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

[miss_ebabe]

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.

[tstore]

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

[tstore]

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.

[purplespoilz_au*]

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

[purplespoilz_au*]

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 !!!

[miss_ebabe]

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'.

[miss_ebabe]

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.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

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.........

[misscarlikitty]

I agree, call the ombudsman!

[lemmayj]

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@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.........

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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.

[ydgonline06]

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