Buyer protection now wants the money from me, including the sales fees I never received
Summary: shoes-dealer describes a problem with an eBay sale in which Pokémon boxes worth €1,200 were allegedly tampered with during transit. After picking up the package, the buyer found that the contents were said to be missing and, instead, bags of sand were inside. eBay decided in the buyer’s favor, so shoes-dealer has to cover the amount without getting the selling fees refunded. The discussion focused on buyer protection rules, DHL’s responsibility for transit damage, and the options of filing a report and using insurance to minimize the financial loss. The participants agree that in cases like this, preventive measures against potential fraud are difficult.
Hello everyone, I need your assessment of an eBay case.
Pokémon boxes worth approx. €1,200 were purchased and sent by me properly to the buyer. According to the pictures I have, the package was apparently opened from the side. The original strip of tape was removed and the package was then resealed with different tape. In my opinion, the tampering is very clearly visible in the pictures. The contents are said to have been removed and replaced with sandbags or filled bags.
The buyer says he picked up the package at the DHL branch he himself specified. On the way to his car, he noticed that something was wrong with the package. He then went back into the branch and opened the package there again in the presence of an employee.
The case is currently still open with the police. The damage report with DHL has also not yet been fully processed.
What surprises me especially: eBay decided in favor of the buyer, even though the facts of the case have not been fully clarified at all yet. In my opinion, it cannot be ruled out that the tampering only happened after handover to the buyer.
Also, eBay initially withheld my balance and then released it again. After the case decision, I am now supposed to pay the entire amount anyway. eBay had already withheld the eBay fees or sales commissions, so originally I would only have been paid the amount after deducting these fees.
How can it be that I now still have to cover the full amount paid by the buyer?
Has anyone had experience with a case like this?
shoes-dealer
OP3 weeks agoI got a bit mixed up on the phone. He said it was supposedly his first Pokémon order and that something like this had happened right away. I then said that he clearly knows his way around this, that you can, for example, offset the weight with something else to imitate the original weight. He also said that the eBay buyer protection would usually cover the damage in such cases.
Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten any exact information from DHL about where and what exactly may have happened to the parcel or shipment. As far as I know, the parcels are weighed internally at the DHL centers. So in theory, there should be some way to trace whether the weight changed during transport.
In my opinion, the culprit could have made it even easier for himself. That’s why I find the whole case even more complicated. There are simply several possibilities for how and where something could have happened.
I’m still on vacation right now, but so far I’ve had good contact with the officer handling the case at the police. I’ll ask him again whether there are any updates yet. I’ll also give him the exact times again, i.e. when the customer picked up the parcel and when he contacted me or eBay, if he doesn’t already have that information anyway.
The officer would have preferred to have the parcel right away in order to secure DNA traces or other evidence. Unfortunately, because of the insurance, the parcel first had to be sent to DHL, which the customer then did. At the moment, however, I don’t know what DHL did with the parcel afterward or whether it is still there.
perfect-sally
·3 weeks agoHe also said that eBay buyer protection would usually cover the damage in such cases.
Who on earth comes up with the idea that eBay would cover something other people did? The place would have been long gone by now!
Either the seller gets the short end of the stick or the buyer does, and with that amount there’ll definitely be no goodwill gesture, and eBay pays.
And as for DNA traces or anything else, have they been watching too many crime shows? Do you really think the forensic team would deal with that? I don’t. Going off about that now would be going too far, but something like that is definitely not going to happen. Besides, 99% of all traces are contaminated since they’ve passed through too many hands by now!
kometenhuhn
·3 weeks ago · EditedI doubt that all packages are tracked that precisely internally.
Rather, that individual package classes 2 kg / 5 kg - run on different belts and only "If weight greater than..." is recorded, so that it can then be claimed from DHL's point of view.
Honestly, nothing surprises me anymore. When you read some things today, it’s a disaster.
I honestly wouldn't even know how you could prevent that. Possibly personal pickup? But if then it’s claimed again that it’s fake, the whole thing starts all over again.
oskar_der_wikinger
·3 weeks agoHello @shoes-dealer
"ironieon"
Why did you send a tampered package with little bags of sand?
"ironieoff"
How did you like such an accusation from the buyer?
Probably not very well.
So be careful with such assumptions.
gamesorder
·3 weeks ago · EditedI’m going to try to judge it as objectively as possible.
I suspect it was already sent out that way, or it was tampered with by the buyer.
Anything in between is really very unlikely, because after all nobody else knew what was inside it.
