posted on March 24, 2010 05:22:37 PM new
I just filed a complaint to the Attorney General's office in the state of Oregon. Here is the text in the complaint. I encourage any and all of you that have been affected by eBay policies to do the same in your own state.
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Type of Sale: Internet
Details:
I am writing in hopes that an investigation into the dispute process and practices of eBay will be opened. eBay is a marketplace that allows sellers to sell items and buyers to buy items, much like classifieds or Craigslist. eBay uses a dispute process that is unfair to Sellers in that it assumes that Buyers are always correct when they file claims that the Item is Not As Described.
Even though sellers state clearly the return policies in their listings, eBay plays judge and jury in the dispute process without any factual information to lead to eBays final decision, which most always is in favor of the buyer.
All a buyer has to claim is that the item is Not As Described. Upon this declaration by a buyer and request for a full refund including shipping costs, eBay will rule in the buyers favor. Many buyers are aware of these circumstances and use it as a loophole to get out an agreement with the seller and the terms clearly stated by the seller that the buyer enters into when they place a bid on an item.
I was directly affected by these practices by eBay recently. I had a buyer in California who purchased a brand new sealed digital camera from me. My policies state that the buyer can return the item for exchange within 3 days of receiving the item. 10 days after receiving the item, they claimed the camera did not work properly. Even though the return policy was over, I was willing to exchange it for the buyer at his cost for shipping. He refused the exchange and filed a complaint with eBay claiming that the camera was Not As Described. Ebay automatically ruled in the Buyers favor in this case with no input from me regarding the matter. Ebay took less than one day to make this decision. Ebay failed to review my return/exchange policy and instead told the buyer to return the item to me for a full refund (from my account) including shipping costs I incurred to ship it to him. Today, 3/24/2010 I received the item back. It was obviously not the item that I mailed to the buyer. The camera he returned was obviously quite old, used and damaged. To make matters worse, the plastic plate that the serial number is attached to was obviously changed to show the serial number of the camera I sent to this buyer. This plate is cracked from over tightening the screws when it was reattached. I immediately contacted eBay regarding this and spoke with eBay rep Rachelle 3/24/2010 who requested photographs of the item returned. I have supplied these photographs already and can provide them to anyone at your office that may request them. I also contacted the Portland Police Bureau and Officer XXXX opened case #10-XXXXX. I also contacted the United States Post Office and filed a fraud complaint against this buyer.
I am asking that the Attorney General investigate the dispute process and policies of eBay regarding decisions made in matters like this. eBay claims that they have no way of reviewing these disputes, and if a buyer claims it is not as described and requests a refund, eBay will certainly grant this to them. eBay is not the seller, nor the buyer.
They are simply a marketplace where people can advertise items for sale and people can buy them. Ebay makes money on transaction fees from the seller. Ebay does not actually sell any of the products listed on their website and disputes and returns between a buyer and seller should be handled by these parties. Companies like the Oregonian, Nickel Ads, Craigslist, etc do not handle disputes between parties in transactions. Ebay shouldnt be making decisions/dispute rulings without any facts before them. I ask the Attorney General to further investigate these practices and follow up regarding this matter. Sincerely, xxx
posted on March 24, 2010 05:37:40 PM new
That is a great letter.
merrie should write a similar letter to the Attorney General of her state. The recent incident that she had is similar.
This letter should be limited to those who had refunds issued by PayPal or eBay, as they are the only ones who were damaged by the actions of PayPal, and/or ebay.
posted on March 24, 2010 05:54:23 PM new
I would most definitely focus on eBay's dispute process and how eBay makes decisions based on their own interests... the public perception of eBay, not on the facts.
there is a place for these disputes and fraud claims... the court and legal system which we have established in this country.
the fact that a seller can be wronged for doing everything in their power to do things right and nothing more than the word of a buyer is all it takes to turn that upside down is what is up for debate here. the process if flawed, eBay knows it and they refuse to do anything to close this loophole. they know full well that this allows for a very clear path towards fraud.
posted on March 24, 2010 05:56:37 PM new
No, I don't intend to either. For one thing, when I threatened such action before eBay's representative stated, "if you are discussing legal action, we must terminate this call."
eBay seems to think filing a complaint is legal action. they need to find out the hard way... from an investigation being opened.
