Ebay return?

MeatLoaf

MeatLoaf

MeatLoaf

Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2005
Posts
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Location
Stoke on Trent
Bit of an odd one.

Purcahsed an AE-5 soundcard for the bargain price ( i thought ) of £37 + post. Listed as working and pics looked ok. Listed as returns not accepted.

It arrived today in a box barely big enough. The backplate was bent. Very neatly bent as if it had to be bent to fit in the box ( yep the box was that small ). There was no damage at all to the outer box which id have expected if the card had been bent in transit.

I was happy to try and bend the card back and install it. But before i did that i contacted the seller to tell them what had happened and sent some photos. I waited for a reply before i did anything because had the card turned out to be faulty i didnt want to be blamed for breaking it.

Anyway they replied saying they hadnt bent it to fit, box was plenty big enoug then they go on to say 'and i have recorded all the serial numbers etc'

At this point i thought Nah CBA with this if thats the road they want to go down and asked for a return giving the reason of Item Damaged and sending the photos.

The return and refund went thru instantly and ebay have said Theres no need to return this item. Your refund will arrive in 3 - 5 working days. They havent provided a returns label.

Surely that cant be right - certainly dosent seem right to me - especially if they charge the seller for it. Not so bad if ebay have refunded out there own pockets.

Anyone else been in this situation?
 
Hard to say, I've been in a couple of situations as a seller where eBay immediately refunded the buyer and then tried to take the money from me - after I protested for a while, they gave in and let me have my money back as well.

I think they've probably got a threshold where they can't be bothered to adjudicate if it's not a pattern of abuse. But it wouldn't shock me if they've tried to get the seller to eat the loss in the first instance.
 
The seller (private) doesn't get charged for a return as Ebay pockets the postage money now so it's up to them to refund postage costs. Since this "simple postage" bs Ebay has been keeping the postage for themselves and making a profit off it. All my listings were changed over to the new system at the begining of the month and they marked the postage cost up so that each of my listings now have more expensive postage than if I was arranging it myself. On top of that it takes longer to get to the buyer as well. Sellers are now supposed to factor into the sale price the cost of packaging materials etc so private sellers have been doubly shafted since they changed everything.
 
No returns on ebay just means no returns just because you don't want it, sellers still have to accept returns for damaged, non delivered, incorrect items etc if the buyer requests it and ebay agrees with them (which is often it seems). eBay will often refund themselves using the buyer protection payments they receive (replacement for private seller fees).
 
Sounds like they’ve given a refund and let the seller keep your money else I’d have expected the seller to be pinging you?
 
MeatLoaf said:
The return and refund went thru instantly and ebay have said Theres no need to return this item. Your refund will arrive in 3 - 5 working days. They havent provided a returns label.

Surely that cant be right - certainly dosent seem right to me - especially if they charge the seller for it. Not so bad if ebay have refunded out there own pockets.
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Basically there's two types of returns with eBay.

Firstly you have returns accepted which means if you want to return the item the seller will have to work with you, this can be for a variety of reasons even including if you get it and decide you don't like it. It's just as abusable as the old DSR regs.

Secondly you have statutory returns, basically even if the seller states no returns (which all non business sellers really should due to the above) you're still covered if the item is different to how it was described/pictured (turns up damaged, they said working but it isn't, etc).

Your return would have gone the second route so basically eBay have given you back your money and taken it from the seller (he has to provide bank details to get paid and the small print allows them to take payment for issues like this) or just never made it available for him to withdraw if it hadn't cleared holding yet. If he want's his item back he will need to contact you and arrange postage, however if eBay have told you there is no need for this I would presume he has selected that option in his correspondence with eBay on the issue.
 
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its legit - ive had this happen with something i bought, think i odered a track rod end £20 ish for a fiat 500x and they sent a fiat 500, rang ebay as the company are almost difficult to get hold of for returns, ebay just said keep it bin it and here is your money back
 
MeatLoaf said:
Bit of an odd one.

Purcahsed an AE-5 soundcard for the bargain price ( i thought ) of £37 + post. Listed as working and pics looked ok. Listed as returns not accepted.

It arrived today in a box barely big enough. The backplate was bent. Very neatly bent as if it had to be bent to fit in the box ( yep the box was that small ). There was no damage at all to the outer box which id have expected if the card had been bent in transit.

I was happy to try and bend the card back and install it. But before i did that i contacted the seller to tell them what had happened and sent some photos. I waited for a reply before i did anything because had the card turned out to be faulty i didnt want to be blamed for breaking it.

Anyway they replied saying they hadnt bent it to fit, box was plenty big enoug then they go on to say 'and i have recorded all the serial numbers etc'

At this point i thought Nah CBA with this if thats the road they want to go down and asked for a return giving the reason of Item Damaged and sending the photos.

The return and refund went thru instantly and ebay have said Theres no need to return this item. Your refund will arrive in 3 - 5 working days. They havent provided a returns label.

Surely that cant be right - certainly dosent seem right to me - especially if they charge the seller for it. Not so bad if ebay have refunded out there own pockets.

Anyone else been in this situation?
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Hi, I have had this before, it might be that they've been looking into the seller before and this isn't the first time they've had a problem so there is some kind of marker/instant granting of a refund without return?
For me I've had this happen many times with lower cost items when using the website to start a case and it be closed and issued a refund straight away stating that it doesn't need to be returned, and also when reporting someone extremely dodgy over the phone to said company, and they've said the same thing, "don't worry you don't need to return it I've already refunded you, have a nice day, thank you" It really was that short and sweet.

I'd just keep it for a month aside and return it if they seller messages you asking, if not do whatever you want with it :) You followed procedure after all, and you don't make the decisions on wether it needs returning, they do - you haven't done anything wrong :)
 
MeatLoaf said:
Bit of an odd one.

Purcahsed an AE-5 soundcard for the bargain price ( i thought ) of £37 + post. Listed as working and pics looked ok. Listed as returns not accepted.

It arrived today in a box barely big enough. The backplate was bent. Very neatly bent as if it had to be bent to fit in the box ( yep the box was that small ). There was no damage at all to the outer box which id have expected if the card had been bent in transit.

I was happy to try and bend the card back and install it. But before i did that i contacted the seller to tell them what had happened and sent some photos. I waited for a reply before i did anything because had the card turned out to be faulty i didnt want to be blamed for breaking it.

Anyway they replied saying they hadnt bent it to fit, box was plenty big enoug then they go on to say 'and i have recorded all the serial numbers etc'

At this point i thought Nah CBA with this if thats the road they want to go down and asked for a return giving the reason of Item Damaged and sending the photos.

The return and refund went thru instantly and ebay have said Theres no need to return this item. Your refund will arrive in 3 - 5 working days. They havent provided a returns label.

Surely that cant be right - certainly dosent seem right to me - especially if they charge the seller for it. Not so bad if ebay have refunded out there own pockets.

Anyone else been in this situation?
Click to expand...

I've had this before and seems to be something they do with items <£50 in value, probably due to the costs of sorting out disputes so it's cheaper in the long run just to refund you and the seller keeps the payment.

By disputes I mean, you return it as damaged on arrival, seller disputes the item being returned as the one they sent or that you damaged it & then someone at ebay needs to investigate and mess around messaging back and forth. In the meantime the seller disassociates their bank/paypal details so even when the case goes to the buyer, they've then got to mess around getting the money from the seller.
 
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