Ahhh so that’s how you do it (How to scam sellers and help eBay in the process) | Sell

d_kopp · 2025-09-13T12:22:27.350000Z

Hello, I’d like to lay out a case here that I would never have thought something like this would even be possible. Some time ago I listed a knitting machine from an estate sale on eBay. The listing also contained the following sentences: “Honestly, I can’t really say much about whether it works or about the devices because I know absolutely nothing about them.„ and “Oh yes: PICKUP ONLY!If the buyer knows what they’re doing, the machines can also be checked for proper functioning on site.That way the buyer is also on the safe side that the machines work.“ On June 6 I then received a message: “Dear seller, I am interested in buying the CB1 and the Brother kh970 main carriage. I can pay 400 euros plus shipping. You can reach me on the number provided. Please inform me. „ Since I wasn’t interested in sending the item by post because I wanted “collection only,” I ignored the inquiry, but kept getting messages about it. And he always wanted, he always emphasized that, a “quick response.” One of his messages read: “Please allow me to buy it now from Great Britain. I can have it collected by courier with tracking at my expense and risk.“ And also“Ideally, I only want the CB1 unit and the KH 970 main carriage„ By then some time had passed, I had meanwhile been rather seriously ill for a while and had other worries than eBay. When I got back in touch with him after that, the buyer offered me €450 including shipping and I agreed to send him the package. Let’s remember: His offer referred to the “CB-1” and the “KH-970” On my own initiative I offered (after the fact!) to include a “KH-930” carriage as well (so, outside our deal) That turned out to be a serious mistake! Photos of it (these are also known to the buyer): So I ended the eBay listing and sent him an invoice for €450, which he could pay.Only then did I notice that a fee of just under €30 was due for selling to England, but I then covered that at my own expense. On top of that there was another shipping cost of about €30. So there was about €390 left as “profit” Then I had to find out that customs paperwork also has to be enclosed for shipping to England, so I had to spend half a day dealing with that topic. In the end I had everything together, packed the parcel, and also sent more photos of how I had packed it. This happened on August 11. And then I thought the matter was over. But no, that’s when it really started: On September 1 I received a message from him in which he complained. He sent me a few photos: He now wanted either a full replacement or money for a repair. He sent the following photos: KH-930! (free)KH-930! (free)KH 930! (free)KH-970! (no unknown damage)KH-970! (no unknown damage!) Of course, it looks bad in the photos, but:1. Photos 1-4 all show the “KH-930,” which he got for free as an extra2. Photo 5 and 6 show damage that is clearly visible on all the sales photos. (Please compare for yourself)So I rejected the complaint. After that, on September 2, the buyer opened an eBay Buyer Protection case. His reasoning: The carriages arrived damaged and stuck due to inadequate packaging. The item is not as described, as the carriages are unusable. The repair cost is £140GBP. I request a partial refund to cover the repair or a return label to send the item back for a full refund. The listing didn t disclose this damage, and eBay s Money Back Guarantee applies. Plus the photos above and two more, but both of those also relate to the "KH-930" that he got for free. That is why my response now suddenly refers to 8 photos. My reply (also on September 2): Photos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 were a free bonus to the agreed transaction. They cannot be complained about because the part was included free of charge. Only photos 7 and 8 belong to part of the transaction. This damage is already visible in the product photos in my eBay listing and was therefore known. The buyer therefore agreed to the purchase with knowledge of this damage. There is no reason for a complaint. This return process is therefore being misused by the buyer. And then I received an email from eBay: Hello Daniel, You have received a return request from a buyer and now have several options to respond. We know returns are annoying and can come up unexpectedly. That’s why we want to explain how this happened and what you can do now. Here’s what happened:The item the buyer wants to return is covered by our eBay Buyer Protection. This allows buyers to request returns for items that do not match the listing description. This applies even if the seller does not accept returns. What you can do now:Accepting a return is generally the best course of action. You can also contact the buyer and try to agree on another solution, such as a partial refund. We need a response from you by Sep. 06, 2025 to let us know how you would like to proceed. If you accept the return, here’s what happens next: 1. Buy a tracked shipping label from a shipping service of your choice. For items valued at more than 450 GBP, shipping must include signature confirmation. 2. The buyer sends the item back and you can inspect it. 3. After you receive the return, issue a refund to the buyer within 2 business days. So even in this email I only had the option of initiating the return or coming to an agreement with the buyer. There is no provision here at all for the possibility that the buyer made a false claim. And then immediately after that: Hello Daniel, [name] sent you a message about a return request: Buyer message Despite the seller s claim that the damaged parts were a free gift, all items in a single transaction are covered by eBay s Money Back Guarantee. The carriages are unusable due to the damage, which was not properly disclosed. A partial refund of £140 is requested to cover repairs. Alternatively, I will return the item for a full refund. View the return details if you want to respond now. Please respond to the buyer and try to resolve the issue by 05 September 2025. If you have not found a solution by then, the buyer can contact us from that date and ask for help. On 06/09 I then received an email from eBay saying that the buyer was still waiting for a response. Then I wrote again 1. One part that the buyer is complaining about was given