eBay Selling - Be Careful Out There

[Shinus73]

I’m a long time seller on eBay, almost 20 years. First few years buying and selling vinyl and the last 12 years or so, the same thing with coins.

Never been on the end of an attempted sting until very recently, but it’s happened twice in the last month.

First occasion, a £5,000 coin took the interest of a buyer in Japan. However, as the Global Shipping Program no longer ships to Japan, and I am unwilling to take the risk of shipping overseas independently, the sale could not proceed.

The interested party then informed me that they have an address in the UK and would I ship there. I agreed, as long as the address was first registered as an official eBay shipping address on his account. Once this had happened we processed with the sale.

Only at this stage did I realise that the address wasn’t on the UK mainland, but on Guernsey (my bad). This worried me a great deal, as it involved a customs declaration which I had wanted to avoid, but the item duly arrived after several days delay with the taxman.

Fast forward a week and the fun begins. I received a message from the buyer stating that although the item had arrived, the courier he had intended to use for the next leg to Japan, was no longer willing to carry the shipment, and they wanted to return the coin and have me send it to an alternative address.

This would have invalidated my eBay seller protection, so I ignored the message and waited for a refund request which never came.

My conclusion is that the buyer was simply chancing his arm in the hope that I was naïve enough to do as he asked. Eight weeks later, the buyer is still sending me messages with the same request, which I continue to ignore and will report when I find the time.

Second occasion, today, a buyer opened a refund request (£400) claiming the item had not arrived.

Alarm bells immediately rang for me, as this coin was shipped 13 days ago, one day before the 14 day returns period ends. Nobody waits 13 days to report a £400 coin that hasn’t arrived, when they know it’s been shipped Special Delivery.

The pertinent point here is that I had not completed the tracking details on eBay.

The buyer has waited as long as possible before opening the case, in the hope that I no longer have the tracking details and therefore, have no way to prove that the item was delivered.

Five minutes after uploading the tracking details complete with signature, the buyer sent me a message to say he’d made a mistake and had intended to open a case on a different item. Another chancer.

You have to understand the rules before selling anything of value on eBay. Be careful and always keep your tracking details.

 

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

Really great and informative post.

One of the biggest pitfalls that casual ebay sellers still seem to face is a lack of understanding that insurance, tracking, etc is there for their own protection - not the buyers protection. The buyers money is always safe and unless you do tick all the boxes, keep all posting records and the tracking then you do open yourself up to being scammed.

I've had a couple try it on in recent years though like your accounts here they weren't successful for the same reasons.

[James32]

Great advice. 

[Chorlton]

It is not uncommon for Japanese buyers to use a forwarding agent in the UK to provide a UK address. Due to this I now only ship to the UK for EBay and block out every other country stating UK buyer only. Since then I have not come across this again. Your experience sounds different to this.

[Tn21]

How long would you recommend keeping the tracking details and receipts of postage for ?

[ArgentSmith]

3 minutes ago, Tn21 said:

How long would you recommend keeping the tracking details and receipts of postage for ?

You could just upload them when dispatched.

[Shinus73]

3 minutes ago, Tn21 said:

How long would you recommend keeping the tracking details and receipts of postage for ?

In theory, you should only have to keep them for the length of the returns period, which is usually 14 days, but I keep mine for 3 months minimum, just to ensure that any possibility of an issue has disappeared.

I generally throw them in my drawer and forget about them for a good while, before having a clear out every now and then.

[Shinus73]

2 minutes ago, ArgentSmith said:

You could just upload them when dispatched.

That’s certainly fine for eBay, but if you end up having to claim compensation from Royal Mail, you’ll be glad you still have the receipt.

[sovereignsteve]

10 minutes ago, Tn21 said:

How long would you recommend keeping the tracking details and receipts of postage for ?

 

4 minutes ago, Shinus73 said:

I generally throw them in my drawer and forget about them for a good while, before having a clear out every now and then.

I do something silmilar except I never throw any away! Must be some in there almost 10 years old.

[blackadder]

2 hours ago, Shinus73 said:

This would have invalidated my eBay seller protection

You mean the ebay side with the scammer everytime protection lol Whenever i sell anything i stick to uk only and always keep the postage receipts for months.

