Ebay warning
I have a cautionary tale to tell pertinent to anyone who might be thinking about selling on Ebay. I've had my Ebay account since 1998 and have never had anything but positive feedback, but as a casual user I've only amassed 77 feedback total. Well, not long ago I bought some shoes via an auction. Sadly they didn't fit the way I wanted, so I decided to turn around and put them back up for sale, especially since I needed the cash at the time. Everything seemed fine, they sold easily enough. The buyer took a few days to pay, but no problem... until Paypal slapped a 20-day hold on my funds because I didn't have enough feedback. Um, okay. But supposedly once the buyer left feedback the funds would be released, so despite the fact that I was hurting for funds and hadn't seen a dime of payment, I shipped immediately with tracking, etc.
So a few days later, I get this email that is basically 'Shoes arrived. Wrong size. Please advise.' I emailed her back asking for clarification and she claimed that the shoes were a size smaller than listed. I frowned a bit, apologized, and said that I had listed them as the same size they were sold as to me. She never offered any proof, a photograph, anything. However, even though my auction said 'all sales are final' and I specified no returns, I said she could return them to me and I'd refund her. She started getting quite an attitude and demanded I refund her up front *and* pay her $10 for return shipping and handling. Keep in mind that I hadn't seen a dime of her money at this point. I politely said no, I would refund her once I had the shoes, and that if she chose to return them that she would be responsible for shipping.
She doesn't bother to answer me, she opens a case with ebay, which I immediately responded to with their prefab choice of 'return item for full refund.' Not refund plus shipping, but exactly the amount she had paid. That was on November 12th. She never responded to the case again, didn't hear a word from her until December 5th. I receive this very terse message of 'Sent shoes back via Fedex and now they're being returned to me. Please advise.' She had never sent me a tracking number, never told me the item was mailed. Fedex never came to my house, never left a notice, never tried to deliver it to my apartment office. She sent it to the wrong address. I informed her of this and told her once again that I would be happy to refund her once I had the shoes in hand. Once again she doesn't answer me but 'sends it to Ebay' for them to make a decision on the case.
Stupid me, I figure they'll tell her that she needs to return the shoes to me and then she'll get her refund. Incredibly enough, today they ruled the case in her favor and immediately issued her a refund. So the shoes are back in her hands, and she has her money back, and they are trying to charge me $43. Fortunately the credit card I had on that account was apparently not a current number, because they attempted to charge it. As soon as I saw the email, I called them and started chewing on ears. Get this, because she provided them with a tracking number and the 'delivery attempts' were in Oklahoma City, that's all they needed. She could have sent it to anyone in Oklahoma City and as long as she gave them a tracking number, they would refund her. How ridiculous is that? I kept chewing until they 'offered to resolve it for me since I'd never had a dispute against me before.' I let them know just how much their wording disgusted me since they had just refunded a woman who had not actually returned the product in question. I told them that they had rewarded her bad behavior and turned her loose on the ebay community to do it again. However, I'm not stupid, I'm not going to cough up $43 to prove a point. So, resolved. Badly. But I can't leave her bad feedback, but the bitch with the shoes and the money can leave bad feedback for me.
The moral of the story is Ebay has become a joke and they don't give a crap about sellers. You can do everything right and the buyers are free to jerk you around with no repercussions. Also, never deal with Ebay member hip2bamom, the headache is not worth it.