The box showed up, opened. That isn’t what you paid for. This is exactly what insurance is for and why I would never ship an expensive item internationally without insurance. Customs isn’t fronting the cost, eBay isn’t fronting the cost, if he didn’t put insurance they aren’t fronting the cost either. That leaves you or him holding the bag. As a seller, he assumed the risk. That is eBay policy if an item arrived not as described. You’ll win the claim.
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As others have said, not the sellers fault. Sucks for both ends. But i will not personally take it out on seller as if i was the seller i would not want it taking out on me for something that happened out of my control, thats why i would avoid importing expensive sealed stuff like that.
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Don’t buy internationally if you can’t accept that risk?
Fortunately that’s not the way the world works.
I am buying a product and a service when I buy something online to be delivered to me.
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I was in this exact situation multiple times with wotc boxes and other expensive sealed stuff, it´s just part of the game. Accept and move on, I would not fault the seller.
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@iisanaggie , the entire discussion about buyer or seller being ready to take the risk falls flat. Yes, there is a risk that customs opens a package. But in theory there should be no risk for the buyer to lose money due to ebay’s money-back guarantee, and there should be no risk for the seller to lose money if he insured the package appropriately beforehand (which is the common sense thing to do).
@shadowless, I also want to emphasize that nobody should blame the seller for a mistake that customs made. But the seller should have been aware of the risk that comes with sending internationally and fully insured the package (which I hope they did). If they didn’t and now have to pay expenses out of their own pocket, that’s nobody’s fault but the seller’s.
It is not the fault of the seller nor the buyer, yes you could win a claim via Ebay, but I would not say that is the right thing to do. A partial refund of half the money that was lost by cutting open the box would be fair imo for both parties although it would still suck for both parties. Maybe a little more because you now need to sell the packs which costs time as well.
Of course you should hope that Ebay refunds from their own pocket since neither party was at fault.
The buyer has to be aware of the risks as well, it’s always a two sided coin. Normal shipping insurance does not(!) cover damage caused by customs.
Do you have a link with more information about this? I have looked into it and I could not find any rulings for exception for indemnity payments in case of customs being responsible for the damage.
For me I see this as no fault of anyone but customs but that being said people have mentioned above that if the seller had insured then they could of made a claim to get a refund. IMO that is a crazy notion because trying to make an insurance claim against any shipping company and winning is near impossible, the shipping company isn’t customs and would simply say the damage didn’t happen in their possession. And customs doesn’t write refund checks either so insurance would be basically been useless anyway. I get the whole “buyer deserved to get exactly what they ordered” but using eBay to stiff arm the seller into a return or half refund just isn’t right or justified. I would simply calculate the difference between the sealed box price and the contents price. Then the buyer and seller split that loss. Other things to consider would be did this seller declare at full value? Or was he accommodating at doing it lower? Has the seller already been super flexible with this transaction?
In the end it’s my opinion that the buyer and seller should equally share the calculated loss in value between the item sent and item received as this is truly the fault of either part. Stuff like this happens it sucks but it’s out of the control of everyone so just take the hit and move on.
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A link for what exactly? You’ll have to read the fine print in FedEx/DHL insurance, it’s definitely in there. I once tried to claim insurance on a box I bought that was opened and they sent me a mail stating that it doesn’t cover damage caused by customs. It’a very hard in general to get anything out of customs when they damage something, at least from my experience.
I would try to work out a compromise with the seller. And it’s pretty nice that he was willing to compromise in the first place.
Insurance does not cover customs opening packages. It’s as simple as that. There is nothing the seller could have done that would have protected them in this situation beyond selling outside of eBay. I also think it’s very important to make a distinction between what eBay says should happen and what is right. eBay will hand out/force tons of refunds in situations where the buyer is clearly in the wrong. Using eBay policy to justify what’s morally right in this situation doesn’t work.
This is a really tough situation, as nobody did anything wrong. I can certainly see both sides of the argument. If we’re looking for actual solutions, I’d say a fair resolution would be for the seller to offer a refund equal to the value difference between a sealed box and 36 loose, unweighed packs.
