seller lying about having posted item

[pr_moi]

I recently bought a couple of e-book readers.  One on a Monday and the other the following day.  Different devices, different sellers.

Both local (one in Sydney, one in Brisbane.).

After 10 days of zero contact from the Brisbane seller, I contacted her thropugh eBay and demanded a refund.  The following day, I received an email saying the item had been posted and was due the previous day.  And later the same day I received a PayPal email saying the seller had made a full refund.  Now, anopther week later, the item has never arrived.  That's item 1.

Item 2, bought on Tuesday 13th, seller sent an email 2 days later saying the item had been posted.  3 days after the due postage date, I email'd him (via Ebay) saying the delay was unreasonable and asking for some proof the item had been posted.  Two days later, I received another PayPal refund.  And, needless to say, the item has never arrived.

So both sellers have managed to send falso mailing notifications.  And both sellers actually did not, quite obviously to me, never even popsted the item.

And neither of these cretins ever made any contact with me, before or after refunding the price.

Can eBay control this sort of behaviour?

[lm-entertainment]

yeah - for sure - but maybe the seller just sucks at communication or lacks it totally (considering there wasn't even communication re the item being posted - unless i misread or misinterpreted?) 

if the item was marked as posted, there should have been a tracking number and the buyer should be able to tell from that whether or not the item was returned to sender / unable to be delivered etc. 

[springyzone]

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@papermoon.ladywrote:

It looks like one of the sellers just relisted the item with the same serial number (third image).

This is the item bought by the OP:  https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Barnes-and-Noble-NOOK-7-Inch-colour-eBook-Reader-Tablet-WiFi-BNRV200-/30...

This is the new listing: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/302652761682?ViewItem=&item=302652761682

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Well, that's very interesting.

First off, this is what i would call quite an experienced seller.

Second, unless I have missed some detail, they seem to have sold several other identical e readers over the last few months and $34 would seem to be a top price as others have gone for as low as $19.50. 

If I were the seller, I definitely would not send one in a plain envelope & at $34, I would have tracking.

But this seller did not supply tracking details at all, just marked the item as sent.

im-entertainment said:

they have "ebay postage" as the postage method - so i assume they generate labels which would automatically populate into the tracking number field for the listing / sale. if so, what did the tracking say? is there any chance it was returned to sender? if there's no tracking number - then it's pretty much proof the item was never sent.. doesn't make sense why a seller with their history of selling would just assume they could keep the money and not send the item though? obviously they'd have to have refunded it if it wasn't sent

The buyer says there was no tracking number, so it looks to me as if the item was definitely never sent.

That's why they made a refund-a couple of days after being queried & well after tracking should have shown it delivered.

And if you look at their previous neg, their reply to it implies they had tracking & could see when the item was delivered. No such reply here.

And yes, I would say, as Im-entertainment suggested, the seller sucks at communication.

[chameleon54]

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@springyzonewrote:

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@papermoon.ladywrote:

It looks like one of the sellers just relisted the item with the same serial number (third image).

This is the item bought by the OP:  https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Barnes-and-Noble-NOOK-7-Inch-colour-eBook-Reader-Tablet-WiFi-BNRV200-/30...

This is the new listing: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/302652761682?ViewItem=&item=302652761682

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Well, that's very interesting.

First off, this is what i would call quite an experienced seller.

Second, unless I have missed some detail, they seem to have sold several other identical e readers over the last few months and $34 would seem to be a top price as others have gone for as low as $19.50. 

If I were the seller, I definitely would not send one in a plain envelope & at $34, I would have tracking.

But this seller did not supply tracking details at all, just marked the item as sent.

im-entertainment said:

they have "ebay postage" as the postage method - so i assume they generate labels which would automatically populate into the tracking number field for the listing / sale. if so, what did the tracking say? is there any chance it was returned to sender? if there's no tracking number - then it's pretty much proof the item was never sent.. doesn't make sense why a seller with their history of selling would just assume they could keep the money and not send the item though? obviously they'd have to have refunded it if it wasn't sent

The buyer says there was no tracking number, so it looks to me as if the item was definitely never sent.

That's why they made a refund-a couple of days after being queried & well after tracking should have shown it delivered.

And if you look at their previous neg, their reply to it implies they had tracking & could see when the item was delivered. No such reply here.

And yes, I would say, as Im-entertainment suggested, the seller sucks at communication.

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I dont introduce tracking on large letters until an item is worth over $100. Up to that value I send items including to OS destinations in plain envelopes without tracking. Around half of my items go as parcels with AP's normal tracking.  I get the odd large letter go missing but havnt ever lost a tracked item. ??????    The loss of large letters to OS countries is becoming quite common. At least some of these are genuine and a few no doubt just late in arriving when compared to ebays postage estimates.

I add around 50 cents to $1 to each items postage cost as self insurance. This is cheaper than expecting all customers to pay for tracking and keeps my items more competativly priced against competitors who demand tracking.

[springyzone]

I understand what you mean about sending parcels with normal tracking.

But I don't think envelopes have any such tracking?

And i fully understand why sellers of smaller items might choose to send without signatures & all the rest of it.

