I’ve been buying games off of eBay before I’ve ever owned a credit card, and its web page could render on a PSP. Over the years I’ve purchased consoles, rare games, and common guff for my game library with virtually no issues.
Obviously eBay is full of scams and I’ve purchased my fair share of crap from china which either didn’t work, or never arrived, and grew to look at local sellers with returns or a good reputation. I’ve always saw the eBay Buyer Protection and thought it was neat, and that I’d never use it. Oh boy was a wrong.
Last month I found a console going for an insane price, not too low that it would’ve been an immediate red flag, but good though that I didn’t worry about the sellers non existent returns. The system looked good in the photos and the seller feedback looked legit. The only weird thing was the description was written by AI (eBay is pushing it and it’s as useless as you can imagine), but the condition was used, so I got it.
When it arrive the console was dirty as it was in photos. But nothing that a bit of elbow grease can’t fix. Then I noticed the ports were a bit dirty, and there was signs that it was opened by an ape before I got it. So I got my new cables, purchased separately since it wasn’t coming with any, plugged her in and… nothing.
No light, no life.
Took the system apart myself and the insides of the console was a complete mess. Rust and corrosion everywhere, so much I thought it was used as a boat anchor at some point. Or the side of the road in the rain.
So I contacted the seller and asked them for a refund. They offered to exchange it, and thought to play ball… 2 days later the other system was missing. Suuurreee.
I gave them an offer for a partial refund. Saying hey, this is so broken it’s not with the return shipping. Why don’t we compromise and you give me a return minus the amount it would cost me to return it and we’ll call it even. I paid $92 and I offered $67. They then offered me $27.
Nope going full refund. Then they went silent with no messages or instructions.
I escalated it with eBay, who gave them 3 option, pay for return shipping and refund me when it arrives, I pay for shipping and they reimburse me, then I got the rest of the money back, or we figure something else out.
They opted for the first option. I printed the label and I waited for their currier to pick it up. The seller also gave no instructions but thankfully tracking had enough info from the tracking label I knew what was happening.
Then the day arrived for the parcel picked up, and the currier was a no show. I checked the label and the address was wrong. Despite it showing up. Informed the seller, and they canceled the label. But ghosted me again.
EBay got back to me and told me the case will default in 3 day if it was not picked up. Then 3 days passed and I had to reach out to eBay again, who tried to restart the process. At this point I was frustrated and told them it’s been 3 weeks since I started this return claim, please either refund me or escalate this.
I got my refund that afternoon.
What I learned about eBay buyer protection is this. It works, but it’s work too. It’s quite fair to the seller, but its resolution is heavily in the buyers favor. My only advice is for buyers who’ve been scammed like I was, is to keep on top of your eBay rep, as replies are handed in a shared pool, and the support agent is not going to look back on the case history.
TL:DR got scammed on eBay, got money back from eBay buyer protection, however it took 3 weeks and keeping on top of eBay support.
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 line you just can’t sell on eBay.
So yes, fuck eBay – but for a different reason.
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.
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.