Absurd Situation! | Questions and answers among users

hiryu999 · 2025-05-15T23:55:56.826000Z

Hello everyone, I want to share something truly absurd that happened just today. First of all, I’m a registered user since 2010 with 774 positive feedbacks at 100%. I sell an item to a French man who, upon receiving it, opens a return request for an item not as described, attaching to the case photos of another item, completely different from the one I sent, which he probably had at home. I’ve never owned the item in the photo, so it is completely impossible that I sent it by mistake instead of the right one. I immediately contact ebay customer service and they tell me there is no risk for me, that they would contact their French colleagues to explain everything and that the matter would be resolved shortly. After two days I receive a message from ebay France saying that the request had been closed in my favor, the buyer’s reason was not covered by the ebay guarantee and therefore could not be accepted. Three days pass but the funds are still blocked, I contact Italian customer service again and they advise me to open a dispute so they can step in. I do so, I wait 5 days during which the case is put on hold and I cannot interact in any way either with them or with the buyer, and then... almost like magic... I receive the email with the verdict: ebay has decided to issue the buyer a full refund, so basically I lost both the item and the money! So, to sum up: the request had been closed in my favor, I opened the dispute myself to unlock the funds, I was not able to attach messages to the case nor schedule a return (I couldn’t even access the ebay France site with my Italian credentials), customer service reassured me twice on the phone that there was nothing to worry about, and yet in the end I lost both the money and the item. I should also point out that, immediately after the dispute was closed, the buyer deleted his ebay account. I have appealed the dispute decision and I hope a solution can be found, but what scares me most is the total lack of guarantees for sellers: if anyone with 2 feedbacks and an account created a few weeks ago can buy things from someone who has used ebay for 25 years, claim to have received something else by attaching a photo of something randomly taken from their home, win the disputes and then keep both the item and the refund before closing their account, then I do not feel protected at all and I have no desire to sell anything anymore. I hope this experience of mine can be useful to all of you.

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Absurd Situation! | Questions and answers among users | eBay Italy