I don’t usually do this publicly, but I’m feeling a little salty over an eBay transaction and thought I’d provide some information for other sellers to protect themselves from this buyer. Yesterday, I had a buyer purchases and pay for a pretty expensive card ($300). Although I haven’t dropped it off at the post-office yet, the buyer sends me a message this morning asking me to “Please cancel the order because I found one cheaper.”
Now as we all know, PayPal fees are non-refundable once a buyer has paid, and I’m stuck refunding the buyer anyway since the alternative is to ship it and wait for a forced return. Either way, I’m out money and have the inconvenience of canceling an order, unpackaging the item, relisting, etc.
If you’re a seller (particularly if you sell higher end items) consider blocking eBay user: christophermorgan12
Unfortunately it comes with the territory. Same way people will make false claims to get things for free. All you can really hope for is that these things don’t happen frequently enough to cause serious financial damage to yourself.
Personally, I would’ve told him that I can’t cancel the order once it’s paid because of the nonrefundable Paypal fee. I’m pretty sure they’d understand or at least cover the fee if they were a decent person.
Sometimes I just say I already shipped so they have to ship it back and I’ll refund the difference of the item and a 10-15% restocking fee plus the shipping costs. At this point, they usually just say they’ll keep the item lol
I get it too frequently, and I even see similar type of regret here from time to time in the eBay deals thread that makes me wonder if members here have done it as well.
Someone buys a card. A solid 5-10% eBay bucks promo comes out later that day or even a day or two later. They see I have’t shipped yet so naturally they ask if I can cancel, refund so they can buy again and save the 10%. I let them know that I can’t because I’d be out the fee. One time I suggested I’d do it if I could raise the price of the item 5%, so I recoup my fees and we split a bit of the difference. Still not my preference as it adds more time and complexity, but usually it’s met with disgust or incredulity that I’d suggest such a dastardly thing anyways.
It can become a bit more complicated if the buyer actually knows the ins and outs of ebay. They can either tell me I can’t do that and just wait for the card and open a case with ebay if they really want to go through all the work, or they just agree to pay that and I refund the difference of my 10% restocking fee plus the shipping costs. If they agree to it, then I see no problem in taking that amount off their refund price. I’ve only had to do that maybe twice over my years. A few times they just say they’ll just keep the card and save the hassle.
Sometimes I actually have already shipped the card and the buyer asks to cancel a few days after… In that case I say I already shipped and they have to call ebay and deal with them. They’ve always just kept the card with no further problems
These type of buyers are the worst. To me it feels like like so commonly people’s ethics and morals online are different than in person. It’s almost like people have their ethics based on having to deal with a response not on the actual ethics of the situation or doing the right thing.
Yeah same seller bought 2 things from me, paid. The next day they ask to cancel one (which would cancel both because of the combined shipping) and just rebuy the other one.
I told them I only sold the second one at that price because they were buying multiple items and because of the cancellation I wouldn’t resell it at the same price. So I just cancelled for them and immediately blocked them
This is the best response. Don’t let ebay people off the hook that easy. At a minimum, send them a message and let them know that while you understand their motives to save a dollar, a return post transaction is costing you both money and time. Some people actually don’t realize the eBay details and need to be made aware.
This person is also a seller with 5 negative feedbacks in the last 6 months for cancelling sales and relisting at higher prices, sending broken items, etc.
Well then… you own their money until you decide to refund. I would send them a letter and a Muk card (lol) using the shipping label you would have for the actual card purchased. Tell them how you feel and hold their money for as long as you can. The ‘return/refund’ is inevitable, but why not be creative with your own way to waste that fools time/money. I just blocked that eBay seller to.
