Help! eBay is letting me down as a private seller and causing financial loss | Members help members

tequila-sunrise · 2026-01-24T08:51:51.102000Z

Hello everyone. I want to tell you about my frustration with the help from Ebay and maybe someone has the same problem or can be helped. Sorry, this will be a long post 🙂 I sold a motherboard + processor + cooler. It worked perfectly for me until I packed it up, and I also packed it very carefully and in a way that would protect it from impacts. According to legal guidelines, I properly excluded the warranty, liability for defects, and returns. 3 days after receiving the goods, without contacting me, he opened a return case.Ebay immediately demanded that I start the return process and provide a return ticket. The seller states that the motherboard does not work because the PC does not start at all in which he installed it. He provided 3 photos on Ebay, showing the motherboard in installed condition, and says he had it checked by a PC company and they said it must be defective. Only one photo of the company address was provided. No inspection report or anything else. I looked at the photos and you can see that he inserted the RAM sticks incorrectly. With 2 RAM sticks, it has to be installed like this: slot 2 and 4, or slot 1 and 3.But the sticks are in slots 1 and 4. That way, no PC will start. I’ll upload the photos. Maybe someone can confirm that this is how I’m seeing it?In one, you can make out 2 sticks. In the other, there are probably no sticks in it. I asked him by message whether the first stick is in slot 1. No reply. I called the PC company. They told me they can’t remember any motherboard inspection. But if an employee really did it, he would have had to receive an invoice and an inspection report. After that, I called an Ebay employee and described the situation. He typed a lot on his keyboard and said we would put this on hold for 5 days and request further info from the buyer. The buyer is not responding to any messages from me. Which I already find suspicious. So now, after just one day since the phone call with Ebay, I got another request for return and was given 4 days. Money was withheld. What is that about? Anyone can complain about any purchase and return the item without evidence, and the seller is left paying additional shipping costs and then gets back an item that the buyer destroyed through improper handling. That would mean, in my case, a loss of almost €90.Of course, only if it comes back defective. But if it works for me after the return, I paid shipping costs for nothing and have to spend time again selling the part. And then? The next person comes along and says...oh, I don’t want it anymore and claims it’s defective. Ebay will sort that out for me. Don’t need any evidence anyway. What do you think? Is that standard practice with returns on Ebay? What experiences have you had in a similar case and were you helped or were you left hanging? Thank you and have a nice weekend!

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