Customer opened a case for an item he damaged

[retrogamestoreau]

Hi, I just wanted a little bit of advice because I've never experienced this before. I've had return requests in the past but they've all been easy to resolve and haven't caused me any issues.

I had a customer request to return an item to me which he claimed to have broken the first time he used it. He sent though photos and I think the damage was caused by him being rough or misusing the item. I also tried to find incidences of this sort of thing happening to this product in the past and couldn't find anything.

How do I handle this? eBay didn't seem offer an option to decline the return, is there any way for me to get around this without losing money or getting a strike against my account?

Thanks in advance

[phorum_junkie*]

I don't fancy your chances however you could try this: Send the buyer a message saying you will be more than happy to accept a return and when you get it back you will send it to the manufacturer to be evaluated and if they agree it was a faulty product they will be able to keep their refund however if the manufacturer confirms that it is the buyers handling of the item that caused the failure you will expect a return of all monies paid to them and they can have the broken item back if they pay the postage.

It may just give them cause especially if you follow it up with an explanation of what ACORN is and what the do lol.

[retrogamestoreau]

Thank you for the advice. I've actually contacted the manufactuer already and am waiting to hear back from them. It's a little upsetting that there doesn't seem to be any method of disputing a return. It sounds like I have to lose money in one way or another and there is no way around it.