Its nearly impossible to win an insurance claim with USPS for example. They are both the entity that takes the money AND decide if they want to pay the money. How often do you think they’ll choose to just give away the insurance payments. The answer is NEVER - the only way to win is with PROOF not hearsay but actual PROOF USPS was negligent in some way i.e. A lost package. Then They’ll reimburse as not to get sued. Virtually any other issue can be someone else’s fault and they won’t pay. Keep in mind they’ll take 2 months before giving you that denial decision and probably even longer with COVID.
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I think it’s more about letting the buyers know you’re filming these videos than actually filming them. Scammers would think twice before they mess with you if they know beforehand.
Then he goes to jail.
I mean, come on. You can’t seriously be recommending that OP buy a plane ticket, fly cross country and get into an altercation that could potentially result in OP either a.) being arrested and taken to jail, or b.) being shot.
You said you would do this if it happened to you. Take my advice: don’t. Your life is worth more than an eBay case.
I think you’re completely missing the point I’m getting at, unless you’re responding to someone else. King pokemon uses First Class shipping with no insurance, and uses giant 10x12 bubbler wrappers to make it appear like the item is not valuable (this way package thief’s won’t be enticed to steal your package)
The point is if you’re a package thief and you see two packages: one 10x12 bubbler mailer and one Overnight Express, which one do you think has something of value inside?
In good 'ol MURICA that sounds like a recipe for getting shot.
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I think the OP took my message the right way, kinda lightens the mood a little going in after team rocket stole your badges. We dont have dem guns in the Uk, its just a game of Knifey Spoony.
Ive lost 2 ‘You sent an empty box’ claims, but they were under £50 and had to write them off, one was an evident oh look the courier has cut the box from the underside and re taped it, in clear 1/2" tape that no courier would re package with. Tried to video another pre existing where someone returned an empty box, even with my videoing it after feeling it weighed nothing and should weigh 4-5kg, and the label showing it was feather light. Ebay still said we cant proove that and after saying maybe 4-5 times, dont worry we will open an investigation. If it was paypal you would have a shot, but ebay, it sucks beyond frustration. Just try to think of the positives you get from ebay, IE allowing you to purchase things you would otherwise struggle with, or the majority of sales that do go well.
Its easier when you sell volume but I tend to leave the money for a period of weeks, and forgetting about it before seeing it as mine. It prevents any returns from effecting my life. Many of times I have put my shop on holiday mode and had to take time away from ebay after stressful dealings. On the flip side its provided a very comfortable earning and allowed me to buy a house and have the life I want.
Also I have never insured a packaged, ever. I have a similar approach to king pokemon. Ignoring the fact that having insurance is one thing, but the courier actually paying out is another, with all their exclusions and your time in chasing it. Send things quick but dont bring attention to them. I send average 10-12 parcels per business day for 6-7 years now. I think I’ve had maybe total 10 lost parcels.
Costs £7.89 for me to send a parcel up to 15kg. Most are £200-300 Value. If I insure them its about £20 a parcel. So If I send 10 parcels a day for 7 years, thats 18,200, saving £12 a parcel.
Sorry if this is a little off subject, I know if your only ever sale becomes a scam its very hard to deal with. I Just know looking at the subject in the above way helps me deal with the frustration, and it may help for others.
The ebay forums are always updated with ‘Ive been scammed, i’m never ever using ebay again, im taking them to court, Ill use other sites instead’ The reality is you cant do much about it, take a step back, breath and try to look at any positives. Maybe this has cost you 130$ but have you gained that and more elsewhere?
Let me summarize this entire thread with this post.
eBay will almost always side with the Buyer and not the seller. Sometimes you have to eat the loss… it’s the price you pay to play the game.
UPDATE:
Well, after calling, chatting, emailing and losing my voice from arguing I have a ray of hope. Quick rundown on what happened:
I was able to get in touch with someone in the escalations department who told me the ONLY people who could help were the appeals department and they are operating through email only. They made a note on my account explaining the situation. The appeals department sent me an email that I cannot reply too essentially telling me that there was nothing they could do and that I should contact USPS to find out what happened to the item. What really struck me about the email was that they seemed to be operating under the assumption that the item was missing from the package due to USPS negligence. I called the help line again and explained that I feel the buyer is lying and abusing the eBay return policy and that USPS insurance doesn’t cover this situation. They again made a note on my account and I got the SAME form letter email that I couldn’t reply too. And in the email, it says if I need additional help or have additional info to contact the same help number that points me back to the email. After encountering this loop and wasting a total of 6 hours of my time I was absolutely furious and just absolutely ripped into them. I told them I wasn’t going to stop until I was put in touch with someone who has the authority to fix this. I told them the only way they were going to get rid of me was to transfer me to the appeals department or hang up on me and if they hung up on me I would be calling right back. I stayed on that call while they emailed the appeals department and I WAITED on hold for each email reply since that was the ONLY way I could aruge my case was through a manager. I did this until FINALLY I got this email:
"Re: About SR#1-(redacted)
Hello Josh,
Thank you for contacting us eBay about the item that you sold. First of all, I hope all is well with you and your family. And don’t worry I heard you and I appreciate all the efforts you put into this and I got you. Let me see what is the best option for you.
