FAKE product received, want to destroy it instead of return

[sk_121]

Bought a fake Logitech mouse from a dodgy seller, initiated the refund process.

I understand that currently I'll have to return the item to the seller in order to get my refund.

However I don't want to send the item back to the seller for someone to fall victim to it again.

Will ebay be alright with me destroying the item (cutting the mouse cord), and issue the refund upon evidence of that destroyed mouse?

[davewil1964]

Except the OP got their money back, allegedly, without having to return. So we will never know if their wallet or their morals won in the end.

[countessalmirena]

chameleon, nothing about AI appears to be unbiased. Those feeding the AI models with data have their own biases - which is just one problem. The other is that the data is inherently biased. And a third - well, it’s weirdly the very effort to be unbiased that is a bias in itself, skewing results.

I’m also highly critical of AI as a concept, including the fact that the models’ training involves staggering amounts of intellectual property theft.

Hence… I am repelled by the use of AI at base level, and specifically if it’s used to judge human beings. That is why I felt great distaste for its introduction in a discussion about whether or not the OP could destroy the apparently fake item and be refunded.

For the record, OP, the course I think you should have taken (assuming this wasn’t some sort of wind-up or assignment in an ethics class using a hypothetical) is obvious.

You should have taken the mouse to a Logitech official seller and had it checked. If it was a fake, this could have been determined and stated on official letterhead, which would be uploaded when raising a refund request under the MBG. Under those circumstances eBay would almost certainly have instructed you to destroy the mouse and refunded you: no need to return. And no need for any angst about what to do. The seller would have been up for the refund cost and be on eBay’s radar as a seller of fakes.

But the whole decide-on-it-yourself scenario is what has made people on this thread very wary of your intentions, OP. The way in which you phrased it was open to misinterpretation. I mean, really… ❝Will ebay be alright with me destroying the item (cutting the mouse cord), and issue the refund upon evidence of that destroyed mouse?❞ 

At that point you had no EVIDENCE that the mouse was fake. That’s why eBay provide an avenue for proving such a claim - and it’s not a YouTube video. Official statement on official letterhead from authorised distributor/reseller or the manufacturer - that’s evidence.

I cannot concur with the concern you stated, furthermore, about letting someone else buy a fake. Were you seriously not aware that if the mouse is fake, the seller would have as many of the fake devices as could be churned out by a factory, costing next to nothing to produce? In other words, endless supply, gullible buyers buying from dodgy seller = lovely profit for dodgy seller.

The seller would be more hurt in the hip pocket by every buyer - upon discovering it was a fake - lodging returns so that the seller would be forced to refund in full AND have to pay return tracked postage each time. In other words, continual losses. Buyers should be actively encouraged to act on their suspicions and get the darned thing checked officially.

Rant over. (For now. If I get my second wind after some more coffee, it may result in a Proustian sequel.)

[springyzone]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

For the record, OP, the course I think you should have taken (assuming this wasn’t some sort of wind-up or assignment in an ethics class using a hypothetical) is obvious.

You should have taken the mouse to a Logitech official seller and had it checked. If it was a fake, this could have been determined and stated on official letterhead, which would be uploaded when raising a refund request under the MBG. Under those circumstances eBay would almost certainly have instructed you to destroy the mouse and refunded you: no need to return. And no need for any angst about what to do. The seller would have been up for the refund cost and be on eBay’s radar as a seller of fakes.

At that point you had no EVIDENCE that the mouse was fake. That’s why eBay provide an avenue for proving such a claim - and it’s not a YouTube video. Official statement on official letterhead from authorised distributor/reseller or the manufacturer - that’s evidence.

I cannot concur with the concern you stated, furthermore, about letting someone else buy a fake. Were you seriously not aware that if the mouse is fake, the seller would have as many of the fake devices as could be churned out by a factory, costing next to nothing to produce? In other words, endless supply, gullible buyers buying from dodgy seller = lovely profit for dodgy seller.

The seller would be more hurt in the hip pocket by every buyer - upon discovering it was a fake - lodging returns so that the seller would be forced to refund in full AND have to pay return tracked postage each time. In other words, continual losses. Buyers should be actively encouraged to act on their suspicions and get the darned thing checked officially.

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Everything you have said makes sense, but I don't think it is always easy for buyers to do this.

I am not just talking about this particular case, I am talking about other buyers who have come on other times to say what they bought is not up to spec or has discrepancies etc

Firstly, they have to actually locate and travel to a place which has an authorised seller, which might be an ordeal in itself.

Then it is one thing to take an item into a shop and have a person tell you it is a fake or likely to be and quite another to get them to write out a letter on an official letterhead to say that. I'd say they would be very unwilling to do that for free. You can't get a stat dec signed for free either.

