Ebay rewards dishonest buyers who commit Return Fraud.

[ivanhoe_cycles_australia]

We've been an ebay seller for 8+ years now, and had our fair share of dishonest buyers who are obviously exploiting Ebay's returns procedure with false SNAD claims.

However I've had 2 instances back-to-back this week of 2 separate buyers starting a return request for a "defective" item valued at $150, and then sending back something totally different than what they ordered. One buyer returned an empty parcel containing only a piece of cardboard. The photos the buyer uploaded were pulled from google images.

Ebay did not make us refund the buyer, thankfully. However Ebay refunded BOTH buyers in full! This is a total mishandling. It rewards the buyer's dishonesty, and encourages them to commit the same action again and again - because they know they'll get "free money" with no effort whatsoever! 

Ebay is cultivating a dishonest selling platform.

Would be very interested to know if anyone else is experiencing an increase in this sort of activity? 

[south.coffee]

I suspect dodgy buyers are exploiting Ai and eBay has a ton of it now, especially in the returns process.  If your staff can determine something odd with size or weight of returned parcel, consider taking photos or even unboxing video for evidence.

High end goods sellers will get targeted and scammers will boast of their exploits and others will follow suit.  However if the Ai gets clever enough to gather buyer history and patterns, it may learn and block them.

When orders come in from new zero feedback buyers we look closely, even Street Viewing their address.  In saying that we had a zero buyer return a product today and had no issue.  We are considering stopping sales to zero buyers...

[springyzone]

When orders come in from new zero feedback buyers we look closely, even Street Viewing their address.  In saying that we had a zero buyer return a product today and had no issue.  We are considering stopping sales to zero buyers...

I definitely get where you are coming from.   I think back in the day, when my sister & I were selling, we were able to block buyers who had under 2 feedback, or something like that. No idea what it is like now. We eventually did that though because while it was tough on new buyers (how can they get a higher feedback score if no one will sell to them? etc), we figured it could be someone else's problem.

I think I'd also be wary of zero feedback buyers wanting expensive items.

You'd hope that ebay could pick up on buyers who put in too many claims and eventually put them on notice, but I am not sure how often that happens. In the past I have seen screenshots of buyers who seem to have given about 50 negs in a few months, complaining they didn't get items or the items were faulty etc. No one could have that much bad luck, you wouldn't think, yet there they are, still on ebay.

I sometimes wonder if some buyers fly under the radar in that they complain privately to a seller & get a partial refund or whatever but don't go through an official ebay claim. Many years back, we had that happen to us (as sellers). We knew it was a  con but it was just easier and cheaper than paying for a return (overseas).

[sandypebbles]

Rather like that person recently-ish who posted complaining the seller would not refund when they asked the for one

And their feedback left for other's page was 99% comments about 'Item did not arrive' , dozens of them

OP, I hope you are blocking your scammer buyers 

[*casey*]

"When orders come in from new zero feedback buyers we look closely, even Street Viewing their address.  In saying that we had a zero buyer return a product today and had no issue. 

We are considering stopping sales to zero buyers"

There's never been an option to block  buyers  based on feedback score alone, the phone verification block was the closest, but be sure to have all your other blocks in place and if you're uneasy about a buyer, due to the large amount of  fraudulent  MBG claims in general, cancel the transaction.

[yeoldecoinco]

I had an interesting experience last week with eBay and returns.

Buyer bought a $1 to $20 banknote set from me. He got it, complained about it and wanted a return, which I accepted.

The notes he sent back were the same ones I sent to him but not in the condition I sent them.

They were all stuck together, covered in glitter paper, one was torn and several had what looked like black ink marks on them.

They could not have been damaged in the mail, not the way we pack them.

I appealed the refund to eBay. To my absolute shock and surprise, they credited the refund back to my account and also removed the nasty negative feedback that the buyer had left.

In the past, buyers have abused the return process by returning stuff I did not send and demanding a refund, usually causing a loss for me.

In this case, I held no hope of getting any justice over this transaction and was very pleasantly surprised by the result. So maybe, there is some hope for us eBay sellers after all..

However, I am under no illusions. Very easy to get defrauded as an eBay seller..

[chameleon54]

"There's never been an option to block  buyers  based on feedback score alone, "

I'm 99 % sure there was an option to block new buyers up to 5 feedbacks a very long time ago. I think I used it as a seller and there used to be forum discussion about it.

[*casey*]

"I'm 99 % sure there was an option to block new buyers up to 5 feedbacks a very long time ago"

I'm 100% sure there's never been an option to block buyers based  only  on  their feedback score.

[countessalmirena]

For those interested, some of the evolution of the Buyer Requirement blocks can be seen here:

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/Changes-to-Buyer-Requirements-you-can-no-longer-block-selle...

There was an option to block based on lack of phone verification (and applying this only to eBay members with x feedback or less), and there was also an option to block members with negative feedback. Both of those options have been defunct - I think for roughly the last seven years.

Strictly speaking, neither of the options were to block buyers solely on whether or not they were 0-feedback buyers, but the phone verification + 0-feedback option may be what’s being remembered.

[springyzone]

Back in the day (and this would be the very early 2000s) I used to sell with my sister.

I wrote the ads, posted them on ebay with the photos etc while she looked after posting them after they sold and she attended to the account details.

I can remember one day she said to me there was an option to block bids (and it was only auctions in those days, I think) from buyers who had under a certain amount of feedback. I thought it was under 2, or with negative feedback.

After a couple of annoying experiences, we decided to opt for that. I can't swear as to all the details. I can't even recall them exactly.

But I am pretty sure that way, way back, it was at least possible to block bids from (zero or under) rated buyers.

No idea about the phone verification, though I know buyers and sellers could ring us as we had occasional phone calls from both over the years.