After 4 years of doing business on eBay we finally got a charge back. I've heard hints & rumors of charge back horror stories, but we never experienced it.
On March 25th we sold an antique photo and shipped it off to New York. It wasn't expensive, the total cost, including shipping was $8.09. On April 15th, the person opened up a PayPal dispute claiming "unauthorized use of a credit card". It turns out that because of PayPal rules, we, as sellers, didn't have a leg to stand on, and we realized that fairly quickly. It also turns out that not only were we out our item, and the $8.09, but then PayPal charged us a $10.00 fee, to cover the fee that the credit card charged them. Insult to injury.
And looking around the discussion boards, it turns out that this person has been doing this to quite a few people, there are several threads about it, and at least once person mentioned her by name. Her feedback is private, so you cant see any comments, and but you can see that her account has over 200 purchases in the last month.
So one of two things happened. Perhaps her credit card was stolen, or perhaps it was used without her permission to buy a bunch of stuff. Perhaps her eBay account was compromised & a bunch of items purchased under her name without her knowledge. That's a lot of perhaps, but if that is the case I can understand her predicament, but it irritates me that we're left holding the bag. We did nothing dishonest.
The other possibility is that she is doing this intentionally, to a lot of sellers. That is the possibility I'm inclined to believe. Maybe she'll get away with it, or maybe she'll end up in some legal hot water. I'll never know, one way or the other.
We've sold thousands of items over the years, and the worst that has happened to us up to now is that every now and then someone decides not to pay. And that can be irritating, but in the grand scheme of things it's no biggie. But a charge back is not good.
Perhaps all I had to do was put delivery confirmation on the package. My understanding is for PayPal seller protection to kick in they require delivery confirmation on items less than $250 in value, and signature confirmation on items over $250. We hadn't been doing that for the lower priced items, but we may need to re-evaluate that.
Most buyers are honest - the vast majority. If you go into selling (or buying) on eBay thinking you're going to get cheated everytime you do anything, then you're going to have miserable experiences. But you also need to take reasonable precautions. And hope for the best.
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Being a misanthrope I would tend to believe this person is ripping off merchants. If you can rate sellers why not be able to rate buyers?
ReplyDeleteI can't be 100% certain either way. It looks mighty suspicious, but you never know for sure.
ReplyDeleteSellers used to be able to rate buyers via feedback, but now the only option is to leave a buyer positive feedback or no feedback at all. That seems to be almost universally unpopular with sellers. I don't really like it either, but in reality, it doesn't seem to make much difference. Describe things accurately, ship quickly, keep in communication & things seem to work out for the best.