eBay Tells Me "Keep The Item And The Money"

[Toy Ranch]

I don't know quite what to make of this...

On March 20th, I bought some toy rings on eBay and paid immediately with PayPal. Some time went by and I hadn't received them, so I contacted the seller on April 2nd and asked about the status of the order. At that time I noted the seller had a recent spate of bad feedback and had a bad feeling about it, but the seller responded right away and said:
Hi, thanks for checking, they will be shipping today! I will input tracking
into the paypal transaction, .

OK, so people forget sometimes, I've done it, I went on with my life and expected them to come soon. Things got busy for me and I forgot about them and remembered a couple weeks later, on April 15th. I decided the best course at this point, before I forgot again and the time limit to file was up, was to go ahead with a PayPal claim. I started to go through that process and there was a banner that said " Call us if you are having a problem with a transaction", so instead of going through the PayPal process, I called.

A US based agent answered quickly and after verifying my identity, asked for specifics of the transaction. He wanted to know if I'd tried contacting the seller, when I had tried, etc. and said that he was going to initiate the refund process for me and it would be "much faster" than if I did it through PayPal. In fact, I received a full refund on the 15th of the $26.99 I'd paid. He told me he was going to look into the seller and noticed they had some recent bad feedback. With that, the call ended.

On April 18th, I got an alert that the listing had been removed, and "don't complete the transaction". I looked and the seller was suspended. Well, today the rings arrived, and apparently they were mailed on April 16th. There was never a transaction that showed up in my account as a dispute, and no way I could access any info about it, other than the original PayPal transaction where I paid for the rings. I called the number at eBay again today to tell them I had received the rings and wanted to return the money to the seller. eBay told me I could keep the rings and the money, the seller was no longer a part of eBay and eBay had no way to return anything to them or contact them. They said the refund (this is weird) "didn't come from the seller, it came from eBay". I said "well, I paid for them and received them, I don't want the money and the rings, I want the rings more than the money, but either way it's not right for me to have both". eBay again said "This is our policy now, and it's really OK for you to keep the rings and the money. The refund did not come from the seller, it came from eBay." I asked if eBay had recovered the money from the seller, and she said "That's a good question, I have no way of knowing because that's through PayPal and it's a separate company."

I do have the seller's email address through the PayPal transaction, so I can get their address and mail them a check. They are NARU and apparently eBay doesn't care that they shipped the item and sorted this out, or that I'm satisfied with the transaction, they essentially are telling me to steal from the seller because it took them longer than it should have to mail the item.

This is the seller:

http://myworld.ebay.com/flowersdie138138

This "new policy" of eBay's just strikes me as really wrong. I've used the PayPal dispute process to get sellers moving on sending stuff out before (only when it's been a very long time, like this where it was almost a month), but I certainly don't want stuff like this to happen. The whole thing leaves me feeling kinda sick.

[toystover]

I didn't think the new "resolution policy" was in effect yet ...not till June ...obviously ebay has jumped the gun.

Here's the main forum about the new announcements ...closed to new posts now (after only 2 days of allowing questions and answering many with ebayspeak/weasel words like "we may", "we might", "we anticipate" blah blah blah.

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum/414...ion/5100000002

Here's a specific question about the res. policy - posts 5 & 7 ...

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/414...y-Or/510089735

Here's more info ...towards the bottom of the page under "eBay Resolutions" http://pages.ebay.com/sell/April2009...faq/index.html

Bobby, you're an honest person and will be returning the seller's money. There are those that might take advantage of this new process, keep the item, get their money back from ebay (seller?), and (if they paid with a CC) start a chargeback and possibly get a second refund.

There's just so much wrong with this whole new process on so many levels ...and yes, it's sickening.

[Empires]

So why didn't you retract your neg on him?

[toystover]

Empires, not sure but he might not be able to retract once the seller is NARU.

[Empires]

My Amazon sales are better than my ebay sales $ wise. I'm not doing relists on ebay any longer either. I think they've lost the magic no matter what they do to make it better.

[fraidycat]

That sucks. As a buyer, I don't want something for nothing - even if Ebay thinks it's the right thing to do. In the past, I've done what you've done...file w/Paypal to be on the safe side, and it usually spurs the seller into sending the item. If not, the dispute continues. These new policies "making Ebay easier to use" - certainly are skewed and convoluted, not to mention unethical in my opinion.

[Empires]

Ebay sales drop 5% Amazon up 17%... that says it all.


http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y09/m04/i20/s01

[Flutterbees]

maybe this explains why folks are "demanding" to know where their items are after just a short time frame...they want the item & the money...........

i had one today who demanded to know where their item was......it's been a week.....sheesh, give the post office time to either deliver it or lose it before complaining.

[long-gone]

Bobby, if I'm understanding ebay's responses to you correctly, the seller might not be out the money. You paid the seller well in advance of filing the dispute, I think it's very likely the seller got his paypal payment in pocket before paypal contacted him to retrieve the funds. As I'm reading it ebay paid you back out of their pocket and it's now up to them if they want to recover the money from the seller. I could be wrong, but I don't see that you're doing anything opposed to your good standards by keeping EBAYS money (which they condone) and the item which you already paid the seller for. If ebay is pursues recovering their funds, even after knowing that you received your item, then the bad karma is on them (as if they have any room left for more bad karma). I know it doesn't feel right to have both, but it's ebay's web that's sticky, not you.

