyer returning it and it is not in the same condition as you sent it you can again contact Paypal and appeal the refund plus you can politely inform the buyer that they are guilty of fraud and you will be taking appropriate action.

I think that if you are polite but firm in any response they will go away.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

purplespoilz_au* — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 22:25:05 GMT

She's trying to put the wind up you, and it looks like it's working !!

Don;t let people scare you with 'threats' of going to paypal, blah blah blah....

Let her !!

I know from past experience that if she takes it to paypal, you have a chance to tell your side of the story. And she will have to return it to you to get any sort of refund or compensation

Did you have photos of the item in your listing ? If she ends up returning it to you, take photos of it when you get it back and provide the before and after pics to paypal to support your case. Do you also have the messages of her saying she also has an identical set ? Make sure you keep it , this is also support of any case that may arise

Stick to your guns, let her take it to a paypal dispute if she wants to. Maybe after she realises you won't back down, she may change her mind

Good Luck !!

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

frankkingsford — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 10:33:30 GMT

I myself also recently received a claim from a lady buyer from Melbourne for full refund due to some very minor imperfections. She also asked my personal email and I told her to just send photos via ebay messages, which she did. From photos I can not see clearly if anything is wrong.

She threated to leave negative feedback on my account.

If indeed there is some damages as she claimed, I have no way of knowing if it was damaged during posting, or it was damaged by herself. I am going to ask her to send the goods back, and then provide a refund as a good gesture. The postage is not cheap (around $7.7), so she may be unhappy and still leave me a bad feedback, which I will ask ebay to remove it.

Would love to hear any of your comments.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

miss_ebabe — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 10:47:37 GMT

The Buyer has now opened a dispute case against me on eBay.com not PayPal or eBay.com.AU

The buyer and I are in Australia and all dealings have been on eBay Australia. Why would she open this case outside of PayPal? My PayPal balance shows negative balance.

Thanks for your help.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

tstore — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 11:25:59 GMT

They are connected. Dispute can be opened in eBay and escalated. Once escalated PayPal balance goes into negative. Make her return the item at her expense. Once received, record unopened item returned to you and if she swapped any items post to YouTube and contact PayPal. I don't know if that would help to strengthen your case if she swapped anything from original sale

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

tstore — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 11:27:14 GMT

Have you discussed a partial refund by the way? Better than her returning her old set and good to just get this situation done with.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

purplespoilz_au* — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 12:29:32 GMT

Escalate it yourself. She will have to end up returning the item - cases that I have had where they are escalated, paypal stipulates the item has to be sent back to you. The buyer also has to give proof to paypal that it has been sent back (tracking number)

Your account is in negative because as soon as someone opens a dispute, paypal put a hold on the amount, until the dispute is resolved.

Don't be scares of escalating this - if it is as bad as she claims it is, then she will have no problem returning the item

Some people are just plain dodgy - sounds like this lady is

Good luck

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

purplespoilz_au* — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 12:36:46 GMT

Just thought I would also reply to Phorum Junkie about the non existent 'fragile' AP policy

I think it's a load of **bleep** to be honest - I know they always SAY they don;t have a fragile policy, but when you front up at the post office and hand your cash over to pay for the postage - what service are you guaranteed of getting ?? To me, it is like "Well, give us your $6.95, but we cannot guarantee it will get there in one piece, or get there at all !!"

This has happened to me many times and I have successfully lodged damaged item claims with Aust Post and have been refunded many times. Even though they don't have a fragile policy, it should still be handled with adequate care IMO - you are paying for a service after all. THings where we have wrapped things in bubble warp and cardboard, one item was squashed flat like a pancake, and yes we were reimbursed.

I think sometimes they tell everyone this to put them off of making a claim. And there doesn't have to be tyre marks or whatever on it for your claim to be successful, as far as I am concerned , you are handing over your cash for A SERVICE and you are entitled to expect that your goods get from A to B in a reasonable condition. If they cannot guarantee that, then they shouldn;t be taking our cash and agreeing to send our stuff

Sorry, but this just makes me so mad with AP, they treat our stuff like **bleep** and then think of every excuse under the sun not to reimburse us, but are still happy to take our money

GRRR !!!

