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i sit her very disheartened tonight, you guys know I have just returned to watchmaking, and had purchased a 1560 off ebay that has been a real nightmare for me, well at Christmas I had been working on a tudor prince and I decide to sell it so that I could buy a timing machine and maybe one of those 10x to 300x work stations for  electronic soldering but I thought I could use it to really look in watches because of  my bad eyes,i had owned this watch since the 80's I recently sent the dial off for a refinish  and put on new hands crystal crown, gasket set , it only sold for 620.00 at auction so I really didn't make anything on it considering the labor,long story short the buyer stated the item wasn't as described , ( I put a very detailed description) and asked to ship it back after waiting until from decemebr 14 to jan 5th to respond , by then I had moved the money out of ebay and made some purchases. I told him I was sorry but my auction clearly stated "no returns"he opened a case and ebay allowed him to ship me back the watch and overdrafted my paypal acct, guess what ? when the package arrived back there was absolutely NOTHING in the box. I went to ebay , they said there was nothing they could do,. I have spent no less than 5 conversations with ebay over this ,. I went to the post office, they want no part of it, and I went to the police who said it was a cival matter., I had over 270 transactions with ebay , a100% seller score all positive feedback, I DONT know how to  tell you to be careful on ebay,if you sell something, I really thought I was on to a small comeback in my life and a new avenue to make a living, now I amout the watch and 620.00 . SORRY guys I just had to tell someone, my wife is so upset for me. . I don't know what to say just don't trust ebay they will agree with you then turn on you,

TUDORNOV4 006.JPG

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I'm so sorry to hear this, and sadly it's not the first time I have rear the horror with dealing with eBay as a seller.  I stopped selling on there a few years ago as I, like you lost a lot of money.  Lesson learned, I only buy from there now.

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That is an absolutely awful story.  I've had some poor experiences selling on eBay as well which is why I primarily buy and not sell on the site now but I'll have a few watches to move soon so your story has certainly raised my eyebrows.  I do appreciate you sharing.

 

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Ouch, that hurts.

I have never lost out on selling on ebay, but had heard horror stories like this too many times before, which is why I stopped selling on ebay 3 or 4 years ago.

For specialist items I sell them via forums that allow you to sell items, or Gumtree which is also owned by ebay, but sell as local pickup cash only. Yes that might mean I don't get as much as I would selling by ebay, but after ebay and paypal fees have taken their 20% I'm generally no worse off selling for cash locally.

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I have had a few issues with Paypal over the years but I have never come across "over drafting"  I am still not sure what it is. I have had buyers claim that they did not receive the item However because I sent the items by to be "signed for" I won the cases because I had proof of delivery. In this case the buyer claims the item was not as described. Therefore the seller has to either prove to eBay that the item was exactly as described or offer a full re-fund ON RETURN OF THE ITEM. If the seller receives nothing then there should be no re-fund. 

An important point to be made is trading on eBay still carries the same trading regulations as all other traders in the UK have to abide by.
I have seen many times NO RETURNS by sellers and I personally avoid them. Why ?  because it raises suspicions about the item being sold and a absolute NO RETURNS is against the UK trading standards act. As I understand it, you can have a returns policy but you can not impose a absolutely NO returns.
See below for the UK rules & what return guide policy you can offer your customers. If eBay has a fault is it allows sellers to suggest they can have an absolutely NO RETURNS policy. 

https://www.businesscompanion.info/en/quick-guides/goods/returns-policies#WhatcanIsayinmyreturnspolicy

https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds

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I have said that before and I'll say it again. I could cite hundreds of forum threads and scam stories like this. I wish that people that sells items of some value would read the Internet before starting selling on ebay with PayPal. And I'm also a bit disheartened that (as in this case) people still confuses Ebay and PayPal, which are co-operating but separate companies, Ebay does not handle money, only PayPal does, and PayPal always have the last decision, unless you want to take them to court of course.

If you can't take the risk, the item is valuable, etc, do not sell on Ebay and only use non-reversible methods of payments.

  • Even if you set a NO RETURNS policy, PayPal will accept a dispute for non conforming item.
  • Even if you film packaging, security seal and ship signed for, if a fraudulent buyer claims no items in box, you will lose the dispute.
  • If the buyer falsely returns the item, you will lose.
  • Even if the buyer looses the dispute, he can still file a chargeback with the C/C, and you will lose.

All that while you pay a total of 15% fees for having virtually zero protection as a seller. Go read the fine print if you don't believe me. 

Remember, the entire concept of C/C issuer/merchant relations is about keeping chargebacks below 1 - 1.5% of the total, and there are to help merchants achieve that. But if you are an individual, low volume seller, all it takes is a single large loss to be done and busted for a long time.

By now the scammers have now learned that is far easier to exploit the buyer protection and defraud honest sellers.

Edited by jdm
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What jdm says is 100% true. Had some issues with paypal in the pas,t, I only buy now in eBay and sell on my shop, where I give 100% guarantee of full refund if something is wrong with the product, but only on receipt of the watch and my inspection. And even though I accept paypal as payment, I prefer always bank money transfer. Plus, I don't see why I should pay as seller so high commissions to paypal....