There is a possibility to go through the eBay return process and if you’re lucky, the convoluted process will end up with both people being made (somewhat) whole with eBay giving the seller back the value drop from sealed to opened. However I would think eBay has some clear policies on customs “damage” and this may not be the case.
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I want to thank everyone for all of your responses. I did not realize that I would create quite a stir with this.
I want to clarify a few things for everyone:
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The box in question is a $300 yugioh box in which the box sealed is worth a lot more than the sum of 24 loose packs (kinda like evolutions). We are not looking at thousands of dollars here but in terms of my budget and it seems this sellers, $300 is significant to us.
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I have not attacked the seller in anyways. Since the case is still open I will not post any of our messages as that seems wrong but the jist of the conversation is that I opened the case, showed the pics of the box it arrived in with the customs tape on it and the unsealed box and just stated that this was not what I ordered and would like to return the item. After a few back an forths where he wanted more pics and such, he wanted me to call a customs desk clerk and get them admit that customs opened the box. After I said no to that cause that seems useless in solving anything and that’s how we essentially got to the back and forth where we are now.
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I have been told to be put in the seller’s shoes. I have 1000 feedback on ebay so it’s not like I’m a novice seller. In this situation I would have accepted the return already and moved on. And for the record, I do not ship sealed product internationally for this exact reason. I was always under the assumption that it is the sellers responsibility since the buyer is entitled to the item that they ordered.
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Unfortunately he did not ship via GSP so he is not covered by that.
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I do not feel that it is right for you all to attack me when I said 50-50 cause I really have no clue what would be fair if I went down that route and just threw out a number.
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@fourthstartcg , @shadowless , I don’t think it’s about insurance covering customs opening packages (that alone is standard procedure). It should cover damage occurring during that standard procedure, and it will take hard evidence to change my mind on that. I have checked the DHL website and they also don’t say anything about excluding damage caused by customs.
@knotchi , the seller is not in the position to make demands here, if anything it’s generous of the buyer to split the bill because that’s a much better offer than what ebay policy states.
Regarding the comment whether the buyer should (partly) pay for a damaged/lost item regardless of ebay policy: They certainly can, if they want to show solidarity with the seller. What I can’t understand are the comments telling the buyer to suck it up and just move on. In what world are you living? Someone just paid for an item that arrived in damaged condition. Forget customs for a moment and tell me in what other scenario someone should simply accept the damaged article? Is that what you would do if you buy something on amazon and it arrives damaged? Don’t think so.
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I have contacted both DHL and Fedex when I shipped my 2 box’es to PWCC, and they stated both thay Custom an open ANY package, and there is no way you can ask/tell/insure that that will not happend if Custom want to open it. I told Fedex that it would drop the value in 2, and they say that if custom want to open a portret, they can, and there is notting a shipper can do.
So to be 100% sure, you have to deliver it then, and hope at custom at airport lissen to reason, but also, at that point, they can open.
As too fault, I don’t see what seller could have done to prevent this, so buying international, is buyers option and risk, as TAX and Custom-fee, no one put that on buyer?
Can i ask, is the value 300$ sealed? and that is what you paid?
Yes that is what I paid.
Shitty situation for both parties. On eBay, the seller assumes the risk of items getting lost/damaged during shipment. I sold a $1k MTG card (now $3k lol) that got lost in transit, which I of course fully refunded the buyer on. Sure, it sucked, but that’s the risk you assume as the seller. It wasn’t my fault at all, but shit happens.
People saying the risk is on the buyer are incorrect. The seller should accept the return. The partial refund option also sounds reasonable. If I were the buyer in this situation, I would graciously accept that. If I were the seller in this situation, I would’ve already accepted the return.
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@ripguyfawkes DHL insurance will definitely not cover damage by customs, as it’s a different entity that they have 0 recourse over. The buyer would have to get compensation from customs directly but that is quite the procedure, at least over here in Europe.
The last time this happened to me I just took the hit, the seller did nothing wrong and it’s on me now to fight the local customs. I could of course just charge back on PayPal or my cc but I would have a very bad conscience doing this, so I just don’t.