[toystover]

It's in seller's best interest to read the "spring announcement" Q/A forum ebay set up for 2 days. Among others, an interesting thread is ...

Holding Sellers Accountable for Postal delays?

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/414...able/520113370

Originally Posted by Flutterbees

maybe this explains why folks are "demanding" to know where their items are after just a short time frame...they want the item & the money...........

i had one today who demanded to know where their item was......it's been a week.....sheesh, give the post office time to either deliver it or lose it before complaining.

[Empires]

Thanks for that link. I do not see how a seller will have any control over the shipping times. Ebay is attempting to be the A-Z gurrantee (sp) that Amazon offers.

[Toy Ranch]

Yes, I can't remove the neg because the seller is suspended.

Amazon may be a very viable option for some, but it's not for me. People don't look for vintage toys on Amazon.

I don't think eBay's hosing sellers has anything to do with it's stock price. In fact, if anything, more buyer-friendly policies would tend to make analysts think better of eBay.

Flutterbees, I don't think so. This is really new, I don't think most buyers have any awareness of it yet.

long-gone~ Yes, that's true... the seller might not be out the money. I'm sure PayPal tried to collect from them, probably grabbed what they could from their bank account. The thing is, the seller shipped the item AFTER the claim was filed, so I tend to think this was done to try and get the money back again. What eBay said was their buyer protection paid me back. PayPal goes after the seller, and I think they repay eBay if they are able to collect.

Now I should say that I think this was an example of the extreme. The seller's other feedback and low DSR's I'm sure played into the decision to NARU them. I don't even disagree with eBay doing that, this person seems to have a hard time getting things shipped, and I'm sure eBay has a lot more info than is available just by looking at feedback on which to base a decision. This is the kind of seller that's a problem for eBay, because they don't take care of their customers. They drive people off when they don't, and this just leads to more problems. I asked the seller specifically to use a small box, as the rings are fragile, but they shipped them in a padded mailer (the heavy paper kind) with some tissue paper around them. They could have easily arrived destroyed, but fortunately they made it intact. Shipping was $4.00 and the item itself weighed no more than 2 oz, so asking for a small box was well within the rate charged.

If I hadn't contacted the seller, if I'd been jumping the gun, expecting the item to have arrived before it had reasonable time to arrive, the impression I had was that the rep would have told me to give it more time, or contact the seller, or something like that. The questions were geared towards finding out if I'd done my due diligence as a buyer and if my expectations were unreasonable. Once it was established that I'd done my part, the seller came under scrutiny. My impression of the process of vetting my claim was that it was very good. The rep I talked to was very helpful and knowledgable. That may not always be the case, but it was for me. I have only 2 problems with the process as it was carried out... one is that I don't have any documentation showing that the transaction was refunded in PayPal. It shows the payment I made, and there is no cross-reference to the refund. The refund shows as a transfer to my account from PayPal, with no reference as to why it was credited or back to the original payment or any mention of the eBay item, or even that it was an eBay thing at all. The only way I knew what it was is because the amount was the same as I'd sent to the seller. The other problem I have is the title of the thread... eBay wants me to keep the money and the item. That's just wrong.

[Empires]

Yes, I can't remove the neg because the seller is suspended.

Wonder what would happen if you contacted ebay with this matter? I would guess T & S can reverse it with a little effort.

[Toy Ranch]

Originally Posted by Empires

Wonder what would happen if you contacted ebay with this matter? I would guess T & S can reverse it with a little effort.

Possibly, but the seller is suspended, and it took them almost a month and a PayPal claim to get them to mail my item. I would have updated the feedback and mentioned having received it, but not sure I would have removed it even if they weren't suspended. Since they are suspended, I don't see that it really matters.

[Toy Ranch]

I emailed the seller and no reply... I told them I was happy with the rings and that I wanted to talk to them about the transaction and the money, but didn't tell them specifically I was going to send them money back, because I don't even know if they are out anything for certain. I gave my phone number and asked them to call, send their number via email so I could call, or email me. No reply so far...

[Empires]

I think you've done everything possible at this point, except send the money back But, I'll say this dude, with as many transactions you have had in the last 30 days.... you tried very hard. Bravo for following up.

[Kevin_T]

There are two ways at looking at the issues based on Toy's anecdote, in my opinion.

Either Ebay's attitude to sellers is once we drop you, you have no rights, and the money that you would be entitled to will not be returned to you. In which case I would share Toy's concerns.

Alternatively, if the refund is EBAY's money AND they have not retrieved it from the seller, Ebay's intention may be to look at it as compensation for a bad Ebay experince. This may be fair enough, but the compensation aspect needs to be spelled out to someone in Toy's situation so that they do not feel that somebody has been ripped off through the transaction.

Either way, if an ethical buyer is left feeling uncomfortable about the whole transaction, for reasons other than the delay, after receiving their purchases, it does nothing to improve buyer confidence on the site.

===================
The thread that Toystover linked to contains some scary concepts indeed.

Hmmm, Kevin