But that also doesn’t mean that the extremely, extremely unlikely case couldn’t have happened and a third person stole the goods.
But even then I’m left wondering why this person would swap out the goods and not just steal the cards? Because for that person, it wouldn’t matter whether the possibly weighed weight matches the one on the shipment. (Assuming anyone on site is even weighing it exactly anymore)
The whole thing reads like the countless cases involving international shipments. There too, most community readers speculate how such cases come about :)
If the goods were shipped properly, I would also file a report on my end, if that hasn’t already been done.
sunrise1605
·3 weeks agoThose are exactly the questions:
how can an outsider know what is inside the package and that it might be worth opening.
Why didn’t the buyer complain at the branch right away if the tampering was so obvious.
How long had he left the branch, was there even enough time to do that himself.
shoes-dealer
OP3 weeks agoThe pickup was at 19:13. However, he didn’t write to me until 20:28. A case was opened at 20:32.
I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything. These are just my suspicions about who could be a candidate. Of course, there’s also the possibility that I myself could be responsible. I also filed the report a day later.
What was also a bit strange: It was his first Pokémon order. . So he was very familiar with the process and was also very sure that buyer protection would rule in his favor.
As I said, he was very calm throughout the whole process and basically did everything I wanted him to do. So he was very accommodating, but for me a bit too calm at times. For example, he never directly asked me for a refund.
Maybe he just had a lot of trust because I have a very good sales record. But if I were in his place, I would have been much more upset and would have asked at least once a week when I would finally get my money back. However, he hasn’t contacted me for almost three to four weeks now.
I hope the store has cameras or that the police already have new findings. Maybe that will rule out who could be considered the perpetrator, or there may already be clues as to who could be responsible.
I’d also like to add that I spoke to him on the phone afterward. As far as I can remember, he only noticed the damage on the way to the car. So he went back again. That also meant he could no longer refuse to accept the shipment.
sunrise1605
·3 weeks agoWhat was also a bit odd: It was his first Pokémon order. . So he was very familiar with the procedure and was also very sure that buyer protection would be decided in his favor.
You meant it was not his first order?
anna_s@ebay
·3 weeks agoHello @shoes-dealer ,
as @perfect-sally already mentioned, we can't keep the case open for so long until DHL initiates a possible refund to you. Shipping providers usually need 6-8 weeks to make a decision.
A refund of the sales commission would have been possible if you had arranged the repayment to your buyer yourself. The moment we have to step in to make a decision, we no longer refund the commission.
Your buyer has provided us with all the necessary documents we needed. After a thorough review, we then closed the case in favor of your buyer.
@*sweet-melody* and @perfect-sally thank you ❤
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you get the refund from DHL and all the best to you.
Best regards
Anna
shoes-dealer
OP3 weeks agoI can’t quite understand why the buyer didn’t refuse acceptance. The tampering was clearly visible. According to the tracking status, the delivery was successful and the buyer then picked up the package. Only after an unknown amount of time, about 1.5 hours later, did he contact me. In that time, he could theoretically have tampered with the package himself.
But well, in the future I probably won’t sell any more high-value items through eBay. Until now I’ve actually always preferred eBay, but with sums like that the whole thing is pretty risky and, in my opinion, a paradise for scammers.
What if it turns out in the end that the buyer is responsible? Could I then reclaim the eBay fees from him, or would I have to take that up with eBay?
I’ll probably have to get a lawyer involved, because unfortunately I have to expect a loss of several hundred euros. On top of that there are almost €150 in eBay fees. That’s already quite a high amount.
Maybe DHL will end up covering the entire damage too. If DHL reimburses the full loss, I’d כמובן be completely satisfied. Then at least financially, that would be settled for me.
I have filed an objection to the case. As long as the case is still open, I will not agree to a refund. Once the decision has been made and it goes against me again, I’ll probably have no choice but to do it, though still only under reservation.
kometenhuhn
·3 weeks ago · EditedDid you, or the buyer, file a report?
How much was the package insured for? 500 € or 2500 €?
*sweet-melody*
·3 weeks agoMany thanks, @perfect-sally !
*sweet-melody*
·3 weeks agoA friendly !Hello" to everyone!
@shoes-dealer ,
the buyer is to be treated as if he had never bought from you.
You involved eBay, so eBay gets its fees.
I think it’s a matter between you and DHL,
because the damage happened during shipping.
I’m not sure whether I’m right here. Maybe
@perfect-sally could tag an employee?
