eBay return requests as a buyer.

[BradC]

I took delivery of a broken MCH-k605dn in place of the MCH-k3010d that I ordered.

After some back and forward, seller "sent" a replacement unit on the 10th of Oct.
I repeatedly asked them for tracking info and I warned them on the 6th of Nov that my feedback time was running out, and then missed the deadline anyway.
A couple of days ago I got fed up with getting :
dear buyer,
thank you for your patience and cooperation , you will receive it asap,please don't worry ,
and if you have any update, please tell us.
best regards.

.. and so lodged a return request (item arrived not as described and damaged).
After a couple of back and forward they come good with tracking info, although it looks suspiciously like the sort of thing that comes up in the $9 calibrator thread.

So, I'm now at the "If you're unable to work something out, you can ask us to step in and help beginning 22 Nov, 2019." bit of the process.
Never having done this before, I don't actually want a refund. What I want is to keep the case open until either the thing arrives, or it's obvious it won't at which time I'll seek a refund.

Will E-bay contact me and give me a chance to manage this, or do they go and beat up the seller immediately for a refund?

Tracking info shows it hasn't moved for 36 days :

Code: [Select]

    2019-10-15 12:45    Airline departure
    2019-10-15 06:31    Shenzhen, planned flight, planned flight number TRUCK-GA857-714, scheduled departure time 23:30
    2019-10-15 00:04    Shenzhen, delivered to air transport
    2019-10-15 00:04    Shenzhen, delivered to air transport
    2019-10-14 01:31    Shenzhen, "Post Shenzhen International Mail Exchange Bureau" has been exported directly sealed
    2019-10-13 07:47    Shenzhen, leaving the Shenzhen International Bulk Mail Processing Center, the next stop , Shenzhen International
    2019-10-13 03:19    Shenzhen, "Shenzhen International Bulk Mail Processing Center" has received, agent: receiving and sending 7
    2019-10-10 19:45    Logistics order created

Just looking for input from anyone who's been through this process previously (and recently I suppose).

[Whales]

N.B. never let them drag you out past feedback time.  Give them negative feedback before it closes.

Generally speaking: if the amount of money involved is less than the cost of a human having to deal with your case, then the seller is not going to do anything right by you.  They won't send a replacement, they'll just try and avoid you being able to give them negative feedback.  Even when you get your money back it's still cheaper to them than having to spend the time dealing with you.

Edit: your item is worth more than a few dollars, but they may still have this culture if they sell lots of smaller items too.

Related story: seller didn't like my feedback, so he doxxed me.  Contacted ebay, they took it down and then sent me a warning that I should not dox ebay members.  Took multiple phone calls to sort out (with each one including a section where the phone support tells me I broke ebay rules by doxxing someone).  Even then I don't think the seller ever got any hurt from it, it seems their systems are unable to take down feedback replies (only the original feedback itself + its replies) and hence I get blamed :|

[Stray Electron]

  Whales nailed in his first line. NEVER let these things drag out.  File a complaint with E-bay if the seller doesn't correct the problem immediately. If the situation is dealt with positively then you can close it.

  OP:  Did you get that tracking info from the shipping company (USPS, UPS, etc) or from the seller?  I've never seen tracking information that read like that does.  To me, that looks like faked shipping info.

"Will E-bay contact me and give me a chance to manage this, or do they go and beat up the seller immediately for a refund?"

   Ebay will contact the seller and then give them a chance to take care of the matter first. What action they take next depends on if the seller and buyer have talked and already tried to come to an agreement or not.  If the seller won't respond or won't refund the buyer's money and it the buyer can prove that the items was damaged or wasn't received they Ebay will go ahead and refund the money. Ebay does tell you that before making a complaint to them to contact the seller and give them the chance to correct the situation. I do that and if it's not corrected quickly then I contact Ebay and ask for my money back.  In my cases the sellers usually respond quickly but in two cases I had to take the complaint to Ebay and in both cases they immediately refunded my money since I had already tried to negotiate with the seller including sending pictures of the damaged item.  I also had one case where a buyer said that I sent a broken item but I had pictures of the item before it was send and the broken item that he tried to claim that I had send was obvious well used and the SN was different so E-bay told him to go pound sand!  Speaking personally, I have NO complaints about E-bay has dealt with these situations. 

    Piece of advice; Keep all of your communications through Ebay's messaging system so that they can see what was said and when. Also take lots of pictures and send them via E-bay's system as well so that Ebay can SEE what the condition, packing, etc really was. If I get a beat up package, I take pictures before I even open it and I take pictures as it's being unpacked and that show the packing material, etc. Then I take more pictures from all angles after the item is unpacked.

[bdunham7]

Never having done this before, I don't actually want a refund. What I want is to keep the case open until either the thing arrives, or it's obvious it won't at which time I'll seek a refund.

Just looking for input from anyone who's been through this process previously (and recently I suppose).

Having done this, you actually do want a refund.  It's already obvious that you aren't getting your item.  In situations like this you should never accept excuses and always file a SNAD complaint as soon as the problem occurs.  There is a whole industry of sellers scamming trusting folks like yourself and they have well-established methods of dragging out the process as to avoid negative feedback and refunds.  There are enough good--or good enough--sellers that you shouldn't bother with these guys.  Refund and next, please.

[BradC]

Having done this, you actually do want a refund.  It's already obvious that you aren't getting your item.  In situations like this you should never accept excuses and always file a SNAD complaint as soon as the problem occurs.  There is a whole industry of sellers scamming trusting folks like yourself and they have well-established methods of dragging out the process as to avoid negative feedback and refunds.  There are enough good--or good enough--sellers that you shouldn't bother with these guys.  Refund and next, please.

