help please with a return

[ann4206]

Help please with a return request customer opened tonight.  I sold a top by TS Taking Shape and customer has sent a return request as "not authentic" going as far as calling it fake.  She  sent an email and thanked me on the 20/5/20 for sending an extra top in the parcel and never mentioned anything.

Tonight I get the return request  through ebay reason "Doesn't seem authentic."  I sold it for $14.99 and $8.80 postage.  She is requesting refund of top and postage.  I have been selling for a lot of years on ebay and never had a return request.  I sent a message via the request  to say it is authentic and why did she not contact me and saying I will not give a refund or pay for return postage.  I also attached a copy of the photo in listing of  the TS label.

What I want to know does ebay take into account  the information I have provided, as I have read on the boards so often that buyers just get refunded and the Seller is out of pocket?  It is the principle if it was an error on my behalf I would have refunded straight away, but just a little bit angry at the moment.

Thank you in advance.

[lyndal1838]

---

@tazzieterror wrote:

---

@lyndal1838 wrote:

If the buyer is in Australia no-one is going to know what is in the parcel as there is no inspection of the contents.

Yes but in the same way, we're not allowed to send some hazardous/dangerous items by air despite no one checking. So regardless of the process eBay does/doesn't follow to verify if an item is counterfeit, if their final decision is that the buyer received a fake, AND if Australia Post forbids the carriage of such items (I'm not bothering to verify this myself), then eBay can't very well compel a buyer to return that item.

On the other hand, eBay should probably require evidence of the item being destroyed before refunding the buyer.

If I was the seller I would ask for the item to be returned for a full refund or show some proof that it is fake.

I have never known ebay not to ask for 3rd party confirmation that an item is a fake....or to ask the seller for proof that it is not a fake.

---

---

There is no rule against AP carrying counterfeits/fakes within Australia....it simply does not exist as AP has no way of knowing what is in a package anyway.  The rule for international postage is mainly because a lot of overseas countries will reject items that they consider counterfeit.

Dangerous Goods are a different kettle of fish altogther and don't for a minute think that AP does not care or check.  If you are found to be doing the wrong thing the penalties can be severe.

[tazzieterror]

I'm not following your logic here - if AP has "no way of knowing what is in a package", how would they ever know a package contains dangerous goods?

[lyndal1838]

AP works in mysterious ways.

There will always be some people who want to break the rules but if things go wrong they usualy do so in spectacular fashion.

Have you ever smelt a parcel containing perfume when the bottle has leaked or broken?

They will sometimes run detector dogs along a conveyor belt of local mail just as they do with overseas mail.

[countessalmirena]

As you say, lyndal, this isn't an Australia Post area of responsibility. It's the police's and Australian Border Force's responsibility. I would be more worried about having a counterfeit item in my possession than about sending it back to a shonky seller! (But I'd prefer to destroy the item.)

Just for the information of anyone reading this thread who doesn't see the harm in buying a fake Gucci handbag or iPhone and so on...

Intellectual property crime includes the sale and importation of counterfeit goods, but also knowingly buying such goods. It is reportable to police as it is criminal.

The Australian Border Force will seize imported pirated and counterfeit goods, and even a business that has not yet gained a court order to prevent importation of items infringing their IP (TM) or copyright can submit a Notice of Objection to the ABF, whereupon the ABF will act swiftly to seize goods in question, to prevent unauthorised importation and distribution of goods. The business has to follow through, of course, with seeking a court order against the importer.

Sellers such as those on eBay or other online platforms, or those selling in markets, or in shops, or by any means in Australia can be prosecuted for selling counterfeit items. There are a number of pieces of legislation that cover this sort of behaviour, such as the TGA, Criminal Code Act 1995, and Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

The proliferation of counterfeit goods costs the global economy an enormous amount of money. That money goes primarily to Chinese and other Asian counterfeiters. As WA's Acting Commissioner for Consumer Protection David Hillyard writes,

❝Items such as fake designer bags may seem harmless but a number of counterfeit products pose a safety risk to consumers, including things like:

• phone chargers, which may cause an electric shock or fire;
• cosmetics or perfumes containing ingredients that can burn skin;
• clothes made with harmful poisonous dyes; or
• sunglasses that don’t protect your eyes from UV rays.❞

I should point out that in the main, the unbranded items listed for sale on eBay primarily by Chinese sellers may also be instances of trademark infringement and theft of IP. Removal of TM, or production of an item that is in essence under trademark but has been manufactured by a factory without the trademark (and of inferior components) is expressly forbidden under Australian law. Chinese law is very different as it does not respect the IP of non-Chinese businesses or people and will facilitate what we consider fraud.

