I don’t use ebay much, so might not know etiquette, but tell me if I’m wrong here. Most of what i buy is from small sellers that use Ebay as a storefront rather than indivduals, and it appears to be a small seller in this case too.

So the item in question is an item of clothing / apparel, ordered to a particular size, and has been delivered in a cellophane bag with M 9-10 clearly marked on the outside, with paperwork with M 9-10 on it. Yet when i just tried it on, it didn’t fit and on looking at the garment label it clearly has been the victim of some sort of packing / picking error because it says S 7-8 on the label.

So i went to the item on my Ebay and clicked on the return item link, filled in the details above and just got a message back ranting about ‘why’ve I raised a dispute instead of just emailing so we could sort this out directly’

Did i do something wrong – maybe not technically but is it not ‘the way’?

theotherjonv thinks his purchase is too small and takes a pic to send to ebay

No, you probably haven’t done anything wrong.
I own a shop and run an eBay shop too and sometimes get a return.
It all depends on what set up that shop has set up and reasons for return. If they have not set it up correctly then it might well come through as a dispute rather than a return request.
Yes, as a shop owner it is always nice to get a message first but it is not necessary.

I got a very similar reply after I did the same when some stuff I ordered arrived damaged. He said ebay just took the money off him and he had to fight them to get it back.

OK, I’ll know in future.

Thanks for (most of) the responses 😉

You haven’t raised a dispute, you’ve followed the correct process for a return which is to request a return via the listing. It might have been slightly better if you’d emailed the seller first though just to let them know there was a problem.

You haven’t raised a dispute, you’ve followed the correct process for a return which is to request a return via the listing.

He has though, even if he didn’t mean to. Buy using the ‘return an item’ instead of just contacting eBay, that’s automatically raised it as a dispute, that’s just what it does, it opens as a case, instead of just emailing and discussing.

It’s not wrong, but sellers may look on it badly.

I believe eBay has some sort of automatic system in place than penalises sellers if they have too many returns/disputes.

There’s probably situations in which it ends up being unfair, and eBay’s policies seem heavily skewed towards protecting the buyer in general, but I don’t see why you should feel bad about it. Mistakes happen but it’s still the seller’s responsibility to sort it without guilting you into avoiding having it logged by eBay.