Robbed on Ebay

pbyrne

In mid July I purchased an item from China, it duly arrived, but it was too small, I contacted the company, they said return it for a refund. In early August I returned it and waited, and waited, and waited. Each time I contacted the company, they would check with the post office and I would get my refund as soon as it arrived, so I waited, and I waited and I waited. It was now October, eventually they said they had recieved it and my refund would be issued, if there was a problem contact them. 10 days go by and no refund, and now they had stopped repsonding to my messages. I contact Ebay customer support, they promptly inform me that more than 45 days has elapsed, therefore there is nothing they can do about it, I have been robbed, so learn to live with it.
I have learned two things from this episode, one, never buy anything from China, all they have to do is wait you out and take your money, two, Ebay has customer support in name only.

Judgement Day

What did you buy? What feedback had the seller? I don't buy or sell to Third World countries like China but if you follow the PayPal guidelines i.e. don't leave it too long before opening a dispute, you should be alright. Yes, eBay customer support does suck but what's new.

rubadub

The 45 day rule is way too short, in their own rules they tell you to hold off a reasonable time (fairly close to 45days IIRC) before putting in disputes, to allow for postal delays, which can be seasonal.

If there is any sign of trouble I put a dispute in, this gets your foot in the door. I think people are reluctant since they think its confrontational or something, and want to give the seller the benefit of the doubt.

After the dispute is in place it escalates to a claim, you get notified of this, if your item arrives you just simply close the case.

I think putting a dispute in can be a kick up the arse for some sellers who are simply lazy.

pbyrne

Hi guys

It was a wig that my son wanted for the Eirtakon convention next month in DCU, it cost $27.99, the company has a high feedback rating, but now I'm beginning to question the feedback system as all these Chinese companies appear to have feedback numbers in the tens of thousands.. As I said, with the shipping time back to China, and the company claiming they had not recieved it, for all I know thet recieved it and kept me on the long finger until the 45 limit passed so that I could do nothing, time moved on.

Customer support, for want of a better term, has told me that because the 45 limit has been exceeded they can do nothing about it, I suggested that they extend the term to 65 days and got no reply.

In future Europe and North America are the only places I'll buy from.

Though, saying that, I have noticed that some companies claiming to be based in the UK are actually Chinese companies, so they are getting around people in that manner, think you're buying from a UK firm and in reality it's a Chinese company.

Nody

pbyrne wrote: »

Hi guys

It was a wig that my son wanted for the Eirtakon convention next month in DCU, it cost $27.99, the company has a high feedback rating, but now I'm beginning to question the feedback system as all these Chinese companies appear to have feedback numbers in the tens of thousands.. As I said, with the shipping time back to China, and the company claiming they had not recieved it, for all I know thet recieved it and kept me on the long finger until the 45 limit passed so that I could do nothing, time moved on.

Customer support, for want of a better term, has told me that because the 45 limit has been exceeded they can do nothing about it, I suggested that they extend the term to 65 days and got no reply.
In future Europe and North America are the only places I'll buy from.

Though, saying that, I have noticed that some companies claiming to be based in the UK are actually Chinese companies, so they are getting around people in that manner, think you're buying from a UK firm and in reality it's a Chinese company.

I see two big issues here; first of all you're expecting a basic clerk to change a long standing company policy for you or make an exception just because it's you?
Secondary even if you could put in a dispute you'd lose it since it appears you sent it with out tracking (as you have to ask them to go check the post office) which is required by Ebay/Paypal policy for disputes.

Hence the lessons to learn here are if you have any concerns you put in a dispute at the 40 day mark and escalate it directly and secondly any returns always go with registrated post OR you don't bother with the dispute and hope they will pay anyway.

rubadub

pbyrne wrote: »

the company has a high feedback rating...

think you're buying from a UK firm and in reality it's a Chinese company...

There are several ways to check for problems like these. If you want you can post the link to your item, or just a link to the seller and people can have a look at it and highlight anything you should have worried about, too late now but for future reference. You can now easily filter on ebay to show only negative or neutral replies, this is handy with 10000's of customers. There are sites which can search feedback too, like www.toolhaus.org