I just wanted to express my feelings on an event that happened to me during the last few days. Basically, I posted an auction on eBay selling a Blu-Ray disc player. The item was a new item I had and although it was opened, it still had all the accessories that were originally included. I listed the item as such, “New, opened-boxed with all accessories…” and I recieved a few bids on it. When the final bid came down and the auction ended, I packed up the item and shipped it off to it’s new owner.
Shortly thereafter, I received an email from him explaining that the box was missing it’s original packing materials and user manual. To explain a little back-story–I sell items coming directly out of a warehouse and I sometimes see hundreds of the same items which I turn around and sell. In the case of these Blu-Ray players, I was opening boxes to upgrade the firmware and perform product testing. In the case of the item at hand, I mistakenly threw the packing materials away (except the box) and it was brought to my attention that the user manual had gone with it. Yes, this was my mistake.
However, the unit was sold as an open-item and that it came with the included accessories (remote, power cable, video cables and HDMI cable). Before I get into the problem, I’ll remind you that as a buyer, you should always contact the seller before bidding to ensure that everything you think should be included, but not listed will be there.
Anyway, so the buyer sends me an email stating that the aforementioned items were missing. I explained to him how this happened and even advised him that the user manual could be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. I never recieved a response after this, but I did get a notice from PayPal stating that the buyer had issued an item dispute claiming that the item was incorrectly described and that it was missing parts. Missing parts?? Are you kidding me?!
While the dispute was still open and awaiting my response, PayPal decided to debit my account in the amount of the transaction to refund the buyer! So now I don’t have the money and I also don’t have the product. I sent in my response so they could investigate the issue and after reading my side of the story (which is basically what you read here), they decided in favor of the buyer and are requesting that he return the item while I refund his money. What’s the point of an investigation if you favor the buyer 99% of the time? What’s more alarming is that I have a valid case. Let’s look at the facts:
- I auctioned off an open-item disc player
- The listing described the item as such and fully listed the accessories that would be arriving in the box
- The winner of the auction did not email any questions before bidding
- The winner did not attempt to ask for a refund or inquire about any such remedy through myself
To top that off, eBay has changed their feedback rules to dis-allow all sellers from leaving anything but positive feedback to bidders, which basically translates into me having left positive feedback to this guy when he originally sent payment and he was allowed to post a negative comment to me stating incorrect information.
All I can say is that PayPal favors the buyer and so does eBay. If they continue to partake in this activity, they’re not going to have anymore sellers for the buyers to buy from.
Fuck you PayPal…