what ebay knows is that I have opened a case with the police department and I am opening one with the fraud department at the post office. other than that, eBay could care less.
posted on March 24, 2010 05:58:23 PM new
i should add... if anyone wants to cut and paste any part of that message i sent to the attorney generals office, i have absolutely no problem with them doing so. obviously, frame it so that it applies to your own dispute.
posted on March 24, 2010 06:04:19 PM new
Thank you, shagmidmod. I have copied your letter and have saved it for possible future use. I know it's only a matter of time.
posted on March 24, 2010 08:18:29 PM new
As long as Ebay allows anyone every one to sell,then seasoned sellers like yourself with good merchandise and honest description are lumped and treated like the others ,others who hide the flaw in the photo,others who ship item in ant infested pizza box,sanitary napkin box or wrapped in worn Walmart shopping bag,with cockroach,dirty hair,mold and mildew odor .
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on March 25, 2010 03:18:45 AM new
Great letter. I will save it as well for when my time comes.
I can't think of one single thing that we as sellers can do to protect ourselves in a case like yours and the one that Merrie just had.
posted on March 25, 2010 05:11:44 AM new
Good letter shagmidmod. I'm sure that the Attorney General will send Ebay a copy.
But unfortunately, since Ebay sellers are not organized into an effective trade association or union with financial clout, I doubt that a change of Ebay policy will result.
posted on March 25, 2010 06:00:50 AM new
Since we are now living in a Totalitarian state,why not make all Ebay sellers register with the police to show our true identity including gender,honesty,integrity and oh,a union membership card will sure put us ahead of the crowd!
If there is no local police station,report to your local KGB or Gestapo.
If you are in a Soviet style gulag,the postmaster will do just fine!
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on March 25, 2010 06:31:55 AM new
PS hwahwa: I have NEVER in 12 years + on Ebay had items sent to me in pizza boxes, bug infested, etc. Again, I must be very LUCKY!!
posted on March 25, 2010 08:57:29 AM new
hwa- If you want to add tea party rants about the government into your colorful comments, do so in the RT forum. This is not the place for it.
posted on March 25, 2010 09:00:57 AM new
Get this... I get an email this morning from eBay stating the following:
This case was automatically closed on Mar 25, 2010. The buyer was required to submit information regarding this case, but we didn't hear back. The buyer will not be issued a refund.
As we should all be aware of... this will not be the end of the case. You can bet the buyer will be contacting ebay and attempting to submit the information required.
I'm calling the police department in the deadbeats town regarding this.
posted on March 25, 2010 09:32:28 AM new
This may be OT,but it shows what people can do -
once a retired dealer asked me to sell some character watches on Ebay,the winning bidders complained these watches are missing parts or have no parts at all .
It turned out that before I showed up,she has consigned these watches to some retail stores!
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on March 25, 2010 09:38:09 AM new
hwahwa - in many cities, or other jurisdictions, anyone conducting business over the internet from their homes, must register and obtain a business licence.
Now, not everyone does that, so as to avoid payment of sales, and income tax. Personally, I believe such registration would be good public policy.
posted on March 25, 2010 10:25:45 AM new
in portland, we are required to have a business license if sales (not profits) are above $24,000 a year. There are additional licenses for certain types of sales including watches, firearms, jewelry, gold, appliances, etc.
yes, there is definitely some regulations needed for sellers. I have been selling on eBay for over 10 years. I do my best to follow every single rule so that I don't misstep and cost myself money.
the problem with the INAD policy is that sellers have no way to protect themselves against it. we can be the best seller in the world. we could sell mint, uncirculated nickels that are drop shipped directly from the US Mint and still get someone to claim "item not as described" and we will be forced to accept a return and provide a full refund without any factual formal review.
the INAD dispute process is nothing more than a formality eBay created to make it look like they are doing something.
why hide it? because ebay knows if they force sellers to state in the listings that they offer FULL refunds including shipping, many sellers will walk away from the deal and ebay will lose money. instead, they create a false sense of security for sellers, giving the sellers "required" tools to provide return policy options in the listings.
to make matters worse, we have reports from sellers who have had buyers lose cases (obvious buyers remorse), only to turn to the INAD option and win. we also have sellers like libertywatches claiming that buyers are opening INADS or filing chargebacks with claims that they didn't receive items or even claiming one item in the package was missing. how does a seller prove otherwise? i'm not siding with sellers here, because I know there are bad sellers around. just see the thread "SOME SELLERS". Some sellers bring it upon themselves with these problems.
the fact that eBay has no fact based review process for these claims makes my point to the Attorney General simple. eBay is not equipped to make decisions that affect sellers and/or buyers and shouldn't be part of the dispute process. we may see eBay go back to 3rd party mediators... which in essence is a cover-up for eBay. we see how well this works in the auto insurance claims industry with "Independent" Medical Examiners.