Upon reviewing on the transaction I was able to see that the case got appealed already. At the same time I do believe you that you sent the item and it not empty… Since you received an empty box, what I will be doing here is that I will go ahead and processed a manual correction request and it is subject for approval.
I’m glad that I was able to help you on this transaction. Thanks for choosing eBay and you have a good one!
Thanks,
(Redacted).
eBay Customer Service"
It’s not a solid victory, but it is a step in the right direction! I have recorded some of my interactions with them and I might upload them. It’s crazy the hoops they made me jump through and the (lack of) service I received. I will tell you one thing for sure SOMEBODY is going to give me my money back.
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this trick is something that is probably becoming more common because people realize how shitty ebay is. i mean you can literally do this with any item and there’s literally nothing a seller can do about it. just hope this doesn’t happen with a more expensive item. legally, you have no recourse either because you have no proof that what you sent is what you said you sent. i’m sorry, but this world sucks.
during my more active selling periods, i was always aware that i had a huge risk to undertake as a seller.
i don’t know if this proved anything in terms of ebay stepping up customer service. it really sounds like they got tired of dealing with a customer for $130. if you think about it, they probably just didn’t think it was worth wasting that amount of time serving one customer for $130 so eBay paid out of pocket and “dealt” with it. ultimately, this doesn’t right any wrong as the real culprit (the buyer) got away without paying and was served no punishment. it is so easy for more of these people to act maliciously in the future. this sort of ecosystem ebay is perpetuating may ultimately be their demise if we have another service that actually provided better guarantees and service. i mean, honestly, think about how easily a vile person can scam honest people out of a lot more than $130. but i am super glad you got ebay to help you. i had a personal experience where a buyer sent back a partial order and i argued they were scamming me. ebay did ultimately help refund me 50% of what i had lost, but they told me they can never help me again and that was a one time thing. they are basically saying even if you did the right thing and you got scammed, ebay will not help in the future because i already got that one act of grace…wtf.
While I agree that eBay’s seller protection is pretty horrendous, stuff like this is not going to cause the demise of the site. They have been around since 1995 and have had the same type of customer service all along. The chances of another site popping up and running eBay out of business are slim to none at this point.
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i do want to say the insurance is a double-edged sword. by adding insurance, your package becomes a target, in my opinion, because the insurance stamp is a declaration that there’s something of value in there. when it’s just uninsured, it might actually work to your advantage. and as mentioned previously, carriers have many ways to NOT PAY you. once you see what you are up against as a seller, you realize the entire system is pretty leaky…
I wouldn’t say never, but it does seem difficult. I hope Amazon or some of the other giant e-commerce guys will pivot into auctions one day. They are substantially larger and can disrupt eBay overnight, if they want to put the resource into it. however, i do want to say that Amazon’s marketplace operates very differently than eBay, and seems to work better for a different audience than eBay.
I feel it’s all about finding out who was negligent in the transaction. I feel I did my part in sending the item. I packaged the item securely, I addressed it properly, and I put the appropriate amount of postage on it. I feel USPS did their part. They delivered the item safely and it arrived at it’s destination. The question in my mind is whether eBay and the buyer did THEIR part.
Obviously I don’t think the buyer did his/he part because I feel they are lying to try and keep the item for free. I am sure they will claim I didn’t do MY part because they claim I sent an empty packaged. I can’t prove this so it’s my word against theirs. We can go back and forth until we are blue in the face but at the end of the day eBay can’t know for sure which one of us is lying. They HAVE render a decision though and in doing so they are inherently “choosing a side”. Why they decided to choose the side of the person who has 2 feedback over a member with over 840 is beyond me. When I spoke with someone who handles fraud cases they told me that they look at a members history and look for “patterns of fraudulent behavior”. My rationale was this member got away with it due to them using a new account to pull this scam. You can’t find much of a concrete pattern with only 3 transactions to work with. You do have 840 transactions to see a OBVIOUS pattern of me being a good seller but they handle investigating fraudulent account and not accounts in good standing. This whole one sided analysis baffles me. Not only does it in NO WAY get any closer to the actual truth in the matter, but it also leaves and OBVIOUS loop hole allowing a new member to rip a seller off. If you follow that logic to it’s extremity, good sellers could be the target of multiple people running this scam and then THEY would develop what they were referring to as a “pattern of fraudulent behavior” and have themselves investigated. I myself am honestly scared what would happen to my account if I were to fall victim to this scam again.
