How do I ensure the buyer sends back the right item and not a fake?

[pysterio]

Hi fellow sellers

I resell used electronic products and the majority of my sales have been single unit purchases. 

I had my first multiple item purchase a few weeks ago which I felt was suspicious but I processed the sale and now the buyer has initiated a refund. The rating of the buyer is (3) and his reason was simply as "the wrong product " with no photos and and no specifics at all as you would expect from a buyer initiating a refund.

Descriptions and photos on my ad were not ambiguos whatsoever. I have contacted the buyer to add more specifics in the interim but  my gut tells me if I accept the refund then non-genuine replica/fake products ill be sent back to me and in the eyes of eBay I can't prove this was what I didn't send in the first place. 

Please advise on what the best outcome can be if the buyer proves to be malicious

edit: i have not approved refund yet, only contacted buyer for more info

[tazzieterror]

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@danieh_6 wrote:

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@tazzieterror wrote:

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@danieh_6 wrote:
I personally don't sell high value items often for this reason alone,

The best suggestion I can give you is contact PayPal, or AFCA, and explain to them they made a false claim and show them proof. Try lodging an appeal through paypal.

No, it's an eBay refund request - there's no point appealing it through PayPal. They need to deal with it through eBay. And what "proof" does a seller have that a buyer is making a false claim about what was sent?

Obviously this has never happened to you, I literally helped a friend a few weeks ago and they got their money back if not they can file afca dispute.

How wonderful for your friend. But while it's still an open request in eBay, it would literally be foolish to throw away their first avenue of appeal

This is 1 of many reasons why i don't like the managed payment system and wont be supporting it until they answer to AFCA cause its the "buyers opinion" "you sent that" when you clearly didn't

Another suggestion is, for low feedback accounts. Filter out post office boxes and parcel lockers, that way you have a house address and possibly file a police report.

When someone registers for a PO box, they need to provide ID anyway. The police are capable of obtaining these details if you filed a report with them. But what has that got to do with the OP's situation?

Same with parcel locker but the point is Auspost has to have a case to reveal the identity who owns them. Waste of time on police part for a few hundred dollar item. You can also file legal dispute i.e. in vic, VCAT, demanding them to repay for the goods. What do you mean what does that to do with anything? Are you even paying attention to the thread? I was suggesting future help for op to avoid this.

You're the one who suggested filing a police report, not me. I'm simply pointing out that sending an item to a PO box doesn't preclude police being able to investigate. And yes, what does a PO box have to do with the OP's situation? They never mentioned sending to a PO box. Are YOU even paying attention to the thread?


I'm gonna be blatantly honest customer service is **bleep**. tho tazzies advice might help. Unless you have an account manager unfortunately there's usually nothing you can do about high value items and it will always win in buyers favor. Just hope they are dumb enough to get caught out. Or even Karma

I'm gonna be blatantly honest and say eBay's customer service is usually pretty helpful, in my experience. I think what you're meaning to criticise is eBay's policies.

You clearly don't sell or sell enough to know... standard customer service is legit hopeless...

...

Feel free to lecture me about selling when you're posting from an account whose last 50 selling feedback ISN'T mostly red dots. 

🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑

[danieh_6]

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@tazzieterror wrote:

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@danieh_6 wrote:

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@tazzieterror wrote:

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@danieh_6 wrote:
I personally don't sell high value items often for this reason alone,

The best suggestion I can give you is contact PayPal, or AFCA, and explain to them they made a false claim and show them proof. Try lodging an appeal through paypal.

No, it's an eBay refund request - there's no point appealing it through PayPal. They need to deal with it through eBay. And what "proof" does a seller have that a buyer is making a false claim about what was sent?

Obviously this has never happened to you, I literally helped a friend a few weeks ago and they got their money back if not they can file afca dispute.

How wonderful for your friend. But while it's still an open request in eBay, it would literally be foolish to throw away their first avenue of appeal

What? You know there is AFCA for a reason, I made it clear that eBay will likely favor with the buyer. I am trying to provide help to OP but yet you are refusing to acknowledge it. I said appeal, in order to appeal you have to have a case not closed in your favour.

This is 1 of many reasons why i don't like the managed payment system and wont be supporting it until they answer to AFCA cause its the "buyers opinion" "you sent that" when you clearly didn't

Another suggestion is, for low feedback accounts. Filter out post office boxes and parcel lockers, that way you have a house address and possibly file a police report.

When someone registers for a PO box, they need to provide ID anyway. The police are capable of obtaining these details if you filed a report with them. But what has that got to do with the OP's situation?

Same with parcel locker but the point is Auspost has to have a case to reveal the identity who owns them. Waste of time on police part for a few hundred dollar item. You can also file legal dispute i.e. in vic, VCAT, demanding them to repay for the goods. What do you mean what does that to do with anything? Are you even paying attention to the thread? I was suggesting future help for op to avoid this.

You're the one who suggested filing a police report, not me. I'm simply pointing out that sending an item to a PO box doesn't preclude police being able to investigate. And yes, what does a PO box have to do with the OP's situation? They never mentioned sending to a PO box. Are YOU even paying attention to the thread?