The official supplier's attitude might be-if you buy from ebay and not from us, suffer the consequences, not our responsibility to spend our time to save you money.

As you point out, helping that one person gets them nowhere because the seller is still in business.

Plus although a representative in a shop may say something is fake, they may not want to put their name to that assertion in case, by some unlucky chance, they turn out to be wrong.

And how can an official rep be sure they are not being pulled into another scam? Say someone had a fake, then bought a real one, had the fake one certified as fake then claimed on ebay for the real one? Some items may have numbers on them, but some fake items may not.

But in any case, even if a person has an official letter certifying an item as fake, sure, they may get ebay to refund.

But that should not be the outcome we are looking for. That seller should be banned from ebay. Every person who bought such an item from that seller on ebay should be refunded.

Is any of that going to happen though, that is the real question.

[countessalmirena]

springyzone, it’s true that getting the item identified as fake requires that effort from the buyer. But there should be a person on-site who can identify the item as a fake; after all, if the buyer wanted the item repaired under the impression it was genuine, there’s no question that the repair team would report that it was a fake.

A refusal to state that the item wasn’t genuine would land the official distributor / reseller in trouble. They’d need to justify their refusal to fix the problem… in writing if requested.

(Of course the distributor / reseller wouldn’t be delighted to help buyers who are trying to get a Rolls for the price of a used hatchback, so to speak… but it’s a great opportunity to win back the customer or gain a new customer by reinforcing the quality of the genuine article, and that’s a strong consideration.)

A stat dec is free, though. I’ve witnessed many (I’m an authorised person) , and I’ve had my own stat decs witnessed. Police don’t charge; a JP not only doesn’t charge a fee - he/she cannot charge for witnessing a stat dec. If it’s witnessed by another approved witness, they might charge; local pharmacist nearby charges something like $2.50 to the best of my knowledge. But it’s also possible to make a digital stat dec online now, using MyGov, as long as you have at least standard strength Digital Identity associated with your account - and that has no fee as of now. 

If going down the “it’s fake” route is too much trouble (and I realise that there are circumstances where it might be), the buyer can use the more easily dealt-with “not as described” route on the basis of not working, doesn’t have stated capacity, that sort of thing. It is entirely possible that the seller won’t want the item returned (if it’s under $50 or so and just not worth the cost of return postage).

Does that deal with the issue of sellers getting away with selling fakes? No - and I agree that this is shameful. Morally speaking at the very least, that seller should not be permitted to continue trading on eBay… but let’s not forget China has its own laws and its own social ethics wherein the selling of fakes to westerners is permitted, even if it’s with a nod and a wink.

eBay is the David in any relationship with China, and there is no happy outcome business-wise if eBay were to take on that Goliath. So… you’re right. eBay banning such sellers on any real scale? - not going to happen. Refunding every single buyer from that seller, without the buyers even needing to raise a claim? - not going to happen. The best we can hope for is that an individual seller will be banned - in the certain knowledge that they’ll just start up again with another username… and that individual buyers will continue to be refunded on the basis of items being fake if they provide the documentary official evidence that it’s fake.

I also note that buyers can be excluded from being covered by the MBG if they make excessive claims … as such buyers are deemed risky. The same thing is true of PayPal Buyer protection, and of buyer chargeback protection from their bank.

It’s not coincidence if someone has an extraordinary number of claims that they’ve bought a fake… We as buyers must take some responsibility if we repeatedly buy items where there are red flags (seller not authorised, price considerably less than RRP, etc)… and it makes me despair when I see people continuing to fall into the same pit again, and again, and again…

Yes, eBay could do more. But realistically, I have no expectation that they will - not while Australian buyers continue to buy cheap rubbish, unbranded or fake items under the illusion that they’re getting a great deal. To the extent that the law permits, eBay have made it difficult to hold them accountable for what is sold by sellers listing on their platform - and the provision of a 30-day MBG is a powerful argument in any case against attempting legal action.

Someday, someone with deep enough pockets or reeling in the wake of a terrible tragedy with lawyers representing them on a no win, no fee basis might go after eBay … and if it concerns a seller against whom there’ve been multiple demonstrable complaints of fake unsafe items being sold by them where eBay has done nothing to prevent the sales after having been provided with evidence (for instance), we’ll see.

[domino-710]

Seems to me one would have to pay to send the item to Logitech - probably pay for return postage - to have the item authenticated.

Can't imagine some sweet young thing over at ' The Good Guys ' - ' Hardly Normal ' - etc wanting to add their monica to a Stat Dec.

So the obvious is to just claim not as described and send it back - the seller paying for return - etc etc etc