A reader left t his comment on another post and as soon as I read the second paragraph, I cringed because I just knew the outcome already. I know what you’re muttering, “WHY would she do that?” Well, we were all newbs once. Anyway, you should read it and then we’ll summarize the lesson learned:
Vinh, sorry to post about an old and unrelated topic here, but just read your October 2018 “An increase in “Item is defective” claims on Ebay” and I HAD to share this.
I sold a $400 Visa gift card on eBay and the buyer claimed it would not work, stating he continued to get a “transaction not accepted” message (which was rather curious in and of itself). He said he wanted to send it back, not for an immediate refund, but so that I could contact customer support to help him fix the issue first (English was not his first language). So I accepted, and for over a week while waiting for him to ship it back, I continued to ask him for detailed info (the where/what/hows) behind the transactions and errors for when I called customer support, yet he continued to either answer vaguely, or not even address my questions in his replies back to me.
He then shipped it out, and after told me he had tried another ‘test’ transaction and even though the value on the card had changed this time, he got that same ‘transaction not accepted’ “error message”. I asked him what the ‘test charge’ was a couple times while the card made its way back to me, but no answer. When I got it back, I checked it of course. $0.12 left on the $400 card!! $399.88 gone!
Clearly I was a little PO’d, then conveyed to him I didn’t think I would be able to do anything, especially lacking the pertinent info that I would be asked because he was unwilling to provide it to me after repeatedly requesting it of him. It was then he ‘decided’ to file a refund request. I denied it, opened a case with eBay, and provided a clear recap of what had taken place (including an easy-to-follow visual timeline with bullet points that my 6 year old niece could have easily understood).
2 days after I filed the case, eBay RULED IN HIS FAVOR! Their reason….? The tracking information showed that the package he shipped back to me was confirmed as delivered.. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
The above alone is a great place to stop with that last sentence being such a kicker, and I was going to stop, but it gets worse, shifting from the stupidity, laziness, and utter incompetence of eBay’s employees (seriously, forget my 6 year old niece, we’re talking, like, it takes the brain capacity/functionality/cells of a MONKEY to understand what I was saying to convey to eBay), to somewhere that I can’t quite categorize…
eBay then took it upon themselves to remove the funds from my PayPal to refund the buyer. No notice, no request for me to do so. They just took it. Totally unauthorized.
It then took 8 individual emails to eBay over 2 week’s time of me ‘screaming’ (using caps) “yes, he shipped the card back but he COMPLETELY DEPLETED IT OF ALL FUNDS FIRST”, “THE CARD IS EMPTYYY”, etc. before someone bothered to actually read beyond what clearly must have been only the subject line until that point, at which time they finally realized what I had been trying to convey.. Only to be told I was not protected as a seller due to the nature of the item I sold. Evidently this type of gift card is not allowed to be sold on eBay, and I therefore had NO RECOURSE.
(NO WHERE does it state that a debit card of this nature cannot be sold. Bank issued debit and/or credit cards that were previously linked to specific persons are described, reloadable cards get touched on, but no language specific to a visa and/or mastercard debit gift card with lack of an individual’s name or identity attached to it).
I wasn’t about to give up, and I think that has now morphed into an (and *the*) official moral of this story.. Because I just kept calling and calling, speaking with people who continued to deny my pleas, until finally someone just didn’t.
And it was not because she lacked knowledge around the type of item I sold, but because she didn’t think it was at all fair, with it simply being a matter of principal.
So ya, this went from eBay getting uncooler by the day, to… NEVER GIVE UP!! And it really is ‘who you know’ or rather, such as in this case, just a matter of getting in touch with the right person. Not always a more ‘powerful’ one either. Any one of the previous people I pleaded with could have ‘pushed the little button’ to make it right. They simply chose not to.
As you can see, the scammer used the gift card and then returned it empty. Most people would have given up after 1-2 phone calls to Ebay. You see, when a buyer files a return for ‘item not described,’ you HAVE to take it back even if you have a no returns policy. And if the person ships essentially any item back, they’ll get their money back. Even if they ship you a rock back (which happened to a friend of mine,) Ebay will force you to get a police report to get your money back.
When I was young and naive, I sold like a $50 Gap gift card on Ebay and didn’t use a tracking number. Sure enough, the person filed, “Never received.” and BOOM! I LOST. While shipping with a tracking number will avoid the “item not received” claims, you’ll almost never win an “item not DESCRIBED” claim, and at that point, it’s a he-said she-said argument that will piss you off and take up precious hours out of your life. Thus, it’s not worth it to sell any gift cards on Ebay; just find a way to use the gift card. Heck, go buy a physical item and then Ebay the item instead.