Purchase History and Negative Feedback removed

[paully03]

I have a question.  I recently purchased a product from an eBay store for my car.  It arrived and did not fit.  The seller ad stated that I could return it within 30 days of receiving it.  I emailed the seller requesting their go-ahead to return it for a refund, and received no response.  After a week, posted the item for sale with a full description that it did not fit my car and that it may need professionals to make it work etc.  I sadly left negative feedback on the seller's page due to the no-reply. 

Now I see that not only has the item been removed from my purchase history, but so has my negative feedback.

Anyone know why this might be?

[jellybirddesigns]

Not sure why it was removed, but the better way to have gone about it would have been to open a case for Not As Described, assuming that the part itself was wrong, rather than you having measured wrong. If you don't open a case, Ebay does not know that there is an issue.

You can still open a case assuming you are within 30 days. If the seller is registered in Australia, they either need to provide you with a shipping label, or a refund. If they are overseas, they can only refund. If it is more than 30 days, you can open a case in Paypal as you have 180 days.

Never send anything back at your expense, unless it is a change of mind return. Do not close the case under any circumstances until you have a resolution.

[*sons_and_daughters*]

What was the exact wording of your feedback? There are a lot of reasons why a seller can have bad feedback removed, so it would help to know exactly what you wrote.

If it's been removed from your purchase history, either it's been longer than 60 days since you purchased, in which case you need to change your history to all of 2021, or ebay has removed it for some violation.

[*sons_and_daughters*]

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@jellybirddesigns wrote:

Not sure why it was removed, but the better way to have gone about it would have been to open a case for Not As Described, assuming that the part itself was wrong, rather than you having measured wrong. If you don't open a case, Ebay does not know that there is an issue.

You can still open a case assuming you are within 30 days. If the seller is registered in Australia, they either need to provide you with a shipping label, or a refund. If they are overseas, they can only refund. If it is more than 30 days, you can open a case in Paypal as you have 180 days.

Never send anything back at your expense, unless it is a change of mind return. Do not close the case under any circumstances until you have a resolution.

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Seriously, it's not an automatic refund if a seller is overseas, so not sure why you keep telling people this. While they can't send a return label, they are well within their rights to have the items returned. Most sellers will refund the postage costs for a return. Obviously, dodgy sellers won't.

If an overseas purchase was an automatic refund, then buyers would be exploiting that and claiming a refund for every overseas purchase. I have had to return an item to an overseas seller. Thankfully, they did refund the return postage cost. If it was as you say, I would have got a refund and got to keep the item. That is ridiculous, and a scammer's paradise.

[springyzone]

 Tipping point-it's not an automatic refund if a seller is overseas.  While they can't send a return label, they are well within their rights to have the items returned. Most sellers will refund the postage costs for a return. Obviously, dodgy sellers won't.

If an overseas purchase was an automatic refund, then buyers would be exploiting that and claiming a refund for every overseas purchase. I have had to return an item to an overseas seller. Thankfully, they did refund the return postage cost.

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I had a read of that and I agree with you, there is no way it should be an automatic refund for a buyer without the need to return a product where possible.

It seems to me (although I may be wrong as I haven't bought from overseas lately or had trouble with any purchases) that if a person buys from an Australian seller, the whole dispute process is or could be pretty clear, with a return label sent so the question of return postage costs isn't an issue.

But it doesn't seem as if international transactions have such a clear cut path. From what I am gathering, the buyer might have to pay for return postage and then the seller refunds upon return. You wrote that thankfully, your overeas seller did refund. But it shouldn't be hit or miss. Maybe this is something where ebay needs to have a completely different procedure. Perhaps a buyer should have to produce a postage quote and ebay should take that amount out of the seller account and hold it until the buyer can show the tracking that says delivered.

[jellybirddesigns]

@tipping-point,

Sure, a seller can ask for their item back, but then they have to work out with the buyer what postage back to them would cost and then send funds through, and buyers should know that they must FIRST receive the funds before doing anything else.

Postage to the UK or USA for example, is just over AUD$26. Sending back to China is almost impossible as there are no regular parcels going at the moment, only courier and express and is very expensive. There is no Chinese seller on the planet who is going to send money to the buyer first. All them of tell you to send back at your expense first and then they will "repay" you. Let's both agree that's never going to happen, no matter how reputable they are on Ebay.

Overseas sellers who do agree to send postage funds will also have to assume that the buyer has a PP account, otherwise how would they actually transfer the money? What happens if the buyer doesn't have, or doesn't want a PP account?

Yes, it's not automatic, but there are definite limitations in the system for overseas sellers. So I won't change what I write as advice, but I will add in that buyers should expect to get postage costs upfront if they agree to return the item and not do it just because a seller "promises" anything.