 

[ArgentSmith]

4 minutes ago, Shinus73 said:

That’s certainly fine for eBay, but if you end up having to claim compensation from Royal Mail, you’ll be glad you still have the receipt.

If the item is actually undelivered I would not look forward to trying to get compensation from Royal Mail. In reality they only pay out if you have a receipt for the item YOU purchased. What you have sold the item for is irrelevant according to Royal Mail. This is only my experience.

[Shinus73]

Just now, ArgentSmith said:

If the item is actually undelivered I would not look forward to trying to get compensation from Royal Mail. In reality they only pay out if you have a receipt for the item YOU purchased. What you have sold the item for is irrelevant according to Royal Mail. This is only my experience.

True.

I did successfully claim once, but this was many years ago and I suspect that I might not get the same outcome now.

Another claim I made led to the return of a coin months after it had disappeared. It turned up in a sorting office in Germany, where it had been mistakenly sent instead of Greece. 😁

[Gordy]

20 minutes ago, Tn21 said:

How long would you recommend keeping the tracking details and receipts of postage for ?

I now use the royal mail site to buy direct and print off the label and then you get an email confirmation with all the details on, it then goes into a royal mail folder in my gmail account and even if my PC goes t!ts up i can still access it all through my gmail

[sovereignsteve]

13 minutes ago, ArgentSmith said:

If the item is actually undelivered I would not look forward to trying to get compensation from Royal Mail. In reality they only pay out if you have a receipt for the item YOU purchased. What you have sold the item for is irrelevant according to Royal Mail. This is only my experience.

Do they still ask you for the Ebay item number when you make a claim? I never actually had to do so but I assume it was so they could get proof of value?

[ArgentSmith]

6 minutes ago, sovereignsteve said:

Do they still ask you for the Ebay item number when you make a claim? I never actually had to do so but I assume it was so they could get proof of value?

From memory a couple of years ago they wanted a purchase receipt, specifically discounted online auction as proof of value. However this "was I believe"  for a signed for item not SD.  I would assume SD would be the same though?

[Foster88]

This is great advice and for reasons you state and other reasons is why I no longer sell via eBay.

Only early this year I had a customer claim he hadn’t received his order, tracking details were provided to eBay and they looked in his favour. He got a refund and I lost £120.

Ebay will never support you if you choose to sell with them.

[GoldDiggerDave]

I would not even sell a BUNC 50p on eBay, you just open yourself up to the biggest set of time wasting scrotbags on the planet.  I just don't need these people in my life for a few quid profit.

[paulmerton]

7 hours ago, Foster88 said:

This is great advice and for reasons you state and other reasons is why I no longer sell via eBay.

Only early this year I had a customer claim he hadn’t received his order, tracking details were provided to eBay and they looked in his favour. He got a refund and I lost £120.

Ebay will never support you if you choose to sell with them.

That's not what I would have expected. Did the tracking not show what they wanted?

When I had a buyer open an "item not received" case, I was suspicious because the tracking showed it had been delivered the day before and it just felt a bit too soon to be making a claim. I left it for a week and eBay closed it in my favour because the tracking number I had uploaded showed that it had been delivered.

Unless eBay also refunded the buyer without telling me, I assume it was a proper scam attempt, as the buyer never made contact again and I noticed their account was closed a few weeks later 

[chasetyre]

I have also been buying & selling on ebay for 15 years and last month had my first proper scam.

Not sold anything for a while as you hear so much scammer going on, and I also can't be bothered with all the grief for a couple of pounds profit.

I bought a 2020 silver proof, the pictures were just copied from the RM, but I thought as it's a new coin there wouldn't be any problems.

The coin was too cheap and I should have known better, but I bought it anyway.

When it arrived it looked like somebody had made a very bad attempt at cleaning it, so I started a return as not described thinking the seller may not have realised the coin was marked.

He replied  that was not the coin he had sent me and I was a scammer, thankfully I have been on ebay for a long time and have got a lot of all positive feed back, where he had only been a member for a year or so. So ebay found in my favour, but it was a lot of grief waiting for them to sort it out.

So no more buying from people with small feedback and have not been member for a long time.