Thank you very much!
perfect-sally
·3 weeks ago@*sweet-melody* actually, everything has already been said about this, but I’m happy to tag the MA present. She probably won’t have anything else to say about it.
@anna_s@ebay could you please take a look at this? Thank you very much
sunrise1605
·3 weeks agoWasn't it the case that buyers lose their buyer protection if they redirect packages?
And I hope for the original poster that he shipped it with appropriate insurance for €1200.
perfect-sally
·3 weeks agoIf the buyer had specified the store branch directly as the delivery address, then that wasn’t a redirection in that sense. And if it was a redirection, then eBay should notice it before anything gets decided unfairly.
sunrise1605
·3 weeks agoRight, you could also read it as him having already given the branch as the delivery address.
shoes-dealer
OP3 weeks agoYes, so the customer wanted the package delivered to a branch and entered a branch delivery address.
The package was insured up to €1,200.
Unfortunately, the problem will be that DHL will most likely only reimburse me the purchase price (cost price). But we’ll see — maybe I’ll get lucky, since there were also some irregularities with the delivery.
The package was never scanned correctly, namely. Neither the DHL driver nor the branch scanned the package in. The penultimate scan was just the notification that the package would soon be delivered to the branch for processing. The last scan then directly said that the customer had successfully picked up the package.
So there was never any notification that the package was now ready for pickup at the branch. The customer had to ask there themselves because nothing had changed in the shipment status from Saturday to Monday.
The package was then only found by chance after a long search.
I also called the store again at the end. The branch manager said that this was apparently normal there. Most of the time they don’t even know when, who, or where the packages are dropped off, because the drivers sometimes just leave them somewhere without an employee scanning the packages in.
Maybe that’s why I have a bit more luck and DHL will cover the damage in full.
hasjana
·3 weeks ago@shoes-dealer
Normally, the value of the contents should be reimbursed; for that, proof of the sale has to be provided, and on top of that the shipping costs are refunded
You could, however, run into a problem if DHL is of the opinion that the cards are actually valuables of Class II; these are only permitted up to 500 euros
perfect-sally
·3 weeks agoWell, in the end you sold something that the buyer then didn’t receive! And no one waits around for the parcel service provider or the police to get moving and sort the matter out at some point. Of course, the buyer wants their goods promptly or, failing that, their money back.
And if eBay decided against you, which was actually clear, the fees won’t of course be refunded.
If you had refunded voluntarily without the buyer having to involve eBay, the fees would have been credited back to you. But of course not like this.
shoes-dealer
OP3 weeks agoThat is exactly the point I mean. I never received the full purchase amount myself. eBay deducts the selling fees before the payout, so I only get paid the amount after the fees have been deducted.
So I never received the withheld fees either. If eBay now fully refunds the buyer and at the same time charges me again for the fees previously withheld or does not refund them, then in the end I have to cover money that I myself never received.
As I understand it, eBay should take into account, in a refund, the amount I was actually paid out and credit back the fees previously withheld accordingly. That is exactly why I do not understand the current charge to my account and would like to know how it is specifically made up.
perfect-sally
·3 weeks agoYour calculation doesn’t work like that! After all, you used the platform and the decision was made against you, so unfortunately you’re stuck with the fees.
Like I said, it would have been different if you had refunded voluntarily in the first place.
shoes-dealer
OP3 weeks ago · EditedI basically understand that buyer protection exists and that a buyer should get their money back if they actually didn’t receive the item. That’s exactly what this process is for.
What I don’t understand, though: Why is there even a review process if, when something remains unclear, the decision is ultimately still in favor of the buyer? In my case, it still hasn’t been clarified when and where the package was tampered with. The buyer picked up the package themselves at the branch they specified. So in my opinion, it can’t be completely ruled out that the tampering only happened after handover. The police and DHL have not yet fully resolved the case.
In my opinion, buyer protection should not mean that a seller is automatically held responsible for damage while the facts are still unclear. Especially in cases like this, there should be a closer review of whether there may be abuse of buyer protection.
I also think it’s a shame how eBay is treating me as a long-time seller in this case. I shipped the item properly and have not done anything wrong so far. Even if eBay initially refunds the buyer, I would at least have expected my already withheld fees to be credited back or for eBay to accommodate me in some other way.
In this way, eBay is losing a good and reliable seller in my opinion. I therefore hope that the case will be reviewed again properly and with consideration of all circumstances as well as the legal regulations.