No YOU clearly aren't paying attention to thread. This was a point for the FUTURE. I EVEN stated this in my last reply. Also the owner of the P.O. Box / Parcel locker can say it wasn't them and case over. With a home address you have other avenues to explore legally not just police report. In fact you even started going to the police first "keep copies of all correspondence and details of product serial numbers for eBay to pass on to the police/cyber-crime/wet team etc."

I'm gonna be blatantly honest customer service is **bleep**. tho tazzies advice might help. Unless you have an account manager unfortunately there's usually nothing you can do about high value items and it will always win in buyers favor. Just hope they are dumb enough to get caught out. Or even Karma

I'm gonna be blatantly honest and say eBay's customer service is usually pretty helpful, in my experience. I think what you're meaning to criticise is eBay's policies.

You clearly don't sell or sell enough to know... standard customer service is legit hopeless...

...

Feel free to lecture me about selling when you're posting from an account whose last 50 selling feedback ISN'T mostly red dots. 

🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑

Yeah sure man I'll come back on another account. This is the reason why people have alts in the forums. I clearly explained it in another thread. You don't have an account manager, barely do 100 transactions a month so you wouldn't know what good customer service is. I'm trying to help OP. Unless you have something useful to say then don't. You have a lot of listings that don't have photos so I suggest you get to them.

[tazzieterror]

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@danieh_6 wrote:

...

Feel free to lecture me about selling when you're posting from an account whose last 50 selling feedback ISN'T mostly red dots. 

🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑

Yeah sure man I'll come back on another account just so drop kicks like you can be a pain. This is the reason why people have alts in the forums. I clearly explained it in another thread. You don't have an account manager, barely do 100 transactions a month so you wouldn't know what good customer service is. I'm trying to help OP. Unless you have something useful to say then don't. You have a lot of listings that don't have photos so I suggest you get to them

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Once again, lecture me about customer service when posting from a selling account not riddled with negatives 🙄

As for the rest of your post, when someone starts resorting to insults you know there's not much value in whatever else they have to say, so...meh.

[danieh_6]

Awww go have a cry! Do you think I care?  I provided constructive feedback and you took it the wrong way, You took it off topic not me. Also you completely ignored the other replies I made ontopic, BUT allgood man! Why should I make an alt account when I don't need to. Why don't you just stay on topic, its not hard.

Read this and you might actually understand what happened.

https://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/Postage-Delays/m-p/2319358#M197710

[tazzieterror]

I think I'm beginning to see why eBay CS haven't bent over backwards to provide you that service you claim they're incapable of.

[justkidzbiz]

Returns can be the pits if the buyer is trying to pull a fast one.  They merely need to only upload tracking with an empty satchel/envelope and will win a case as in ebays eyes (as eBay told me once) , "we don't get to see the actual sent item and because the buyer returned an item with tracking we must side with the buyer". Plain wrong, wrong wrong on all levels!

[countessalmirena]

@anyone interested in the colorisation of text to make a point, to highlight, to illuminate, to contrast...

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Plain text. The original thing posted. (Bolded here for illustrative purposes.)

Rubrication. I use this to highlight an important point, to distinguish it from the rest of the text.

Azuring. (An alternative term coined by tazzieterror is blubrication; another alternative that I'd considered before settling on azuring was indigating, but the potential for genuine misinterpretation (as indicating) rather than pun-loving chortles decided me against it.) Sometimes one needs to highlight a word that is distinct from what is rubricated.

Verdigrising. Ah, the murky waters of highlighting in green. Do not seek to stop me should it come to that!

Orpimentation. I would have used saffronisation, save that this beautiful and evocative word has been usurped by Hindu politics... so orpimentation let it be. (The problem here is that the yellow available on these boards does not display with clarity against the white background. The number of times that I'd orpimentate is unlikely to be substantial. I might use it if I feel that someone's building me up, letting me down and messing me around.)

Cochineate. No argument or discussion is complete without the ability to make some text pink. I could have got madder over this; even, I thought, one could incarnadine, but to incarnadine is surely redder than the purplish pink of cochineal...

@pysterio, is there any movement on the returned item front? I would suggest printing out a blank Stat Dec (or a partially completed Stat Dec in which you additionally note down the actual item (or actual condition of the item) which you receive back in the presence of Aus Post staff, and which can be signed in the presence of an authorised person. (Usually Aus Post offices have such authorised persons, but of course check beforehand.)

This might at least give you peace of mind, and somewhere to start if things do go wrong.

[*tippy*toes*]

Does it really matter about the names of the colours? I'm unsure why you need to constantly point out that the colouring is yours when quoting text. It makes absolutely no difference to the advice you're giving.

[tazzieterror]

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@*tippy*toes* wrote:

Does it really matter about the names of the colours? I'm unsure why you need to constantly point out that the colouring is yours when quoting text. It makes absolutely no difference to the advice you're giving.

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Blubrication mine 

When quoting text, it's considered best practice for the quoter to acknowledge any emphasis they add to the text not originally included by the author.

To not do so could, in some circumstances, be seen as an attempt to misconstrue the text, so better to err on the (colourful) side of caution, I say!

[countessalmirena]

  True - it doesn’t matter what one calls the coloured text, and it’s more of an indulgence for me.