Rather takes the fun out of trying to get a bargain, so I will not be buying much if any from now on.

[watchesandwhisky]

This is precisely why i tend to sell here, and sell cheaper than ebay - Yes i could get more on ebay but i cant be doing with the drama.

[Pete]

Thank you for sharing your experience as very informative and useful to everyone thinking about selling on eBay.
I keep postal receipts for at least 3 months because you never know if someone wants to chance their arm.
I also use the eBay postage platform that automatically records tracking etc and uploads to the item.
If I use an SD through the RM I ensure I upload the tracking number the same day.

During the worst of Covid when the Royal Mail self certified tracked deliveries this period was wide open for scammers.
Perhaps 30% maybe more of packages never showed as being delivered on the Royal Mail Tracking website.
Until there if definitive proof of delivery the seller is fully exposed against a claim for non delivery regardless of your postal receipt.
I found this hard to swallow but those are the rules of eBay - proof of postage is not proof of receipt when it comes to claims.

I did have a moment when a buyer of a kilo silver coin, sent SD, claimed it hadn't been delivered and the Royal Mail hadn't recorded a signature due to Covid.
Turns out it had been handed to a neighbour in the garden who hadn't let the buyer know.
In this instant the local friendly postie hadn't followed protocol by leaving a card at the destination address to inform the buyer that the item was with a neighbour.
In such situations the buyer can get extremely aggressive and make all sorts of accusations before having to crawl back into their shell.

As for your Japanese buyer, once you have shipped to the address they stated then any further requests are their problem and I wouldn't get involved since you have completed the contract and can prove so.

[arphethean]

I am just having this situation. Posted 4 items in one package to the buyer by Special Delivery. Tracking shows the parcel was delivered, and signed "COV" which may have something to do with Covid? The buyer has raised an "item not received" claim. I have the receipt showing the item was sent at the post office, and a photo of the parcel in the post office with the tracking number showing clearly.

I'm nervous as if eBay decides in the buyers' favour I could lose over £350.

I'm not sure what I can do to protect myself against this situation.

[paulmerton]

1 minute ago, arphethean said:

I am just having this situation. Posted 4 items in one package to the buyer by Special Delivery. Tracking shows the parcel was delivered, and signed "COV" which may have something to do with Covid? The buyer has raised an "item not received" claim. I have the receipt showing the item was sent at the post office, and a photo of the parcel in the post office with the tracking number showing clearly.

I'm nervous as if eBay decides in the buyers' favour I could lose over £350.

I'm not sure what I can do to protect myself against this situation.

eBay should side with you if you added a tracking number which now shows that it was delivered. I don't think the COV signatures make any difference as I had this happen with a parcel that didn't even need a signature.

[James32]

1 minute ago, arphethean said:

I am just having this situation. Posted 4 items in one package to the buyer by Special Delivery. Tracking shows the parcel was delivered, and signed "COV" which may have something to do with Covid? The buyer has raised an "item not received" claim. I have the receipt showing the item was sent at the post office, and a photo of the parcel in the post office with the tracking number showing clearly.

I'm nervous as if eBay decides in the buyers' favour I could lose over £350.

I'm not sure what I can do to protect myself against this situation.

That's an absolute sickening thing to hear!!

I'm not really sure Ebay will protect you at all but if you chase royal mail then they should investigate right down to which postie has that specific route and hopefully you may receive a message from buyer out of the blue to say (oh my mistake it turned up after all)

Whilst no signature was recorded I'm sure the postmen are required to scan the parcel at said address?

[watchesandwhisky]

44 minutes ago, arphethean said:

I am just having this situation. Posted 4 items in one package to the buyer by Special Delivery. Tracking shows the parcel was delivered, and signed "COV" which may have something to do with Covid? The buyer has raised an "item not received" claim. I have the receipt showing the item was sent at the post office, and a photo of the parcel in the post office with the tracking number showing clearly.

I'm nervous as if eBay decides in the buyers' favour I could lose over £350.

I'm not sure what I can do to protect myself against this situation.

If your tracking shows as signed for I believe you should be good mate, pretty sure I had this in the past - as long as tracking is uploaded and showing signed for then you should be covered under ebay seller protection.