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Help! A rather absurd controversy
Good evening everyone!
Apologies in advance for the huge message. I’m a private watch collector/seller, and although I’ve been an eBay user for 17 years, for the past year I’ve embarked on an adventure as a private seller, selling the watches from my collection and then reinvesting everything into other pieces.
After various experiences that have led me to have more than 300 all-positive feedbacks, I find myself in this rather unpleasant situation.
Long story short, I decide to put up for sale a very rare Oris piece dating back to the 1960s that I had had for a while. I should point out that all my watches pass through the hands of a specialized workshop with almost 40 years of experience in repairs. Having said that, after a few months I manage to sell this piece to a nice guy living in AbuDhabi. He messages me, we negotiate a bit and in the end he takes it. I ship everything very carefully, fill out the label and various customs forms and in less than a week it arrives. He promptly leaves me a nice positive feedback and everything seems great, especially because shortly after he buys another one from me.
About two months later, he comes back saying I sold him a fake watch, attaching screenshots of WhatsApp in Arabic and automatic messages from the manufacturer’s support, and he demands a return.
Doubting that he might be right, besides asking the father of my watchmaker, who has worked in the field since 1947, I had various discussions on the major vintage forums. All the leading experts agree that it is authentic. Meanwhile I also contact the manufacturer, which, after the necessary time, tells me it is original and that to have a certificate, I would need to send it to Switzerland.
Fairly confident and in complete good faith, I write and attach everything in private messages. Nothing. He insists that the “experts” in his city are sure it’s fake, and he goes ahead and opens a return request, which is then shortly suspended to allow support to review the evidence.
I must have called eBay operators 10 times, each time explaining the situation, and I wrote to eBay.com support too, and as advised, I made it clear that I was fully willing to cooperate with the user if he turned out to be right. Meanwhile this kind gentleman opens a dispute saying it’s fake and that it doesn’t match the description suggested (which is extremely false), attaching among other things a photo of the watch with the case back open, without my authorization, which I know invalidates the eBay user guarantee.
I report everything to support, and despite the mountain of documentation, where everyone says I’m right, eBay, to my utter disbelief, sides with him and authorizes the return with the relative refund from me.
Extremely bitter, I decide at my own expense to prepare a shipment (€76) and by email I attach all the documents to this nice guy, who, by the way, forgets to fill out his part of the customs paperwork, even risking getting a fine..
Recently, by insisting, I had direct contact with an employee of the manufacturer, who turned out to be a bit clumsy, but without my sending anything he once again guaranteed the watch’s authenticity and provided me with an official document certifying the originality of the item.
Tomorrow the watch should arrive back to me as well (133€ in customs), and now that I have everything in hand I’d like to file a formal appeal against eBay’s decision on the whole matter and ask for reimbursement of what I spent, because I’ve always been on the side of the right, and I’m really sick of throwing money away for the whim of a gentleman on the other side of the world..
Now that I’ve laid out this nerve-racking saga that is making me lose hope in this sector, I humbly ask you how I could proceed in order to win this situation, which with the amount of documentation I have is clearly in my favor.
Thank you in advance for your kind replies
marioelegio
Mentore3 years agoThis isn’t about eBay, eBay only covers the first 30 days from delivery.
There must have been a dispute filed on PayPal or on the credit card, they made the decision.
eBay is just an intermediary: the payment method goes after eBay and eBay goes after you.
The appeal will not have any effect.
hi
mario
golden_age_watches
OP3 years agoHi Mario,
thanks so much for your reply, even though I provided endless evidence and the buyer didn’t provide the slightest proof, how can they rule against me?
today the item arrived and since the reason for the dispute was, besides the alleged fake, that it didn’t match the description, I made a nice unboxing video where it’s obvious that it does match. I’ll try to file an appeal with this evidence, also because after all the expenses I’ve had because of this person’s whim I need a refund.
I’ll keep you updated as things go along