So I let them drag it out until the day prior to the refund request was due to expire and then escalated it. This resulted in them offering me a $60 refund (from a $137.12 purchase) on an incorrect *and* faulty product. I knocked that back with a detailed list of the process and disputes and they offered $80! Went back *again* with (snipped):

Again your options are :
- Provide me a full refund of $134.15 Australian dollars (ensuring exchange rate is factored in).
- Provide me a tracked return postage label in accordance with E-bay guidelines, wait for the defective product to be returned and refund me the $134.15
- Allow me to get a tracked shipping quote locally, you pay up-front that value and then refund me the $134.15
- Wait and Ebay will refund me

And they finally refunded me. Half of me wanted it done with and the other (masochistic) half wanted to see where it went, having already been assured by the E-bay dispute team they'd beat the vendor up if I didn't get what I wanted.

While I accepted what you wrote, I appear to be one of those people who needs to actually experience the zap to not want to touch the electric fence a second time.

Now I have a working PSU (60V/5A) I'm wondering if I really actually need the 30V/10A, or I just put the refund back in the bank and call it a lesson.

My favourite part of the whole thing though is their last message :

Dear buyer,
we are really sorry for the mess and I believe that you may feel stress as I am ,
again sorry for the trouble and we will refund you to your paypal account.
We hope you can leave us a positive feedback when you receive the refund,
which is really important to us.
hope you can help us , thanks a lot .

Luckily for them I can't leave them any feedback.

[Mechatrommer]

my limit is 1 month (paypal 45 days) before i file paypal dispute and claim. if seller cooperates with helpful replies i may extend to max 45 days. but consider you already received an item (not as described and broken) and you got a partial refund $80. so when filing claim you have to include this fact. you can file a "not as described item" claim and indicate how much partial refund you are willing to accept to close the dispute. if me i put whatever amount my money they still holding minus whatever money i value the broken item i got, maybe i'm willing to let them have my $10, and partially as a lesson so next time they use proper shipping service.

A couple of days ago I got fed up with getting :
dear buyer,
thank you for your patience and cooperation , you will receive it asap,please don't worry ,
and if you have any update, please tell us.
best regards.

i got this bullshit in my order few months back. i ordered 4 pins and 6 pins connectors (with other stuffs) with hope it can be combined shipped to save shipping cost. they gave numbers of 4PX tracking (countless of china ebay sellers do this, we asked for one combined number, they turned out to be pieces of numbers) they are poorly updated in the net and the seller keep coming with this type of bot bullshit whenever i ask for track update. in the end before my 1 month limit, everything arrived except the 4 and 6 pins connector. so i filed paypal claim item not as described and partial refund request (the value of 4 and 6 pins connectors) the seller never defend himself so i got the money back... but later 2 months after that, i received the 4 pins in my mail box, so i contacted the seller to give their paypal account for me to manual pay the 4 pins value, so i did, but the funny thing is, they replied as if i'm making a new order. they went to the trouble to find the items (fortunately no more stock) to send to me, they didnt know i was actually paying of the received item. they have zero memory of the past and the reply were so robot styled replies. i said "nevermind i already got the item" they replied "thank you for your business please do business with us again" that sort of reply. 3 months after that, the 6 pins connectors arrived, so i wont bother to make manual payment again, i dont want to go through the robot communication experience again and they are robot anyway they dont have feelings.

but one fact to note from this is.. they indeed processing the order and got it sent (very slow shipping process) from what i observed, i guess what happened is, once we made the order, they will ask their supplier "who knows where" to send the item. track number will be at the mercy of the end supplier, not the seller we are dealing with, so sometime ebay seller will not be able to provide us such information, thats the constraint they have to deal with.. nuff said.

[james_s]

I had a similar experience a few months ago when I bought a pair of Tek probes. Instead of the nice clean complete probe in the picture I received a pair of beat up filthy Frankenprobes obviously pieced together out of various junk probes and not surprisingly neither one worked correctly. I went through the same delay tactics, then wanting me to ship them back to China, eventually they sent me $6 to cover postage but I looked it up and it would cost me at least $24 to send them. I escalated, sent pictures and ebay sided with me and gave me a full refund. Unfortunately you have to kind of play hardball with these types of sellers. They will give you excuse after excuse and talk like they are victims but they knew full well they were sending you garbage, they bank on the fact that most people will just write it off or wait until it's too late to file a claim.

[BradC]

Now starts the argument with E-bay to get my $12.20 GST refunded.

[johnkenyon]

Now starts the argument with E-bay to get my $12.20 GST refunded.

If the GST was charged at the border when the package arrived, then your argument is with whatever branding the Commonwealth of Australia has given to Customs and Excise these days, rather than eBay. If the goods remained in country (regardless of value), you can more or less kiss goodbye to any refund.

[BradC]

Now starts the argument with E-bay to get my $12.20 GST refunded.

If the GST was charged at the border when the package arrived, then your argument is with whatever branding the Commonwealth of Australia has given to Customs and Excise these days, rather than eBay. If the goods remained in country (regardless of value), you can more or less kiss goodbye to any refund.

Yeah, eBay said "print the receipt out and take it up with the ATO". I buy through my GST registered company, so it's easy for me but for your average punter that's a complete headfuck.

I'm waiting for the news item where they say eBay have been collecting GST and pocketing it.

[localkorner]

Yeh, on a small scale these GST issues will just slip through the net. But the bigger issue of eBay's handling of GST in their process may well be newsworthy when it comes up.

To be fair to eBay, they are very customer centric these days (something Amazon has forced on them) and I rarely find it difficult to get a resolution when i've been wronged.

Glad you got the refund sorted Brad