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

miss_ebabe — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 12:43:25 GMT

Thank you for your reply. I have offered a partial refund of 10% in hopes this would satisfy the buyer. It has not and she has opened the claim. I have reported the member to eBay authorities and PayPal as there are many other suspicious details regarding the buyer's 'claim'.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

miss_ebabe — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 12:45:55 GMT

I can not escalate this myself (yet anyway) as it is not in PayPal. I can't attach photos on eBay.com resolution claim site.

Thank you for your comments and time.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

colic2bullsgirlore — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:48:05 GMT

The claim has been wrongly directed to the ebay buyer protection policy process which does not exist on ebay.com.au.

Use the customer support link to contact ebay up on the top right to complain to ebay and ask them why an ebay.com.au sale

between two ebay.com.au members was redirected to a foreign sites dispute process .

http://ocsnext.ebay.com.au/ocs/cusr?query=1470

At least the claim may be redirected to the correct au inad paypal process.....

I would make a claim with the financial service ombudsman NOW citing that paypal has removed money or put money on hold

for a customer claim process that does not exist in Australia.... The more people that dob in paypal, ebay and their ignorant

ways the sooner that the FSO and ASIC can take action against them.

So in short you cannot take Ebay to the FOS you need to take the financial institution with the AFSL ( Australian financial

services licence number 304962). number to the FOS and then let ebay and paypal argue the tossas to why an INAD claim

was redirected to the ebay buyer protection policy process.

Like I said at least then the INAD claim will be handled by the correct process as per ebay.com.au policy.........

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

misscarlikitty — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 18:20:14 GMT

I agree, call the ombudsman!

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

lemmayj — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 23:11:03 GMT

@colic2bullsgirlore wrote:

The claim has been wrongly directed to the ebay buyer protection policy process which does not exist on ebay.com.au.

Use the customer support link to contact ebay up on the top right to complain to ebay and ask them why an ebay.com.au sale

between two ebay.com.au members was redirected to a foreign sites dispute process .

http://ocsnext.ebay.com.au/ocs/cusr?query=1470

At least the claim may be redirected to the correct au inad paypal process.....

I would make a claim with the financial service ombudsman NOW citing that paypal has removed money or put money on hold

for a customer claim process that does not exist in Australia.... The more people that dob in paypal, ebay and their ignorant

ways the sooner that the FSO and ASIC can take action against them.

So in short you cannot take Ebay to the FOS you need to take the financial institution with the AFSL ( Australian financial

services licence number 304962). number to the FOS and then let ebay and paypal argue the tossas to why an INAD claim

was redirected to the ebay buyer protection policy process.

Like I said at least then the INAD claim will be handled by the correct process as per ebay.com.au policy.........

My guess is that the buyer was logged into ebay.com and not ebay.com.au when she made the purchase, which is why she has been able to make the claim via ebay.com. Paypal Australia exclude ebay.com claims from their seller protection process.

Do you have overseas postage on your listings and have you signed the international selling agreement (it basically authorises ebay to grab money from you if a buyer makes an ebay claim, not just a paypal one)? If you haven't (but be warned you may well have done so if you listed overseas in the past), then that makes your case even stronger. (But I'm not a lawyer).

I once asked paypal about this exact (then hypothetical) scenario, Australian buyer who buys on ebay.com site and then makes a claim via ebay not paypal. I was assured that they would look at such buyers very carefully, but did not get any definite promises.

In my opinion this is a very important precedent, and you should do exactly as colic2bullsgirlore has suggested. First complain to ebay.com.au, and then go straight to the ombudsman if that does not work.

Good luck, and please keep us updated.

Re: Buyer lying about 'damages'. HELP please....

ydgonline06 — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:48:03 GMT

DO NOT contact her outside eBay, because once you do eBay will not help at all.

Send all the correspondence so far to eBay ASAP

Ensure that your end is professional and polite.

I have had success this way.

Kind regards

YDG