ebay case

I recently sold a laptop and listed it as no hard drive.

Well the buyer received it, and instead of messaging me, he opened a case on me with ebay. Stating that I miss represented the item.

I had stated that it had no hard drive. His case is stating that it also has no hard drive caddy, connector, or cover for the hard drive.

For some reason, with this laptop, I did not take a picture of the bottom.

When it comes to laptops, I have always checked what size hard drive, ram, physical condition, and list as much detailed info and pictures as I can.

The guy put in his message, that he wants to know, how I want to handle the situation. The case amount is for $60. I can request for him to send it back for a full refund, which he may or may decline to do, and I refund the amount, minus shipping costs to him.

Or he may make a request for 50% return, which is ridiculous.

I have 32 feedbacks, and 100% score, and not really wanting to mess that up.

How would you all that deal in Ebay, handle this?

PS. In the listing, I did state that it was being sold as is.

well I would offer him a full refund if he returns the item .or nothing .ebay may side with you because you sied it had no hard drive

Depending upon the laptop, you can often get a caddy, connector and cover for about $4 or $5 at most. It might be worthwhile to buy them and have them shipped directly to him. That would end his case. If you post the model on here, someone is likely to have one if you do not want to buy one from ebay.

ebay will not side with you. They stick the seller every time.

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Originally Posted by ROKrecycling

Depending upon the laptop, you can often get a caddy, connector and cover for about $4 or $5 at most. It might be worthwhile to buy them and have them shipped directly to him. That would end his case. If you post the model on here, someone is likely to have one if you do not want to buy one from ebay.

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Another possibility, is to offer to do a partial refund for what it will cost him to buy the parts?

Send him back his money its a numbers game keep your high score

Partial refund can work for most cases...depends what you have invested in the item.

Ebay does not stick with the buyer every time. I have now won 2 cases that I decided to take all the way to ebay court. What I would do is offer him 2 choices. 1 either return it for a full refund. In this case he pays return shipping. That is ebay policy and he can not get a refund unless he ships it back. 2 offer a $10 partial refund for him to buy the part it is missing that you didnt describe and walk away. either way $60 isnt worth a negative feedback.

Ask him to help you and work with him .

Save your perfect score 100%.

That is what i do to keep may perfect record.

I hope it helps.

....and be prepared for more of this. as long as you sell distressed merchandise, this will happen. people are reading these listings on tiny phones, and they see what they want to see.

one way you could help your cause in future cases would be to list this kind of junk in "Computer Components and Parts".

If you listed in "Laptops & Netbooks" and it is not a complete unit, you're trolling for problems. Even if you list it "As Is/Not Working" you are going to have troubled transactions. If you want to list this type of thing in "Laptops & Netbooks" you would have to headline "As Is/Not Working/Incomplete" and state "hard drive missing, other parts missing. This is sold as-is, where-is and is considered to have scrap or minimal parts value only." And then you would eliminate more of these problems.

It all comes back to selling distressed merchandise. You're catering to ultra lowball buyers. In any given category, a lowball buyer is probably a hungry hobbyist, and they'll have significantly more expertise on the item than you do. If your listing misses anything, they bite.

I would just hit the refund button on paypal and be done with it.

I gave him a few options.

1. Send the laptop back for a full refund minus shipping.

2. Keep the laptop and I refund the amount needed for the missing parts.

3. Send the laptop back, and I send him a different laptop.

4. Keep the laptop, no refunds, and 30% off his next purchase with me.

i would refund it and hope he ships it back, they can bypass ebay all together and do a paypal claim or credit card chargeback, basically anyone can return an item for anything at anytime and there is nothing you can do about it. This is why i try to take a $1000 lot and break them down into 10 $100 lots, it cuts the risk. I wouldnt worry since its just a scrap laptop, id just refund it and hope they return it, if they dont theres no real loss there. Your probably gonna get bad feedback regardless due to the sheer stupidity of the buyer.

JGhilino thinks You cant fix stupid, not even with duct tape

George, I like you and hate to call you out on it, but you did misrepresent the item(though not intentionally). When someone files a case ALWAYS tell them to send it back for a refund.

I have had 3 or 4 claims for "not as described". Every time I told the buyer to return it, and I would refund it. Then Ebay would give them a certain amount of time to send it back(I think 10 days). I won every case, because none of them ever sent anything back to me.