to him free of charge. In my opinion, it is therefore not possible to make a claim for it. If I hadn’t sent it along at all, he would have paid exactly the same amount as he paid with the part. 2. With the other part, the damage was clearly visible on the item photos in the listing. I could list more points, but there isn’t enough space. In any case, everything matched the item description. After that I received the following email: Hello Daniel, Thank you for contacting eBay. I understand that you disagree with the return claim of the buyer cause the item they are complaining about was included as free and you did list provide a photo of the actual item showing any issues. I sense where you are coming from and I'd like to help you as this is far from the experience we wanted for our honest seller. Daniel, I was able to carefully review the case details and I'd like to appreciate your effort for sharing your sentiments. As an online platform, though we cannot examine the item physically, we have offered a protection for sellers for return claims. While I understand that you disagree with the return, the best option to resolve this would be for you to facilitate the return so you can have the option to check the item yourself and let us know about your findings. I have placed the case on hold for 5 days so you can have ample time to facilitate the return. Once you receive the item, you can partially refund the buyer using your partial refund tool. Otherwise, you can report your findings to us and we will enforce your seller protection for faulty or fraudulent returns. We also have our dedicated trust and safety team that is in charge of penalizing buyers who is abusing our returns policy and claiming false return. Also, reporting the buyer may qualify you for return postage subsidy. If it is proven that the buyer's claim is invalid, we will close the case with your funds released on your account and will also remove any associated feedback. Thus, ensuring a trusted and reliable selling platform for our honest sellers like you. To learn more, you can also check our return policy at https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/managing-returns-refunds/manage-returns-missing-items-refunds-sellers?id=4079. I am certain that the information provided resolves your concern for today. Thank you for contacting eBay, we appreciate your business. Have a great day! So I was supposed to have the parts sent back to me so I could inspect them. I replied to the email as follows: You are asking me to arrange the return so that I can check the items myself.This is unnecessary or even impossible for three reasons: 1. The items match the description, because all of the buyer’s complaints were already listed in the item description. The buyer knew what he was getting—or he did not read the description and did not look at the photos. That cannot be my fault. 2. For the return, customs forms would have to be filled out, additional customs fees would need to be paid, and shipping costs are also very high—not to mention the effort involved. This process would be extremely uneconomical and would consume most of the sales proceeds. 3. Even if the item were returned, it would not be possible for me to test its functionality, because I have no expertise in this area. I cannot examine the item in the way you suggest (and I clearly stated this in my listing). Let me explain again why the buyer’s complaint is unjustified: The buyer made me an offer for 2 items, which I will call “CB-1” and “KH-970.”He offered €450 including shipping.I then added another item, “KH-930,” free of charge. This item was not part of the actual deal. I sent all three items to the buyer. The complaint concerns “KH-970” and “KH-930.”“CB-1” was not complained about and is therefore not in question. Since “KH-930” was added free of charge and was not part of the actual transaction, any complaint about this item is completely unfounded. If it is defective, the buyer can simply throw it away—he has suffered no loss, because it was a free extra. So the matter is only about “KH-970.”The buyer complains about two things: 1. The item has external damage 2. The item is stuck Both points were clearly addressed in my listing: 1. The reported external damage is clearly visible in the photos. 2. I wrote that the items were heavily used and would likely require a thorough cleaning. 3. I explicitly stated that I do not know whether the items work, because I cannot test them. They came from an estate. 4. The sale was therefore private and without warranty. 5. I specifically wrote “collection only” so that the buyer could inspect the items in person. However, the buyer insisted that I ship them.. From my perspective, this means he accepted the risk of receiving items that may not work. In summary: - The buyer received the items exactly as described. - “CB-1” works (and is, by the way, the truly valuable part he paid for). - “KH-930” cannot be subject to a complaint. - “KH-970” matches the description, and everything the buyer now complains about was already stated in my listing. From my perspective, the buyer is simply upset because “KH-970” is stuck and cannot be used as it is. I could not check this, because I do not know how the device works. Therefore, I did not know whether it functions—and I clearly wrote all of this in my listing. There is nothing more I can do.I always make an effort to point out possible defects in my listings—precisely to avoid situations like this. What am I supposed to do? If I list all of these defects in the description, and the buyer still makes the purchase, then he cannot later complain about those very defects and cause me financial harm. From my perspective, the buyer is misusing eBay Buyer Protection only to disadvantage me.As far as I know, Buyer Protection applies if an item significantly differs from its description. That is fair. But in this case, it is not true. All issues were mentioned to the best of my knowledge. I cannot do more than point them out. Please review my listing yourself. Look at the photos. Check the chat history I had with the buyer—there you will also find photos, as well as his original offer, which shows that “KH-930” was not part of the deal and was given as a free extra. Thank you for your attention. Best regards, ... After that I got another template email telling me