I won an auction for an item costing over £200 which I paid with Paypal and was delivered to my neighbour as arranged with the seller. When I collected the item I saw that it was in shabby condition compared to the photos in which it looked as new and then found it’s damaged and unusable. So I contacted the seller and he said no problem and to return for a refund. As Ebay have a process for this I told him I would use that so everything was tracked OK and he said fine. So I did but he hasn’t responded to the process for about 12 days now. So if I return and he doesn’t refund me would Ebay/Paypal cover me?

You started the case, you are saying he has not responded formally through that that he’ll accept the return?

My guess is there’ll be steps you can take within the case process.

why dont you call the ebay /paypal helpline ?

I won an auction

😆

Yes I believe that is the terminology used in auctions.

I have contacted Ebay but wondering if there are any real-life experiences as Ebay haven’t been great to me in the past.

They are generally good for the buyer. Have you raised a dispute? Make sure you get a receipt for the postage. You might not get return postage paid for though.

A friend was recently on the other end of something similar. She sold a crappy netbook on eBay, pretty much described it as such – was very accurate and honest in her description.

Buyer receives it and claims it ‘cannot connect to facebook’ so demanded a refund and sent it back. The buyer had asked while the auction was open if it ‘connected to the internet’ so she took photos of it while browsing BBC or somesuch.

Despite all of this eBay have forced her to accept the return and refund in full. In short – yes I think you’ll be just fine, seems to me that they provide a very biased amount of protection to buyers.

They are generally good for the buyer. Have you raised a dispute?

Yes, do this – you’ll have to wait some more, but it will no doubt be a complete (swear-filter-avoidance) pain in the rear to the seller. (As it was to me when a buyer raised a completely unreasonable dispute against me. Also see above!)
Ebay will get you your money back.

i think if paypal or the seller wanted to be picky they could refuse to refund you if you have had it deleverd to an address that is not regesterd to your paypal acount.

Here’s an idea. If every seller opened a dispute with the FOS against paypal, then at £500 an investigation charge, (non refundable), soon Ebay would possibly stop being so pro buyer?

Either way you as the buyer are in the best position, if you have saved your communications with the seller then that’s even better.
Contact ebay if you don’t get any response from the seller and they will sort you out.

I won an auction

??

What’s wrong with that ?

Did you buy the item from a business or a private seller? If a business then it’s a different matter as I understand it. Selling on eBay is a royal pain and is completely geared towards the buyer.

I’m sure you’ll be fine either way, especially as you submitted it all through the eBay channels anyway. You can ring eBay up (as I have done in the past) and they’ll escalate it. As the seller hasn’t responded to you eBay/PayPal have even more ‘look after the buyer’ scores to keep.

Good luck!

I had a similar situation very recently. I ‘won’ an auction for a Nomex flying jacket, which the seller asked for payment within four days. I payed straight away, and waited for a week. I heard nothing from the seller, who’s in the US, and his site said it hadn’t been shipped, so I dropped him a note. Still nothing. I waited another week or so, and contacted him again.
Still nothing, so I contacted eBay and started a dispute case, which I was reluctant to do, the seller had a 99.8% rating. eBay gave me a month to see if I could resolve the situation, so I emailed him again, asking what the problem was, giving alternative email addresses, etc. Nothing doing.
eBay contacted me again asking if the situation had been resolved, so I said no, and gave them the situation. They asked if I really wanted to pursue the case, I said yes, and they said it could take up to 48 hours to resolve.
Two hours later, I heard from eBay, saying they’d found in my favour, and refunded the money I’d paid and postage straight away.
I have no idea what the problem was, unless the seller had died, or been taken ill, or what, but it was resolved quickly and easily, which I was very happy about.
I’d still have preferred to have the jacket, though I’ve now found another unworn one on a BIN sale, for just a little more than the first one, so all’s not lost.

OK thanks for all this info. I called Ebay and opened a case – fortunate as I thought the returns case I had opened was the correct thing to do but I am not covered by Ebay with this option and I didn’t see any info about that.