[ edited by shagmidmod on Mar 25, 2010 10:26 AM ]
[ edited by shagmidmod on Mar 25, 2010 10:28 AM ]
posted on March 25, 2010 10:47:17 AM new
I was reading the EBay Discussion Boards last night and came across a case very similiar to yours. In that Sellers case they said that EBay found in the Buyers favour in 20 minutes!
They were also advocating contacting Government Agencies regarding the prctice of EBay as the 'middleman'.
It was late and I don't have a link to the story but it would have been either on the Stores Board or seller Central.
posted on March 25, 2010 10:59:04 AM new
If a buyer lost on INAD dispute,he can always give you a neg and to keep an Ebay premium or higher store,seller cannot have more than a certain percentage of INAD 1 and 2 ratings.
*
There is no 'Global savings glut',only wild horses and loose bankers.
posted on March 25, 2010 12:00:22 PM new
i wouldn't want to assume anything, but i did have a transaction last fall that involved a buyer who didn't pay for their item. i did the required dispute process. buyer didn't respond. i closed the dispute, eBay issued the warning against the buyer.
buyer called ebay, requested they remove the npb warning. when i called eBay regarding this, the response i got was that eBay will do what "is in the best interest of the community" and that one bad transaction shouldn't result in a buyer receiving a warning. when I asked the eBay CSR about the affects of that one warning, he replied that there wouldn't be any affects for just one transaction. I pointed out the flaw in his argument that the point of the warning system is to keep "repeat" non-paying bidders from continuing their trend of ruining auctions which is what eBay should have conveyed to the buyer. Nothing happened to his account when I closed the dispute, and the warning should have remained as a reminder to the bidder not to do it again. it is a warning, not NARU.
I have thought about the feedback issue, and will make sure to use this past situation with eBay where they overruled the process in order to do what "is in the best interest of the community". We'll see just how well that holds water if I have to cross that bridge.
[ edited by shagmidmod on Mar 25, 2010 12:02 PM ]
posted on March 25, 2010 12:40:12 PM new
thank you and excellent idea. I have had a few disputes I have filed with the OHIO AG
office over the years.
We definitely got results, one was with Nursing home's and insurance issues 15 years ago, the most recent with ATT over phone service contract changes. They got result and answers when I could not.
Plus I am on there (AG)email update list and get good law/fraud information monthly now.
Our tax dollars at work and I feel like I am getting something.
posted on March 25, 2010 01:13:07 PM new
Here's another crock from Ebay's insulting dispute system. When you call them or they call you they say it is being recorded, but they never review them when you make a complaint.
Also, in my case, anyway, they make a decision so quickly, I mean in a matter of minutes, there is not way they could even read my response, looked at the evidence I provided or reviewed the emails sent through Ebay's messaging system.
The final decision was just a knee jerk response with many, many false comments.
posted on March 25, 2010 01:35:01 PM new
my experience with this particular dispute was that eBay notified me the buyer ask for it to be reviewed. eBay asked me to respond to the buyer, so I did. also, when eBay's system asked me how I wanted to handle it (ie: refund, respond, etc) it gave me a firm eBay suggestion: "refund the buyer".
once I replied to the buyer, he escalated it to eBay for review. eBay never gave me an opportunity to respond to the case... only to the bidder. I'm certain there was no actual review process. Bidder wins is a certainty.
Email from eBay 3/25 6:09am:
This case was automatically closed on Mar 25, 2010. The buyer was required to submit information regarding this case, but we didn't hear back. The buyer will not be issued a refund.
Email from eBay 3/25 12:29pm:
eBay opened a case because of an issue with an item purchased from you. We issued the buyer a full refund of $88.02 and closed this case. You don't need to take any action.