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I cant see why the police would say it is a civil matter theft is theft whether done over the internet or in person. I'm afraid dealing with paypal when a dispute arises is like banging your head against a wall, they will stick rigidly to the rules which are easily exploited by criminals. You could provide information on the watch do you have serial numbers and model number what is the username of the person you sold it to on Ebay so we can all avoid them and keep an eye out for your watch who ever took it will probably try to re-sell the item.

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31 minutes ago, wls1971 said:

I cant see why the police would say it is a civil matter theft is theft whether done over the internet or in person.

Theft is something and fraud is another, generally the latter is harder to prove. Typically the police only starts investigating after numerous complains again the same individual, and is slow to act. When you accuse someone to have deliberately not placed an item in shipping for a sale or return, that is virtually impossible to prove. And if you accuse someone and can't prove it, you risk to be prosecuted for slander, which is a serious crime too. In practice the only safeguard is to avoid any risk situation, and Ebay+PayPal+valuable item+unknown buyer builds this negative equation perfectly. Sharing usernames on forums is also of little value, there are millions of items, thousands of scammers, and no central database.

Edited by jdm
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Slander is not a crime that is a civil matter, but there is nothing to stop the original poster giving the serial numbers of the watch and if anyone spots it he can be informed as to the seller and decide how to act from there.

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I've just recently been scammed.  It was an internet transaction (not EBay) leaving me €1300 put of pocket.  It's too long a story to give all the details, but the scammer even used a very well produced website  purporting to be the carrier that allowed me to track the non existent goods.

Be carefull people!

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I must say I have sold many items on the Bay with no problems, perhaps I have been lucky. Some of you guys say you sell via your shops are they online shops & if so how are you setting them up. Just that after reading all this negative posts I am getting a bit twitchy about selling on the Bay in future. 

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Sorry you've been put through all this, makes you wonder how some people can be so nasty.

It reminds DS e of a very similar post on another forum I saw in the last year or so, same story as yours it seams , when the post arrives he thought there was something wrong with the size and weight of the parcel , so he did inside get the scales , weighed it in front of the  postman to find that the parcel weight was different, he was lucky eBay sided with him.

It's a shame that you are not allowed to just as and shame him/her.

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16 hours ago, wls1971 said:

Slander is not a crime that is a civil matter, but there is nothing to stop the original poster giving the serial numbers of the watch and if anyone spots it he can be informed as to the seller and decide how to act from there.

In my country slander is a crime when the statement is an official one, e.g. accusations in a police report. So one has to be very careful. That is, different from defamation.
We can share all the details but in the end the world is not a small village.

 

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well  had 270 great auctions ,NO returns and 100% positive feedback I thought honesty and a great record would help me on this ebay case I've been very honest with my discriptions and very thorough. this seems to be the new scam on ebay, they changed something on how they verify  discriptions, and they allow the buyer to return and key ONLY on when the post office says it has been signed for they send an empty box keep your item and get their money back, my opinion I Ebay should not state its alright to have no returns in USA  but they were going to take my watch is my guess anyway,, I don't think I am going to get over this its just too much for me, I hate to sound like a big wuss but I am very heart broken over that watch I was very attached to it, it was hard enough to sell and now this,  guess I get too attached to my stuff especially watches I love them so, anyway ill shut up now.thanks for listening and the imput

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guess I get too attached to my stuff especially watches I love them so, anyway ill shut up now

What you can do us to file a postal and/or police report about the package arrived empty. Call PayPal (not ebay) and ask for a case reconsideration submitting said report. That can be only done only over the phone. If they still side with the buyer your only next step is with a lawyer against PayPal.
BTW I think one should not ever be attached to material objects. Said by someone that has lost a very big value in them, in multiple cases.
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That's a good point JDM it has reminded me of when I actually did this. Last year I purchased tool from a well known supplier & it never arrived. I contacted the supplier several times but no response. I contacted PayPal via telephone and the very next day I received a full refund from the supplier with I might add no explanation or apologies 

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11 minutes ago, clockboy said:

I contacted PayPal via telephone and the very next day I received a full refund from the supplier with I might add no explanation or apologies 

When you have a problem with something paid with PayPal, the initial case can be opened online very easily, it takes seconds and does not need have any evidence unless you want to. Only if the seller doesn't respond or agrees solution it is then escalated to PayPal. And only if the dispute is decided against you, you need to call for a reconsideration.

Edited by jdm
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  • 2 months later...
On 1/21/2017 at 8:18 AM, wls1971 said:

I cant see why the police would say it is a civil matter theft is theft whether done over the internet or in person.

Because the local police are over a barrel, they don't have either the tools or resources to really do anything in a another jurisdiction, so they they refer you outside their realm to the civil courts knowing that it would cost well over what the item is worth, but they can say that at least they have provided a legitimate avenue.

Its basically lip service.

The credit card avenue is actually a good idea, it depends on the credit card though.  

My sympathies to you rob1crazydude

     

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