If you sent an article in a parcel though, with normal Aust post tracking, you get a receipt which is at least something you could scan & show or quote to a customer.

My personal suspicion is the seller in this case didn't send anything. It wasn't lost, it wasn't delayed, the buyer's address wasn't wrong. It just wasn't sent.  Don't know why. May have been a seller oversight. Maybe they should have just apologised when they refunded.

[papermoon.lady]

If you look at the Postage and Payments tab of the original listing (and the new one too) it says "eBay Postage (eBay Australia Post Flat Rate 3kg Satchel) ", so it was supposed to have tracking.

Occasionally fine sellers don't send tracking, but if I ask them they do.

I wonder if he is one of those sellers? However, the OP did try to contact both sellers.

To be quite honest without tracking it is difficult to know what happened. I doubt the OP missed the postie as AusPost keeps parcels for 2 weeks anyway so the seller wouldn't have had it back so soon.

There is the possibility that he made a mistake in the address and the addressee was honest, said it was not theirs so it was sent back immediately.

It is really weird because the seller seems to have sold similar items at an even lower price, as others have said. He didn't respond to the OP's neg fb either, at least not yet. He relisted the item as an auction too, starting at the same price.

Without tracking it is impossible to know what really happened and we can only speculate.

[papermoon.lady]

The seller actually also has almost 5 stars in communication, so in general he doesn't seem to be totally silent, so why isn't he providing any explanation to the OP?

[lane-ends]

Some sellers have tracking but dont upload it. The reason being is that tracking is not always scanned on delivery as it should be. The theory is if a buyer receives an item which is not scanned on delivery it can give them the idea to file a not received claim in the knowledge there is no proof otherwise. If tracking is not uploaded then buyer cant see if there is an end delivery scan or not and so will not be tempted to do this.

If sent tracked and seller can see it has gone astray, then they may just straight refund.

$30 is not a huge risk to send untracked if it can go as a letter.

If a seller is out of stock/item damaged/ missed their handling deadline, then to avoid a black mark they can play lost in mail then refund when queried as this avoids a black mark.

To deliberatly not send in order to relist for a better price is something a casual seller may do, but not worth the time and effort for a seller with a decent turnover, they don't sweat single sales, and it is the easiest way to trash your fb which they dont do willingly.

Marking as sent is often just the last processing step before putting in the "out" basket rather than after the have physically handed it over. It could get lost overlooked between there. Or they could have "processed" the paperwork ready to pack and send only to find they are out of stock.

All you can do is guess, rarely are assumptions of fraud (which it isn't as they refunded) correct, as there is no motivation to do so.

Lousey communication, even if it is just to make up a lame excuse, is bad business practice though.

[lm-entertainment]

i've definitely learnt something from your post lane-ends! :] 

i'd always wondered why on occasion when i've bought from sellers with a feedback score in the hundreds of thousands why they often mark the item as sent and have sent it via a tracked service, but never put the tracking number in. now, it all makes perfect sense. thanks for the info.

[*tippy*toes*]

Even though the OP hasn't been back, there have been some good replies, but I want to add another. Sometimes life happens. Like, really happens.

Last Wednesday lunch time, my sister sent me a text message asking if I was at work. I said no, I was at home. My heart rate increased, because it's highly unusual she would ask that question. 5 minutes later, the phone rang. She was ringing to tell me that our step father was found dead in the back yard that morning. Probably been there all night. Mum was at my sisters place helping with the kids, so he went unnoticed until the next morning. 

I started making plans as I have to travel 6 hours for the funeral. We decided that Mr Tippy would stay home and keep things going here. After all, even when someone dies, life still goes on. 2.30pm, his phone rings. It was his daughter. She was ringing to say that Mr Tippy's father had just died. So, now we both have to make the 6 hour trek to farwell our fathers. Even more planning and shuffling, including organising someone to care for the pets.

Both funerals were supposed to be on Wednesday, but due to the stuffing around of my step father's daughter, his has been put back to Thursday. I am getting a lift up on Monday, Mr Tippy is coming Tuesday, and due to the stuff up, we won't be back until Friday.

I can tell you now, eBay will be the least of my issues while I'm away. I have a long handling time so even if something does sell, I should still manage to get it posted within my handling time. If I don't, I'll wear the defect.

However, if something similar happened to the OP's sellers, they may have had to go interstate, so was easier just to refund than worry about all the other stuff that goes with it. I know it's unlikely both sellers had deaths in the family where they had to go away, but you just don't know. These things happen when you least expect it, and sometimes twice on the same day.

[brerrabbit585]

While we hear a lot of excuses, life DOES happen as you say, so we can't always assume people are lying.

A lot of people sell on ebay because they have health problems but they're able to cope with working from home at their own pace, so we can't assume that nothing ever goes wrong for them. I know sometimes I get so tired that just sending a message would be the straw that broke the camel's back. I usually manage to do the ones I need to but anything that's not absolutely necessary sometimes has to wait an extra day or two. I'm not as bad as I used to be but occasionally it still happens where I can't do ANYTHING but what's absolutely essential. Other sellers would only need to get bad flu to be in the same position.