eBay: Fool me once …

I’ve been a member of eBay since June 15th, 1998. In the past eight and a half years I’ve not had a single major problem with an eBay transaction. There have been little gripes to be sure — the occasional poor packager, slow shipper, and shipping overcharger — but I’ve never had an out and out bad transaction. Over the past week, I’ve had two.

I recently put 100 CDs up for sale on eBay. Out of those hundred, around half of them sold. In the past I’ve had a couple of deals in which I drug my feet when shipping items, but these days I’m very prompt. (In fact, most of my recent feedback comments mention “fast shipping.”) As each person paid I packaged his or her CD up and took it to the post office that same day. I am fortunate enough to work next door to the post office at the airport, who routinely deliver packages faster than any other post office around. And, they’re open 24 hours.

eBay has a relatively new service that will insert all the details about a movie or album into your auction automatically. It goes to reason that the seller is responsible for any information in his or her own ad, and I should have apparently paid more attention to the information going into the ads. Two weeks after all the CDs had arrived, I got an e-mail from one one seller claiming that the CD he received was not the same CD I had listed. When I looked at the ad, I realized what the problem was; the automated eBay information had said that I was selling a 2CD package, when in reality the version I was selling had both CDs on one actual disc. The songs and music were identical, but I guess the one I was selling was just a different release. I begrudgingly offered the buyer a refund. I can’t complain, especially if he is a collector and was looking for that particular release. He even offered to send me the disc back, which I thought was a nice gesture.

My other buyer, however, has been a problem from the beginning. For starters, he waited until one of my auctions ended, and then e-mailed me asking me to relist it so he could purchase it. Then, instead of a normal PayPal payment, he paid with an eCheck. It really makes no difference, except an eCheck has to clear, which means unless you want to take a chance of the check not clearing you have to wait for it to clear, which also means you can’t mail that particular CD with all the other CDs, which means another trip to the post office. Another flag was, the name on the eBay account and the name on the PayPal account were completely different. Doesn’t necessarily mean fraud, but it was just another red flag. I had a bad feeling about this guy from the beginning.

Of course, two weeks after all the other discs have arrived, this buyer claims to have not received his CD. It was shipped priority mail, which means it arrived there in 2 days, just like every other disc I mailed out. In the return emails I’ve received from the seller, he asked, “did you pay for tracking?” This is a secret code in the eBay/PayPal world. Let me explain it to you. Should a buyer file a complaint against a seller, the first thing that occurs is the seller is contacted and must show proof that he/she mailed the package. This is done by providing a tracking number, which is something extra that must be purchased. Without that proof, the claim is awarded to the buyer and the money is automatically taken out of your PayPal account and awarded to the buyer. In the event that you don’t have the money in your PayPal account, they will withdraw it from your bank account — and if you don’t have enough there, they’ll disable your account.

Without delivery confirmation and knowing the buyer had me over a barrel, I had no option but to refund his $14. All I sent back was a short note that said “Merry Christmas” and “thank you for teaching me a lesson about delivery confirmation.” The reason I wasn’t any ruder is because of the unlikely but slightly possible chance that the buyer actually did not receive the package. The only bright side here is that I learned the lesson for only a couple of bucks, instead of trying to sell something like, oh, a Playstation 3.