Hi guys

I sold some Pace forks to a buyer in the states, and by his request, sent them unrecorded

a month later, he opens a case against me, stating that he did not receive the forks

I’ve got a postal receipt to his zip code and a copy of the email where he asked for me to send unrecorded

The case went to appeal where ebay chose to side with the buyer – this is after they reviewed my case

Just spoke to a very annoying American ebay chap who said i cannot win this because its my responsibility to always send something recorded

They want the £70 back and i can’t use my Paypal account till i pay it

Can i fight this further or do i just close my ebay & paypal account down??

update – the ***** at Paypal have helped themselves to my £70!!!!

i think its fairly clear why he insisted on unrecorded delivery.
cant you stop the paypal payment via the bank?

If they’ve taken it by direct debit you can use the DD guarantee to get your money back. However they’ll close your Ebay and Paypal accounts down.

It’s the sellers responsibility to ensure they protect themselves from non-delivered claimbacks either through insuring the goods or using a signed for service. It was pretty naive to think otherwise.

You cannot win your case against them, it’s very clear in the Ebay and Paypal terms and conditions. Either take the £70 hit and move on or lose your Ebay and Paypal accounts.

Cheers Neninja

Foolish of me – i know that now

I’ll look into using the DD claim back – i’m gonna shut down the account anyhow – I refuse to do business with a company who refuse to look at evidence on both sides

Paypal was handy before online banking, now its just one of many ways to pay people – sod them!!

I had a charge back for £450 for a PS3 years ago, I took my card details off of my paypal account before they had a chance to take the money back. Then they used debt collectors to get the money back, I told them it was a fraudulent transaction and it’s not my debt and that’s the last I heard of it.

I would expect Ebay to side with the buyer as it’s his word against yours as you can’t prove anything it seems. Will Royal Mail compensate you? I’d never post abroad as heard too many stories like this – maybe a postie somewhere took them?

Yep, sellers’ responsibility to deliver goods, so his loss if he chooses not to insure.

I had a similar problem with paypal and used the Direct Debit Indemnity.

You wont be able to close your paypal if it is in negative so close it down asap, making sure to remove your bank account and credit/debit cards from the account. Also make sure that you cancel the direct debit with your bank aswell. Paypal will just dip into your account if the DD is still live, whether your paypal is closed down or not. Paypal are quite happy to break the law whenever they feel like it.

nah, it was unrecorded

Its likely that the little **** received the forks and made the claim

Hopefully this post will help others not to make the same mistake as me

same thing happend to me a while back i sold a mobile phone to a guy in greece he said he never got it so ebay just stole the money out my acount i lost over a £100 but did manage to claim some back from royal mail about £38 i think.

Sorry, but with ebay it’s the seller’s responsibility to ensure that it gets there. You can claim back against royal mail for nondelivery- though if you’ve used a service that doesn’t give you adequate cover, you’re boned.

FWIW it’s not the case that they’re not looking at the evidence- it’s just that your argument doesn’t stand. It doesn’t matter if the buyer asked for nonrecorded delivery. If you were unhappy with that, you could have filed a nonpaying bidder strike, but his asking didn’t discharge you of the responsibility to post by a trackable method.

As Northwind said, screw what the seller asks. Do what you need to do, to be protected. Especially given how buyer orientated the resolution process now is on eBay.

Case in point, I sold a motorbike jacket yesterday and the the seller paid, then asked to send to a different address other than their Paypal listed one. Knowing doing this would make me illegible for Paypal’s seller protection I flat out refused. It probably was all legit, and I did feel a bit of an arse, but these are the things sellers have to do now on eBay.

Cheers guys – helpful stuff

Mod – sorry about before

As Northwind said, screw what the seller asks. Do what you need to do, to be protected. Especially given how buyer orientated the resolution process now is on eBay.

Indeed – all our ebay stuff is low value, hence sent unrecorded (and listed as such), but when one went for rather more than we expected it got sent recorded just in case. Strangely enough he found a reason to give us negative feedback (which mentioned the price he paid as a reason for expecting better – we listed the condition it was in accurately, and it was an auction, numpty). Just to add to the ongoing RM slagging elsewhere, the tracking was useless – it claimed it got delivered days after feedback was given (I’d wondered if he was upset due to having issues getting hold of a recorded delivery).

Do you not have any e-mails from the buyer stating that he wanted it sent unrecorded? If so, would that not help?

i send anything recorded – even if it has no real value, to avoid situations like this. Sorry to hear about that – there are unscrupulous people everywhere.

