Need Advice : Ebay fraud

[madcow000]

I could really use advice on how to proceed here .
I recently purchased a printer on ebay . Description said fully functional , comes with ink and cable . And paid to ship it to my home . I paid with a cc through paypal .
Well , the printer arrived dead , flashing errors that the waste tanks were full . It was and is unfixable . The print carriage is jammed .
The cable was the wrong one , and there was no ink in it .
The seller offered me a refund on the purchase price but not for shipping , and I have to pay to return it .
I've tried to negotiate with the seller for almost 2 weeks to no avail , is there any way I can can recoup my losses ?

[HBP]

Open an item not as described dispute on PayPal.

See how that goes, if not I would chargeback on my credit card to receive the full amount back. Then I would ship the printer back COD, asking for the shipping cost, and see how it goes from there.

Basically, you didn't do anything wrong so there is no reason for you to take a loss.

[madcow000]

Thanks for the reply . If I do a chargeback , can't he as a seller harm me by filing a fraud claim against me on my cc ?
Also if I send the package back cod , what happens if he doesn't accept the package ?

[HBP]

Thanks for the reply . If I do a chargeback , can't he as a seller harm me by filing a fraud claim against me on my cc ?
Also if I send the package back cod , what happens if he doesn't accept the package ?

Well, he scammed you, not the other way around. It's unlikely he can harm you after a chargeback, your credit card chargeback will have two options: not received, or not as expected/described. Just choose the latter and you'll be fine. You should first try to resolve through PayPal, chargeback should be the second option. The only thing he can do is leave a negative feedback (and as I have seen from my BST experience here, people tend to do that even after an effectively completed trade), so it's not that big a deal.

If you send it back and he doesn't accept it, it will get sent back to you. You'll lose the shipping fee. But at least you tried to give it back to him.

If it really is trash (completely beyond repair) I would consider doing the chargeback and disposing of it myself. You have to draw the line though, what do you think is ethically correct.

[tvwatcher]

open the paypal dispute - they will have you ship it back with tracking - the tracking is important - paypal needs to see proof that you did send it back

[HowEver]

Does PayPal actually ask that you send junk back?

The shipping fee might be more than he paid in the first place. How will he recover the return cost?

[goat]

what i did last time i received something i didn't want, i went to the post office and just said "return to sender"

you might have to eat the charges on the shipping to you, but at least you won't have to pay return shipping

question
is his return policy clearly outlined in his ebay auction?

[madcow000]

Thanks everyone for the replies .
However , Paypal does expect the junk to be returned , I don't mind returning the printer , I just don't want to be stuck with paying for sending it .
Goat , His return policy on the auction says that the buyer pays return . Can I put return to sender even though I've already recieved the item ?
Will he be able to claim I didn't return the item if I send it "return to sender" ?

[HBP]

Thanks everyone for the replies .
However , Paypal does expect the junk to be returned , I don't mind returning the printer , I just don't want to be stuck with paying for sending it .
Goat , His return policy on the auction says that the buyer pays return . Can I put return to sender even though I've already recieved the item ?
Will he be able to claim I didn't return the item if I send it "return to sender" ?

Yeah, buyer pays return, but he didn't send you the right item so that is voided.

[madcow000]

Yeah, buyer pays return, but he didn't send you the right item so that is voided.

Lol that's how it should be , but will that claim hold up ?

[madcow000]

Just Got the following reply .

We have determined that you may be eligible for a refund on this PayPal
transaction. To qualify for a refund, please return the item received to
the seller in the same condition in which it was received. (You are
responsible for shipping and handling costs for the returned merchandise.)
The amount you will be eligible to receive is determined by the terms of
our buyer protection policies and we may be unable to make a full recovery
of your payment from the seller. Please review the buyer protection
policies in our User Agreement before shipping the item back to the seller.
Once we have been able to verify that the item was shipped to the seller,
the refund will be issued to you.

Sounds to me like they plan on not paying shipping . Should I return the item and lose ?

[madcow000]

Just called mastercard , the rep told me that as I recieved the item , even though it was misrepresented , since the seller is willing to refund me my purchase price minus shipping , they won't do a chargeback even though I lose out on shipping .

[van]

I think you'll have to take the loss on the return shipping. Even when you buy defective items from a store, you have to pay the return. Just make sure you get a tracking number. Send it expedited (a bit cheaper and faster then ground).

[3weddings]

Does PayPal actually ask that you send junk back?

The shipping fee might be more than he paid in the first place. How will he recover the return cost?

We just went thru a dispute and I had to send the shoes back at my expense ($22) to Paypal to be destroyed. I received my entire purchase price back for them incl. what I paid to have them shipped to me. Just find the cheapest shipping method and get the tracking (you MUST have the tracking). It may be a little different in this situation since the item is going back to the seller.