again to have the parts sent back to me. I now tried several more times to explain that a return makes no sense because 1. A part was complained about that was not part of the deal2. With the other part, the damage was known in advance (see photos)3. It is uneconomical because the costs are incredibly high and the package has to go through customs again,4. I can’t check the parts myself because I don’t know anything about them.ALL the replies had the same essence: “Please send the buyer a return label so that they can inspect the parts themselves!The AI I was writing to therefore didn’t understand the problem at all.And I simply couldn’t get in touch with a real person.I was able to have a real person call me from customer service in the meantime, but they told me the matter was coming from England, they couldn’t do anything, but they would make sure someone would get back to me. That “follow-up” consisted of the familiar email the next day.So by then I already had 5 of these emails, all saying the same thing, but not a single word addressing the actual problem. I no longer understood the world. So ... I waited. I had done what I could. On September 10 I offered the buyer a €70 refund, he رفضed it. Then I offered him €90, he refused. He wanted €120. I thought that was cheeky, so I refused. On September 12 I received an email from eBay: Your buyer has received a refund I immediately tried once again to get an eBay employee on the phone. After more than an hour, I managed it. And finally I was able to talk at length to a real person about my problem. He listened to the case, documented it, and filed an appeal for me. Meanwhile, the buyer told me that he is a nice guy and had paid me back €330 of the refund on his side, so he had effectively enforced his €120 reduction in value. I also wrote to him that I would first wait for the appeal and that I would rather have everything sent back to me, even if I had to pay for it, than let him keep the CB-1, which was never complained about, but with a full refund I would of course also need to get all the parts back. Then on September 13 the response to my appeal came in: The response to that: Hello Daniel, Thank you so much for contacting eBay Customer Service today about the “Return” case for the item “Strickmaschine Brother KR 850 + Brother CB-1 + Taitexma TH 860 + Zubehör” (10-13424-32643) you sold to [NAME]. Let me help to get this issue resolved. Here are the details I was able to capture from the transaction as of now: · You mentions that the item was as described in the listing and you disagree with this return, the case has been closed in buyer favour. · You now want to appeal the case decision. I really appreciate your patience and efforts to resolve this issue, also the service you are providing to your buyers. I had checked the case details and found that we had put the case on hold for 5 days, on 16th September till 11th of September asking you to facilitate the return but since no no label was provided by you, Hence we had closed the case in buyer's favor. However I can see that the buyer has offered you to return the refund back and asking you to share PayPal. I would suggest you you to communicate with your buyer, share your PayPal with them and try to resolved the issue mutually. I trust I have explained everything clearly and the above information will help you in resolving the issue. Thank you for contacting eBay. We appreciate you for being a loyal member for 21 years. Have a great day ahead. Kind regards, eBay Customer Service So now I’m the one at fault because I didn’t send the buyer a return label, even though I spent a long time clearly explaining why that makes no sense. I wrote back again: Hello,The buyer did not offer to pay me back the refund!The buyer offered to pay me back only a PART of the refund and keep the parts.In his offer, he simply deducted €120! And I still don’t understand why he was able to claim a part that was not included in the transaction at all!I am slowly getting desperate with your customer service.He claimed a part that did NOT belong to the transaction!! And shortly after, the reply came: Hello Daniel, Thank you for contacting eBay Customer Service and I am happy to share the next steps to resolve this for you. I’ve reviewed the details and found that this request was placed on hold for four days. You were notified on 6th September 2025 to arrange the return of the item. I’ve also checked the messages exchanged between you and the buyer, and there is no record of communication from your side to facilitate the return. To help resolve the issue amicably, here are the next steps you can consider: • Purchase a prepaid shipping label from your preferred courier and send it to the buyer via My eBay: Messages • Arrange for the item to be collected from the buyer’s location or reimburse the buyer for return postage so they can return the item themselves • If the buyer wishes to keep the item, you may send them a PayPal invoice for the agreed amount As the return was not facilitated within the hold period, the case has now been closed with a full refund issued to the buyer. However, I remain optimistic that you can still resolve the matter by contacting the buyer directly. For your reference, here is a link to our help page on managing returns: https://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/postage/manage-returns/ I trust I have explained everything clearly. We really appreciate the great service you have been providing to your buyers. Thank you for contacting eBay Customer Service and for being a part of eBay for 21 years. Have a wonderful day. Kind regards, eBay Customer Service I’m beaten! I’m completely beaten! I DON’T understand anything anymore! I’ve been on eBay for 21 years, 100% positive feedback, I make an effort to write every **bleep** in the listing that could be relevant, and still, even when the buyer knows EXACTLY what he’s getting into, he can pull off something like this.Yes, he can even write beforehand that he wants the items sent at his own risk!eBay doesn’t give a damn! Now he has both the items AND the money and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get my stuff back. He just has EVERYTHING

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Ahhh so that’s how you do it (How to scam sellers and help eBay in the process) | Sell | eBay Germany