Comment on My experience with eBay Buyer Protection

BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• the16bitgamer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I like giving the seller the benefit of the doubt, not everyone can be on their a game everyday.

  Honestly while eBay was a nuisance it understandable why it’s set up this well. I was on the other side of this where we shipped a thing and the buyer claimed it never arrived. Which we later proved it did. And considering how rare or hard to find some items are it’s a good service.

  That said I support local sellers in my area before I check eBay. Then eBay but local to my country, the international if the price is right.

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• dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You got lucky.

  No he didn’t.

  eBay relies on buyer confidence to continue to exist. They’re essentially the only game in town for a well known world-spanning used stuff selling platform, so they know sellers don’t have a choice and they don’t give a flying fuck about the seller’s bottom line. eBay sides with the buyer. Always. It might take some time, it might take some extra emails, but ultimately you will always receive a refund no matter what if you as a buyer complain. This means that it is always possible to get your money back if you were overtly scammed by an eBay seller, and this is because eBay knows very well just how prevalent seller-side scams are on their platform.

  But this also means that the buyer can concoct any lie or pull any scam themselves no matter how obvious and an honest seller ultimately has no recourse and will be out both the money and the product. A buyer can lie and claim the product never arrived, swap it for a broken instance of a similar item and ship it back to you claiming you “scammed” them, or even just apply your shipping label to a brick and mail it back to you and eBay won’t care. They’ll close the case, take the money from your account, and refund the buyer their purchase amount while the buyer keeps the item. It doesn’t matter if you posted your item as “no returns.” All the buyer has to do is say it was defective, damaged, or didn’t arrive if they have buyer’s remorse or simply feel like ripping you off.

  For this reason I don’t sell anything with any value whatsoever on eBay. Only literal junk that I got for free via work, like parting out broken equipment that has a net $0 cost for us, etc. If I turn a buck on it, fine. But sometimes I don’t, and I have seen buyers try every trick under the sun, and every time eBay sides with them in the face of all evidence to the contrary. So you will ultimately always lose some, and if that’s going to impact your bottom like you just can’t sell on eBay.

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  • the16bitgamer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This ^

    Use to sell on eBay for years, and remember a time when we shipped a Scuzzy drive to Australia only to find ourselves in eBay court. Thankfully we kept receipts and won. But as a seller you need to be extremely cautious with what you list.

    I don’t like eBay but for other reasons like 3d printed model resellers who rip models and pictures from thingiverse and sells it like its theres. Even if the model is under a noncommercial license.

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  • xyzzy@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You forgot that sellers can’t even leave negative feedback about buyers now.

    As a buyer I film unboxing videos for myself for expensive purchases. As a seller I don’t sell anything more expensive than $100 or so, and after hundreds of sales I haven’t had a return yet (knock on wood).

    For more expensive items above $100 I might film a boxing video, though, and if I ever did get a return on that item, I’d film an unboxing video as well. At least I could prove if a buyer mailed me back a brick or whatever. Of course it’s also entirely possible that eBay staff don’t even bother reviewing the evidence.

    I’ve been buying and selling since the late '90s. I stay away entirely from areas rife with fraud, like computer parts or things teenagers might want to buy, and so far it’s worked out for me.

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