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The Joys of Ebay


AlanHo
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I sold a laptop on Ebay auction a few months ago and it went for £183 plus £10 postage. I set the reserve at £100 and was hoping for £150 so I was chuffed.
 
The guy who bought it lived in a London suburb. I sent it via a courier who allow you to drop the parcel into a local Spa shop - which is for me very convenient. It was insured for £200 and was signed for.
 
I checked the tracking and saw it had been delivered and signed for a few days later. However, the buyer contacted me to say he had checked the tracking and was amazed to see it had been signed for. He claimed he had not received it and he was not at home the day it was signed for. He more or less demanded his money back.
 
I contacted the courier who accepted the complaint and promised to follow it up with the London Depot. Meanwhile the buyer had reported the matter to Ebay and was demanding a prompt refund.
 
A few days went by and the courier phoned me to say that the driver had been interviewed who was adamant he had delivered it to the correct address and it was signed for. The courier added that their vans have a tracker and they had checked the records which confirmed the driver's story that their van had parked in a side road near the address (because the buyer lives at a busy main road junction). They were confident that the parcel had been delivered and asked me to contact the buyer to check whether a neighbour had received it.
 
This argument went back and forth for a further week or two with the buyer claiming he had taken his family away on the day it was delivered, no neighbours had accepted it and accused the delivery driver of nicking it.  I reported the matter to Ebay but nothing came of it
 
The end of the tale is that the courier company sent me a cheque for the cost of the computer etc and I reluctantly refunded the buyer.  I am convinced he had received it and probably knew the courier company would cave in. I'm still furious about it - even though I am not out of pocket.  I guess it was cheaper for the courier company to send me the insurance - rather than take any other action.
 
A similar thing happened to my wife recently - she sold something on Ebay and it didn't arrive. There was much tooing and froing about it and she smelled a rat. She looked on Google Earth and discovered that the address given by the buyer was a large warehouse employing a lot of people. The delivery was signed for, but the scribble could have been done by a monkey. Her parcel, worth £12 was not insured and she came off £12 the lighter.
 
I have had other bad experiences - such as when selling a phone.The buyer claimed to be on holiday in New York, said it was a present for his father in Nigeria and gave me the African address to send it there. He kindly offered to pay the extra postage. Stuff that for a game of soldiers - I reported it to Ebay and this time they were helpful and no harm was done.  The Ebay rep said that it was a regular ploy - the buyer would deny receipt of the phone and claim a refund from Pay Pal who would then debit my account.
 
I guess I am not alone with these experiences.
 
I still use Ebay - as does my wife - but we now always check on Google Earth the buyer's exact location and Email them to ask which day they will be at home to receive the goods
 
Is there anything else one can do to protect one's self?
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The only time that I sold anything on e bay, it was an aquarium complete with fish and plants. Obviously it had to be collected,and I stipulated that  I wanted cash on collection. I would not sell anything on there by any other means. I appreciate that this narrows down the number of potential buyers, but so be it. It just ain’t worth the bother. I would rather use an advert in a newsagents window. The buyer in my case was happy to drive from Northampton to  Burntwood, because he was impressed by the photo I had posted.

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Didn't eBay have some system where, for costly items, you could use some sort of collection point where the seller and the buyer could send the item to them and when everything was in order eBay (or it may have been PayPal) would organize delivery?

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