Good luck

[spamblockers]

I feel bad for the situation you're going through. Unfortunately from experience you loose on shipping. I've deal with two disputes and on both occasions I have taken it up with Paypal. Some sellers as ignorant as they come, they tend to think they got a sweet deal out of someone that was simply just a victim. Be direct and do not insist too much. If the seller doesn't want to refund, then take it directly with Paypal. They'll receive the notification quickly. Like someone pointed out hopefully you didn't end up paying more for the shipping then the actual item.

For future purchases always read over sellers feedback. I can't express this enough from personal experience and dumb sellers which say one thing and is the complete opposite. I won't bid on anything unless seller has a decent feedback otherwise in some fashion you're setting yourself up. Good luck with the dispute and point out his name because I'll add it to my beware's list :twisted:

[madcow000]

Hi ,
Thanks everyone for your input . The seller is an ebaystore in The GTA . His ebay name is sabbashop . Having read his feedback before it seemed he was legit . But now I know that most of his replies contain half truths or straight out lies . And it seems I take a DOUBLE hit , both on shipping to me and shipping back to him .

[g5cubed]

You really should've tried to pick the item up (if possible).

My recommended course of action would be to contact the seller directly and ask him if you could drop the item off at his store. Second course would be:

File the paypal complaint
Ship the item through a trackable form, and enter the tracking info into the complaint

Wait until the judgement, you WILL get the full price (item+shipping). So I guess the only thing you lose out on would be the shipping, which would be much better than keeping a broken printer.

[woof]

Out of curiosity I looked up his feedback. From what I saw I would never buy anything from this guy. Feedback is 98.3% which is not bad but not really good. What's really important are the comments. There are numerous feedback comments about items received broken, missing parts, not as described, etc. Even people who gave him positive feedback often commented on such problems. The second problem that I would have with him is that he is a "eBay Powerseller" which means he's moving high volumes and since he essentially seems to be selling used stuff it is extremely unlikely that he has the time to properly inspect what he is selling - the feedback comments confirm this. Buy from him and you're taking a big chance. In fairness though he does seem to honor his refund policy if you pay the shipping back. Instead of wasting all this time You really should have eaten your shipping losses and sent the item back for what you can get. Consider the loss a down payment for your eBay education.

One further comment. You really shouldn't have left him that neg for him. NEVER EVER leave feedback until a transaction is finished and all issues, if any, are finalized for better or worse. You've needlessly poisoned the well making any negotiations with him impossible now. You left that neg before you even posted here. Your goose is cooked. Get your refund and move on. Under the circumstances you probably should not have left him any feedback anyways. He can easily absorb your neg because of the high volume of sales he does, but his retaliatory neg has dropped your feedback from 100% to 95%. It's going to take you a long time for your feedback percentage to recover. You might look into mutual feedback removal (look it up in eBay help pages).

[jeeva86]

That's strange, similiar thing happend to me. I bought a Mini-SD card from HK I think, and it turned out to be fake, so I opened a dispute on PP and since the seller did not respond, I got a full refund and I don't remember seeing anything about sending back the item. This happend < 6 months, so in the end I got a free 2gb card that still works.

[D-Roc]

I just want to calrify some wrong info about charge backs. These are not guranteed by any CC company. The only thing you can do is ask your CC company to set up a dispute for dissatisfied with service/product. The CC company will investigate your claim and based on laws governing the outcome may come out in your favour or not. CC companies can not gurantee any outcome in the favour of the CM as they are not the ones who you did business with All they did is loan you the money to pay for said item or service.

[woof]

That's strange, similiar thing happend to me. I bought a Mini-SD card from HK I think, and it turned out to be fake, so I opened a dispute on PP and since the seller did not respond, I got a full refund and I don't remember seeing anything about sending back the item. This happend < 6 months, so in the end I got a free 2gb card that still works.


You're right. In many cases you're not required to send back the item. I'm not sure why this is the case. Might depend on the value of the item. Might depend on whether or not the seller responds.

Most low price SD cards on eBay seem to be fake. These days I've found that increasingly sellers out of Hong Kong and the like inflate their shipping cost and then sell an item for almost nothing. eg Buy an item for $2, pay $6 shipping. If you complain about the item being fake or defective they'll just give you the $2 back. Keep the item - they don't care because they still break even or better because of the inflated shipping they keep.

[dmyvr]

You're right. In many cases you're not required to send back the item. I'm not sure why this is the case. Might depend on the value of the item. Might depend on whether or not the seller responds.

Most low price SD cards on eBay seem to be fake. These days I've found that increasingly sellers out of Hong Kong and the like inflate their shipping cost and then sell an item for almost nothing. eg Buy an item for $2, pay $6 shipping. If you complain about the item being fake or defective they'll just give you the $2 back. Keep the item - they don't care because they still break even or better because of the inflated shipping they keep.

Part of the reason of inflated shipping is that ebay charges the final closing cost to the seller based on the selling price of the item, not the final cost to the buyer (inc shipping).

[luckydog2006]

On Ebay, you have to be careful - can't say that enough. I only look for 99.5% or higher. Also, you look for how many bad ratings in a month. If Ebayer has much higher than 2-3 bad ratings, that's no good irregardless of how many he is selling in a month.

Also, you have to judge how much hassle to put yourself thru. If its an expensive device aka electronics, really, you can just buy it in local stores.
But for cheaper thingies, its you pay for what you get.

Give the Ebayer a bad rating. As his rating goes down, so will the sales.

[madcow000]

Thanks everyone for the added replies .
Special thanks to woof for the insight , though I only left negative feedback after first trying to deal with sabbashop directly through email . Only after a week of evasive answers and lies did I see I'd get nowhere with him directly , at that point , I left negative feedback .
In fairness , he does honor his refund , but calls it a full refund when I lose 2 ways .
Alas , you are right about the revenge feedback he gave hurting my percentage more than mine hurting him . He offered to mutually withdraw if I eat the losses . But being that I only use ebay for buying , not selling , is it that important to me to have a high percentage ?

[woof]

If you only use eBay for buying then your feedback rating isn't that important. And if you're careful in the future you should be able to build your feedback up to a higher level in case you do decide to sell something. Avoid giving anyone a neutral or a negative unless they have already left feedback for you because they will always retaliate. Often you just have to bite your lip and move on without leaving feedback. Besides, frankly, poor feedback doesn't seem to hurt sellers. You'll soon notice that no matter how bad their feedback, how brutal the feedback comments, people will still bid if the deal is irresistible. It's human nature.

[luckydog2006]

Well, that's blackmail on behalf of the Ebayer to try to make you give him a better feedback than he deserves. Much better to create a new Ebay account and start a new buyer account, much easier for you to do so than him.

[madcow000]

Ok , new twist . I just read an email sent to me from Sabbashop , which now refuses to give a refund at all unless I withdraw the negative feedback . And the feedback must FIRST be removed , without them saying what they plan to refund me .
Does Paypal allow them to do this ? Are they able to withold a refund unless negative feedback is removed ?

[felix]

One further comment. You really shouldn't have left him that neg for him. NEVER EVER leave feedback until a transaction is finished and all issues, if any, are finalized for better or worse. You've needlessly poisoned the well making any negotiations with him impossible now. You left that neg before you even posted here.
Agreed. A lot of newbies leave negative feedback without first resolving with the seller. Not a good idea, especially if you're looking for a refund or want to keep your perfect feedback rating.

[rockthecasbah]

I remember seeing Sabbashop before. I thought that their business practices seemed a bit shady.

For example:
Locally picked up items are subject to a non-refundable Pick Up Fee: USD $6.00 for the first item, and USD $4.00 for each additional item. GST will be added to all pick up fees in accordance with Ministry of Finance regulations.


First, I hate "pick up fees". Second, is it really legit to charge tax on a PICK UP FEE?
Someone familiar with taxes, please enlighten me.

[madcow000]

Agreed. A lot of newbies leave negative feedback without first resolving with the seller. Not a good idea, especially if you're looking for a refund or want to keep your perfect feedback rating.

Actually , I first spent serious time and effort trying to resolve this with sabbashop before leaving feedback . Only when I saw I was getting nowhere with them did I leave feedback . Though admittedly , before I posted here on RFD .

[madcow000]

Just got an email today from paypal saying that my tracking information I provided was invalid and they were unable to
confirm delivery of the item associated with this claim. As a result, the
case is now considered closed and they are unable to process a refund.
I don't understand this , I've checked my tracking number on canadapost and they confirm it was delivered , even sabbashop agrees it was delivered .
Sabbashop refuses to give a refund at all unless I withdraw the negative feedback . And the feedback must FIRST be removed , without them saying what they plan to refund me .
Does Paypal allow them to do this ? Are they able to withold a refund unless negative feedback is removed ?

[goojoomoonoo]

Just got an email today from paypal saying that my tracking information I provided was invalid and they were unable to
confirm delivery of the item associated with this claim. As a result, the
case is now considered closed and they are unable to process a refund.
I don't understand this , I've checked my tracking number on canadapost and they confirm it was delivered , even sabbashop agrees it was delivered .
Sabbashop refuses to give a refund at all unless I withdraw the negative feedback . And the feedback must FIRST be removed , without them saying what they plan to refund me .
Does Paypal allow them to do this ? Are they able to withold a refund unless negative feedback is removed ?

Try calling up PayPal's customer service to see whether the case can be reopened:
+1-402-935-2080

If not, I assume you might have to issue a chargeback through your credit card company.

[ynchu]

We just went thru a dispute and I had to send the shoes back at my expense ($22) to Paypal to be destroyed. I received my entire purchase price back for them incl. what I paid to have them shipped to me. Just find the cheapest shipping method and get the tracking (you MUST have the tracking). It may be a little different in this situation since the item is going back to the seller.

Good luck

Hmm... expect PaidPal to have a sample sale or auction soon? I really wonder if they actually destroy anything.