So, how vague is that last message? I called them last night and discussed it with CSR Jeff. We talked for about 10 minutes, he gave me further details that eBay paid the buyer, not me. As he looked into it further he was obviously perplexed as to why they even did that and stated he would open an investigation into how this was all conducted. Even though he seemed to have the right intentions, I still don't think anything will come of it... however, after we discussed the details I asked him how a seller can avoid this problem in the future. He couldn't answer that. Somewhere in the conversation he asked me if I wanted to speak with his supervisor. What??? A real eBay supervisor??????? Holy Crap! I took advantage of the moment.
I then spoke with Megan for almost an hour about this transaction and how poorly managed the entire dispute process was. She wanted to know if I felt the old dispute process was better through Paypal. I told her that both processes were backwards and it really didn't matter whether Paypal or Ebay handled it if the INAD outcome was always going to give the buyer the upperhand. I expressed my frustrations that the dispute process is a formality and that I doubt eBay even reviews the details of the dispute. Though she didn't flat out agree with me, she didn't back up eBay either. I told her I want to send the camera to eBay so that they can put it in the office where people who handle disputes can look at and remind them of what happens when buyers commit fraud. She'll get back to me on that one (yeah right).
One thing we discussed was how to make eBays system better and I was quick to suggest going to Immediate Payment required. She said they are really considering this process already and it would help avoid NPB. I also suggested that eBay put some of their telemarketers to use in training buyers how to use eBay instead of calling sellers to promote their new fee structure. I said that sellers see right thru the "great news, fees are going down" campaign eBay subjected us to and that the bottom line is fees are going up and their policies are hurting sellers. One thing that should happen is a courtesy call to newbies when a NPB dispute is opened. eBay's rep can easily determine whether the bidder has intentions of buying or not. this process would also serve the purpose of validating newbies contact information and help prevent fraud. She said this was a great suggestion and something nobody at eBay ever considered... duh! It's not rocket science.
One thing she said, I used against her. She told me that eBay takes fraud very seriously and works diligently to remove bad buyers and sellers immediately. I told her that I contacted eBay several weeks ago about a seller who listed $120 shoes for 99 cents, but charged $120 for shipping. He even admitted to fee avoidance in a response he gave to a bidder who asked why his shipping fees were so high. To this date, he still sells. Sorry, but eBay doesn't prevent fraud, they promote it by allowing it to continue.
I think this is what will happen. Megan will go to the next meeting, and present my ideas and concerns as her own. She will be promoted to the next level and things will get worse for sellers.
The reality is that you, me and any other eBay seller paid this buyer off for committing fraud. We did so by paying eBay's increasing fees to cover the costs of their new policies. Just because it didn't come out of my account in one lump sum doesn't mean it won't trickle out over the course of a month or two in the new fee structure.
[ edited by shagmidmod on Mar 26, 2010 08:33 AM ]
posted on March 26, 2010 08:35:48 AM new
How interesting.
I think the bottom line is that with the bad press that EBay has received over the past few years about Scam Sellers they have gone overboard in trying to appease Buyers and to try to ensure that they don't get any more bad press.
What they have totally lost sight of is the fact that there are Buyers out there who are committing fraud and EBay is scared of them!
posted on March 26, 2010 11:38:54 AM new
shagmidmom - Have you gone to the media with this story? Honestly, the news media here would love the story. I'd send copies of your letters and your last conversation to the TV and print media in your area. We have one TV station here that just loves this kind of thing and actually brought down a whole spa sending the owner to prison for a number of years.
Sellers got bad press and eBay acted. I think it's more than past time to expose the buyers who are committing fraud with eBay's blessings. Geesh, that includes mail fraud! eBay could eventually find themselves in quite a mess!
posted on March 30, 2010 08:48:09 AM new
I received a reply from the AG's office. They are writing eBay a letter asking for a response.
I'm not too confident that this will resolve anything, however the AG's office does collect data and when enough people complain they will step in.
I had to file a complaint a few years back regarding Qwest. I had many problems with their Dex Yellow Pages. They made errors on my listing, and online they misspelled the word "furniture" in my listing too. Anyone who searched for furniture wouldn't find our business. I called them numerous times and finally wrote them a letter canceling our advertisement. Then they turned around and still printed us an advertisement in the yellow pages and tried to bill us over $300 a month. Apparently others complained about their practices as well, so the AG stepped in and Qwest supposedly fixed the problem.