And that's not even going into the Australian standards issue when it comes to electrical goods...

Whoops! I slipped on a bar of metaphorical soap. Yes, I have got onto my soapbox again.

[digital*ghost]

---

@lyndal1838 wrote:

There is no rule against AP carrying counterfeits/fakes within Australia....

---

I think that depends on how you interprest this from Aus Post's T&Cs

57.1 The following prohibited goods shall not be lodged for carriage by post and are
prohibited from carriage by post:

57.1.1 any article whose possession or carriage by post is prohibited by a law of the
Commonwealth, a State or Territory;

This would be a little less open to interpretation if that clause had a comma or two in there - i.e. it reads very differently if it was:

any article whose possession, or carriage by post, is prohibited by a law of the
Commonwealth, a State or Territory;

However, I still think it's a plausible interpretation that if something is illegal to possess, then it is illegal to post - particularly when you consider that - in accordance with other T&Cs - Australia Post is legally considered to be in possession of the goods when they accept them for transport, until they are delivered to the recipient. However the other, more literal interpretation is "if it's illegal for Australia Post to carry it, it is a prohibited item". 

Under the Copyright Act, it is illegal to "knowingly import, possess, sell, distribute or commercially deal with an infringing copy". Of course, Aus Post wouldn't knowingly be in possession, or facilitating distribution, but that clause could be in place to expressly prohibit goods that are simply illegal to be in possession of, as a butt-covering thing, in essence.  

[digital*ghost]

---

@tazzieterror wrote:


In my experience on these boards, anything digital*ghost writes can be pretty much accepted as gospel, so keep that in mind whenever you're reading through on here 🙂

---

I take that as a huge compliment (thank you 🙂 ), but absolutely not true, lol. (I get stuff wrong all the time often occasionally )

[*tippy*toes*]

Clearly you've never been to Paddy's Markets in Sydney Countess. Genuine Gucci bags (and lots of other high end brands) for 50 bucks. The signs say they are genuine, so they must be! I think you can get genuine LV for $30. BARGAIN! The Chinese would never lie. They are located right next to the genuine iPhone and Samsung chargers for $1. Totally safe and compliant with Australian Standards. The signs say so.

[daydreams_12]

Tippy are you telling me that for the 60 plus years I have been going there they have been telling me porkies?  LOL

[countessalmirena]

Tippy, I have been to Paddy's Markets... I didn't buy anything, but I was there with friends who did want to visit it.

I think the sellers there must have ticked the genuine item declaration box.

I had the amp-what site open, and I was just about to copy-paste the ticked genuine item declaration box (in unicode) when I spotted some other intriguing unicode that fits perfectly into this COVID-19 world of ours.

🦠 🧫 🤒 😷 🩺 💊  (The second item is not a bowl of cat food. It's a petri dish.)

Sorry, sorry! Terrible distraction... let's get back to the check box. ✅ <--- genuine!

And here are the happy genuine items - Gucci. Absolutely. 👜 👝 👛

🛍 ©

Spoiler

(I had been looking through unicode for various medical-related things. I'm sending a box of chocolates, the code for medical-related unicode pictographs etc., plus some appropriate emoticons that I'd whipped up, to the wonderful surgical team and nursing team at St Vincent's Melbourne, as a feeble thank you for their tremendous care of me while I had my last surgery. Am I going to be able to go in and go out of Haigh's Chocolates without succumbing to personal temptation...?)

[tazzieterror]

---

@countessalmirena wrote:

...

Am I going to be able to go in and go out of Haigh's Chocolates without succumbing to personal temptation...?

---

Quality control is an important part of the inspection & selection process and shouldn't be conflated with 'personal temptation' which is more selfish in nature. Your mission is altruistic in nature so I think you are safe!

Also, as is often the case, rubrication is mine!