That brings me to eBay. On the surface they initially did their job. Then when the return/appeals policy things went off the rails. They have developed a system where the parties are ONLY judged on patterns of fraud. This put a 2 feedback member on the same level as a 840 feedback member in the sense that we BOTH have no patterns of fraudulent behavior. They have no pattern because they don’t have enough data to develop one, and I don’t because I have been a good seller. They can’t really tell ever low feedback member that they think they are lying SOLELY based on the lack of feedback data. This would put all new members at risk of being scammed by high feedback members with little recourse. I don’t see how they feel telling a 840 feedback member THEY are lying is any better so I think it just defaults to the “buyer is always right” issue. My complaint is the opposite achieves the latter as displayed in my experience. So eBay really puts themselves in a very unenviable position every time this happens. That sucks and I do feel for them, but THEY DESIGNED THE SYSTEM. So in my mind they were very naive and negligent in implementing a system where this type of abuse is possible. Neither me, the buyer, or USPS has any hand in that. What failed here is eBays policies.
I plan to try avoiding this in the future by getting signature confirmation on all big orders and instruct my buyers to inspect the item at time of delivery before signing. I am also going to shoot a video and let them know of the video in hopes that might deter people from lying as well.
Sorry for the rant lol
@yz2428, I don’t think it proved anything as well. I don’t think I claimed it did. I am not happy with eBay in the slightest and I agree with you that IF I get my money it’s just to get me to go away. As long as I get my money back I am fine with that.
This is why im hesitant to sell high priced things to anybody with a brand new account and lowfeed back, they may be legit but it is not worth the stress if dealing with a scammer.
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in ebay’s defense, there is really nothing they can do more either to prove how the transaction went down outside of tracking records and your version of the story against theirs. they are in a tough spot, too.
anyhow, i still think this is rare as there are still many honest, good people in the world.
@yz2428 , I understand, I actually touched on that in my larger response above.
“That brings me to eBay. On the surface they initially did their job. Then when the return/appeals policy things went off the rails. They have developed a system where the parties are ONLY judged on patterns of fraud. This put a 2 feedback member on the same level as a 840 feedback member in the sense that we BOTH have no patterns of fraudulent behavior. They have no pattern because they don’t have enough data to develop one, and I don’t because I have been a good seller. They can’t really tell ever low feedback member that they think they are lying SOLELY based on the lack of feedback data. This would put all new members at risk of being scammed by high feedback members with little recourse. I don’t see how they feel telling a 840 feedback member THEY are lying is any better so I think it just defaults to the “buyer is always right” issue. My complaint is the opposite achieves the latter as displayed in my experience. So eBay really puts themselves in a very unenviable position every time this happens. That sucks and I do feel for them, but THEY DESIGNED THE SYSTEM. So in my mind they were very naive and negligent in implementing a system where this type of abuse is possible. Neither me, the buyer, or USPS has any hand in that. What failed here is eBays policies.”
If I were in charge of policy I would take a high volume of positive feedback into consideration. It’s more likely a low feedback member would risk their account than a high feedback member and then the high feedback member would have more data to see a developing pattern of fraud. I don’t pretend to know a perfect system but I will be damned if I am going to be a casualty to it.
FINAL UPDATE!!
You better believe I got my money back!
Have been going at it HARD since I last posted. The email I got that seemed like a ray of hope was just the opposite. All I got was the SAME form letter email only this time from a different email from some eBay concierge. They were no help at all. So I told him I was going right back to calling. Since 8:00 am this morning I have been in a call, help chat, and email chain all simultaneously. I had my chat closed by frustrated support, I was hung up on by supervisors, managers, the escalation team, you name it! It got to the point where I would start every conversation with “I am telling you right now this is not going to be a good conversation for you.” and “This call is going to one of two ways: You transferring me to someone who can give me my money back, or you hanging up on me. And if you hang up one me I am calling right back.” At one point I was told NO ONE at the Appeals team can be contacted through phone. I replied: “No, if the building they are in was on FIRE they would pick up a phone and call 911. SOMEBODY there has the authority to give me my money back and that SOMEBODY has a cellphone in their pocket and a phone at their desk!” Finally, I must’ve found some combination of words that FINALLY got me transferred to a very sweet woman who was able to add a coupon to my account for the full amount. I consider it a massive victory!
A few things I found out:
The communication between the appeals team right now is horrendous! Every email I got from them gave me the impression that they had no clue about the details of my case and they are the ONLY ones who can render a decision.
The call center employees are LIARS! So many told me that there was NO manager, one even told me HE was the manager which I confirmed was a lie! They claimed to have made notes on my account that weren’t there and I even caught one not taking my number when I told him to add it for a callback. I told him to read it back to me and he couldn’t
The online chat support can only close the chat when you say they can or if you go inactive. They will put you on hold and tell you to wait in hopes you will go inactive and then they will close it. I stop this by posting “I am not inactive and I don’t consent to close this chat” This ACTUALLY GOT ME A MANAGER.
My main advice is to literally not take no for an answer. It sounds cliche but it works. I kept saying “You are going to give me my money back.” If you never stop until they do it’s true. They seem to only respond to persistence.
At any rate it’s done now. Thanks for all your support and advice. and God help anyone who has to deal with eBay support! If anyone has any problems with them I would be glad to go back to battle lol
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