Refunded item arrived - Buyer & eBay Don’t Care

[lutel85]

Seeking advice on whether to pursue legal action out of principle. 

In summary:

- I posted the $400 item from Australia to USA

- The item had tracking

- Upon noticing that the USPS had misdirected the item I contacted them and they corrected this.

- The watch was delivered in a month, in alignment with Aus Posts projected timeframes.

- The buyer was incredibly painful sending dozens of messages demanding a refund despite explaining what had happened and that the USPS was at fault. 

- He demanded a refund to eBay and eBay reimbursed him, despite the tracking showing it enroute in his state at the time.

- It arrived the very next day, as the tracking had indicated.

- The buyer has since refused to transfer this refund back.

- I contacted eBay and was transferred ‘offline’ to an employee who sent me a message and told me to speak further with the buyer.
- He is not going to refund me or return the item. I’ve asked and asked.

- I contacted eBay via chat again and was told that I should pursue it through the merchant that processed the payment to retrieve my funds from the buyer.

- I contacted UBank Australia and requested a refund from the buyer. The bank contacted eBay who then said that the refund transaction should NOT be reimbursed.

-now $400 out of pocket and considering pursuing legal action

- The buyer has openly admitted that he has the funds and the item.

I conduct hundreds of sales on eBay and can’t believe that they don’t intervene with this sort of issue.

[whoisbiggles]

Let your buyer know that on "insert date" you will be handing over this debt to a US Debt collection agency (eg Cedar Finance).

You won't get much of your $400 back, but they will pay a lot more than $400 to make it go away. And that may be the only satisfaction you get.

[tickford-t3]

those in the know - Why didn't the Seller/Buyer Protection work here ?

if the Tracking Detail was uploaded to the purchase and the item goes missing why is the Seller hit with the fund reversal, shouldn't ebays Buyer/Seller protection cover this ?

[gutterpunkz05]

I am wondering what part the apparent mis and re-direction played, did tracking show delivered to wrong address, or not the address provided by ebay.   Somehow I don't think we have the full story.

For the  OP  -  The dispute would have been handled by ebays  International dispute resolution centre, which

is probably who told you to sort it out with the buyer, they are an absolute PITA to deal with.

[lutel85]

Correct. Australian contact centre (offshore) were helpful but basically said while they agree it’s unfair it’s global market jurisdiction to make the call.

They also said that the tracking stopped for several days. What actually happened was the buyer and I both tracked the shipment through USPS not Australia Post and the USPS updates continued. We both saw it misdirected and I contacted them and asked for them to correct the issue, which they did. eBay meanwhile didn’t seem to notice any tracking updates. The buyer certainly could see it though as he sent 50,000 messages complaining that it was still not there and that he was watching the tracking. He also lied and said that USPS told him that the package was misdirected because it was addressed wrong. I went to my local post office and took a photo of the carbon copy and sent it to him and USPS. The whole thing is a joke

[danieh_6]

Hi are you on managed payments or paypal?