If you get the laptop back and refund the payment, he will not be able to leave feedback.

feedback is only blocked on unpaid items, you will get feedback on a return

Hey George,
I spent 8 years straight dealing with all the problems that can possibly occur with ebay.
I promise you , you ain't seen nothin yet.
You need to spend a few weeks just trying to sort through all the rules and then you will start to realize that the only a$$ they cover is their own.
My friends have combined seller feedback in the millions and even most of them threw in their hats as ebay improved itself to death.
The wisest sellers and most experience old sellers will tell you that their first rule is:
Never list anything that you can't afford to and aren't willing to give away.
I do still know a few niche sellers who do ok but they have resigned themselves to losing a fair percentage to to the professional predators that plague the site.
I just laughed a couple weeks ago when I got an email from ebay begging me to back them up on some interstate tax law being passed.
I still have 7 active ebay IDs but I only use them to make occasional purchases by USPS Money Order or cash after extensive communications , I dumped Pay Pal as soon as I got wind that ebay was buying them out.
Wait till you get a returned item with DC being a box of sand or rocks and see if you can get the money back after accepting the package.
Good luck

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Originally Posted by AuburnEwaste

George, I like you and hate to call you out on it, but you did misrepresent the item(though not intentionally). When someone files a case ALWAYS tell them to send it back for a refund.

I have had 3 or 4 claims for "not as described". Every time I told the buyer to return it, and I would refund it. Then Ebay would give them a certain amount of time to send it back(I think 10 days). I won every case, because none of them ever sent anything back to me.

If you get the laptop back and refund the payment, he will not be able to leave feedback.

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As I explained to the buyer, that I take pictures of the laptops opened, closed, top, and bottom and note everything I know of the laptop. For some odd, unlucky reason, I didnt take a picture of the bottom of this particular one.

So far, I have not heard anything back from him.

If he refuses to resend it back to me, he wont get a dime from me. I disconnected all bank accounts from paypal the moment I got their debit card in the mail.

Now, when I get money, I go straight to an ATM and withdraw the funds.

My paypal has a $0 balance, and that is because I refused to be ripped off by anyone.

If he does sent it back, or agree to another one of my options, I can easily send him the money. That is not an issue.

Only thing I use paypal.com for, is strictly ebay sales, and it is no problem just creating another account with either.

He sounded very genuine and polite in his email to me.

I am sure, it will all work out for the best, for the 2 of us, and if not, no big deal.

Just wanted to see what everyone has done in these situations.

Only thing I really resell on ebay, is scrap laptops anyway, and I can easily find a few local buyers for them, but I like the excitement to see how much they go for really.

You can take your bank account off? I have the paypal business debit as well and did not think you could do that.

I had two cases like this and one where USPS took forever to get it to the customer. I have 3 negative feedback. The one I got a blackberry for scrap that worked. I guess the client didn't know it was in with the other cellphones. Took the sim card out and posted it on ebay. It was pretty roughed up meaning scratched on the bottom paint chipped off a bit. But it worked fine, I said As is, No Sim card. The guy who buys it Negs me, opens a case demanding a refund saying he wants his money back cause it doesn't come with a sim card..
He obviously didn't read the auction cause he has 4 feedback, and he keeps on insisting that I should refund him. I don't even think he understands english that well because his name is Indonesian decent. I'm hoping ebay actually sides with me on this one.

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Originally Posted by jghilino

i would refund it and hope he ships it back, they can bypass ebay all together and do a paypal claim or credit card chargeback, basically anyone can return an item for anything at anytime and there is nothing you can do about it. This is why i try to take a $1000 lot and break them down into 10 $100 lots, it cuts the risk. I wouldnt worry since its just a scrap laptop, id just refund it and hope they return it, if they dont theres no real loss there. Your probably gonna get bad feedback regardless due to the sheer stupidity of the buyer.

JGhilino thinks You cant fix stupid, not even with duct tape

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This isnt true. I won my last paypal case as well. I did get lucky though. The person didnt even open an ebay case just did a paypal case saying item wasnt as described. It was a laptop too. Was one I had loaded xp onto and sold as a complete working unit. Well as luck would have it he tryed to install some software on it then it crashed and because I didnt include the disk with the system he wanted a refund for not having the OS software. I eneded up winning that paypal case because it worked till he altered it with software. So they dont always side with the seller. The cases I have decided to fight so far have gone in my favor. I do however refund more than I would like to just to avoid the headache. Cost of doing business on ebay.

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Originally Posted by AuburnEwaste

You can take your bank account off? I have the paypal business debit as well and did not think you could do that.

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yup as long as you owe nothing.

After a week, the buyer responded saying he would either take option 2 (I refund him enough to buy the missing components), or option 4 (give him 30% off his next purchase).

Either way, I am totally cool with it. Told him to let me know which way.