Is there a latin equivalent for “seller beware”?

It’s a scam. Send unrecorded and they can claim the item doesn’t arrive and get a refund. NO risk to them, because if it doesn’t arrive, they have lost nothing.

It’s playing the eBay rules to con people. Ebay should look at the evidence, in this case the buyer insistence on the postage method.

The other is paying by Paypal, then collecting the item. The seller has no proof of delivery and Paypal will refund the buyer. Be warned.

Sounds like a pretty good scam.

Just playing devils advocate but maybe the guy didn’t get his forks?

Ebay do not seem interested in seller issues. I sold a set of (road) pedals earlier this year, they were listed as only available in UK and i clearly stated in the advert only send to UK. Some guy from Lithuania then wins the auction and insists that i post them without insurance. I refused and ebay backed him and threatened to close my account!

So i sent them insured anyway to avoid losing the whole transaction rather than just the postage. I know that we don’t have to use them of course…..

Just playing devils advocate but maybe the guy didn’t get his forks?

Makes no odds each way, in reality.

Once you learn that it’s YOUR responsibility to make sure the item is delivered, you’ll insure it and get it signed for no matter what the buyer wants.

I had an item that didn’t arrive (Expensive sunnies) after I sold it. I explained to the buyer that I had to wait so long (14 days IIRC???) before I could make a claim and that if it didn’t turn up, I’d refund her. It didn’t, so I refunded her full cost.
Happily, Royal Mail state that you can only claim for what the item COST YOU, not what you sold it for, but as the sunnies cost over £100, and sold for £35, we claimed for a lot more than the selling price and made a profit…… 🙂

I’ll stick to selling old bike stuff on Singletrack now – at least i know you lot are an honest lot!

Ebay’s advice to me was for me to attempt to resolve it with the buyer. i.e. contact him and ask for my money back

I asked the ebay chap if he was being serious and if he’d pay up and he claimed that there is some nice humanity out there – i couldn’t beleive it

I even asked the annoying american ebay man to look at the buyers records, to see if anything like this had happened before. This was not an option

Sounds like a pretty good scam to me and i can’t even give the guy bad feedback as its all closed now 🙁

i send anything recorded – even if it has no real value, to avoid situations like this.

Not worth it if it’s less than £46 – just get proof of postage and claim back from RM. It’s not your problem that way. Hence why I tend to ignore retailers’ instructions to use recorded to return lower value items.

Sounds like a pretty good scam to me and i can’t even give the guy bad feedback as its all closed now

You can’t give buyers negative feedback anyway – another reason why scams like this are such a good deal for those prepared to do it.

i dont sell on ebay or via paypal [ unless gift] as it is loaded against the seller IMHO

Sounds like a pretty good scam.

It is. If you want more info then email your bank details to my receptionist in Nigeria, and I will tell you some more.

I’ll stick to selling old bike stuff on Singletrack now – at least i know you lot are an honest lot!

I wouldn’t assume that. Always some bad apples. Just use common sense and remember you’re dealing with strangers on the Internet.

Is there a latin equivalent for “seller beware”?

Caveat venditor is Latin for “let the seller beware” IIRC. Very much the moto of eBay it seems nowadays.

I wouldn’t assume that. Always some bad apples. Just use common sense and remember you’re dealing with strangers on the Internet.

I’d tend to assume honesty from a forum regular (at least with TJ you know he won’t change his mind, so no need for returns), not necessarily from a classifieds only user.

Sold a Sky box on ebay a while back,messaged the guy when I had dispatched it,and clicked the despatched icon in my ebay.

3 weeks later he sends me a message asking when I’m going to send the box out.
Told him that it had been sent 3wks since and quoted the message notification time and date on my ebay messages as to when I had previously notified him it had been sent.
Also informed him that I have postal receipt and serial no.of the Sky box so I could get it locked down remotely if it had gone missing in post.

Funnily enough not heard from him since ,makes me think he might of been trying to scam me.

boltonjon – Member

Ebay’s advice to me was for me to attempt to resolve it with the buyer. i.e. contact him and ask for my money back

What else should they suggest? They’ve done their job, by the rules you’ve agreed to as an ebay user.

You can take it up with royal mail of course.

Those nice people…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/paypal-regrets-shutting-down-regretsy/2011/12/06/gIQAt6a2ZO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter