Ebay scammers

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amalurk

Active Member
Dec 16, 2016
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What is best practice for getting money back with minimal hassle? I won an auction for a pure sine wave rackmount UPS and I received instead a consumer grade of equivalent VA same brand, not rack mount, not sine wave.

Thanks. Never had to return ebay item before.
 

ttabbal

Active Member
Mar 10, 2016
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Just file a dispute with ebay and paypal if you used them. They generally side with the buyers, probably a little too much. Make sure you get screenshots of the listing and point out how what you got is not what was advertised.
 

JSchuricht

Active Member
Apr 4, 2011
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If you are in the US and bought from a US seller, file an item not as described on ebay. If you select not as described the seller will be responsible for return shipping. Don't wait too long on the return, you get a set number of days to return the item after opening a case before the seller can get it canceled then you are SOL on ebay and have to go the paypal or chargeback route which doesn't get free return shipping. You also have a set number of days from purchasing the item to filing a dispute on ebay, can't remember if it's 30 or 45 they have changed it a few times.
 

amalurk

Active Member
Dec 16, 2016
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Thank you. I did this with photos showing box and UPC of wrong model vs. listing and significant functional differences.

If you are in the US and bought from a US seller, file an item not as described on ebay. If you select not as described the seller will be responsible for return shipping. Don't wait too long on the return, you get a set number of days to return the item after opening a case before the seller can get it canceled then you are SOL on ebay and have to go the paypal or chargeback route which doesn't get free return shipping. You also have a set number of days from purchasing the item to filing a dispute on ebay, can't remember if it's 30 or 45 they have changed it a few times.
 

Aestr

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2014
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Seattle
Have you actually reached out to the seller to let them know you got the wrong item? It seems you're going into this very aggressively with no reason to believe this was a scam rather than an honest mistake.

Everyone has given good advice on just how easy it is to get a return on ebay, even better if you paid with Paypal, so I'm sure you'll get your money back without much hassle.
 
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amalurk

Active Member
Dec 16, 2016
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The item not as described claim process sends your request to seller first then you ask ebay to step in if the seller doesn't respond and resolve it says. So status is waiting for seller to respond now. So just doing normal process I believe

Have you actually reached out to the seller to let them know you got the wrong item? It seems you're going into this very aggressively with no reason to believe this was a scam rather than an honest mistake.

Everyone has given good advice on just how easy it is to get a return on ebay, even better if you paid with Paypal, so I'm sure you'll get your money back without much hassle.
 

Terry Kennedy

Well-Known Member
Jun 25, 2015
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New York City
www.glaver.org
The item not as described claim process sends your request to seller first then you ask ebay to step in if the seller doesn't respond and resolve it says. So status is waiting for seller to respond now. So just doing normal process I believe
I normally use the "Ask the seller a question about the item" to get them to resolve it peacefully without dinging their ebay score. It is almost always an honest mistake, for example where someone used a stock photo of a Dell SSD and shipped an HP one (which, of course, Dell's utility won't update the firmware of).

I think there's only been one time since I've been on ebay (which dates back to Pierre and Meg) where I had to go through the actual dispute process. Eventually ebay/Paypal (they were still one company then) sent me a prepaid label to return the item to the seller. The seller refused delivery of it, so ebay/Paypal refunded my money.

I have had sellers get snotty with me and I've had to threaten to go through dispute resolution. One memorable time was for an instrument cluster for a BMW. It had had LEDs unsoldered and other damage. The seller said he got it from his cousin when his cousin changed it on his car and he wasn't responsible for that, tough luck etc. After a few more back and forth messages where the seller refused a return / refund, I looked at his other listings and found over a dozen more instrument clusters and asked him "how often does your cousin change his instrument cluster?"
 

amalurk

Active Member
Dec 16, 2016
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This item was described and pictured as the enterprise rackmount version. They sent the much cheaper desktop version that also weighs like half as much. I doubt it was a mistake, it was not a big used hardware firm. Anyhow, I followed the process to ask for a return because the item was not as described. Seller had 5 days to respond to work it out with me but did not communicate at all. At the end of 5 days I asked Ebay to help that I wanted a refund. Ebay accepted my return request within 10 minutes with a link to download a prepaid return label. I dropped off the prepaid return that day and when it was confirmed delivered a few days later I received a full refund.

All in all a reasonable process from my perspective at least and the seller had his chance but failed to communicate at all.
 

SRussell

Active Member
Oct 7, 2019
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US
This item was described and pictured as the enterprise rackmount version. They sent the much cheaper desktop version that also weighs like half as much. I doubt it was a mistake, it was not a big used hardware firm. Anyhow, I followed the process to ask for a return because the item was not as described. Seller had 5 days to respond to work it out with me but did not communicate at all. At the end of 5 days I asked Ebay to help that I wanted a refund. Ebay accepted my return request within 10 minutes with a link to download a prepaid return label. I dropped off the prepaid return that day and when it was confirmed delivered a few days later I received a full refund.

All in all a reasonable process from my perspective at least and the seller had his chance but failed to communicate at all.
Too bad for the seller on this. I would have just sent you the correct product or refunded your money and let you keep the UPS. I can only bet the seller had to eat another $100 to ship a UPS.