Forwarded address issue

[DoNotInsertIntoMouth]

So I have an issue right now with an Ebay buyer. Trying to see if anyone has been through this:

 

- They bought an item early November. Evidently they had it shipped to an address they no longer live at. They have forwarding set up, so it got forwarded, but is taking forever.

 

- They opened up a case against me on Ebay stating they hadn't received. They claimed they wanted a refund as they have waited long enough and that if I refund them, Ebay will help me since its obvious I sent it (this bothers me).

 

- I asked them about the forwarding and said that it can take a while.

 

- They basically replied they were getting screwed and wanted their money back or they were escalating the case to Ebay.

 

My feeling is Ebay will just refund them anyway. And I don't care to refund it (although its a 60$ item). What I don't want is to refund it and they get it a day later with no reason to return it (Ebay certainly wont make them).

 

Any thoughts? 60$ isn't going to kill me at all, but its still kind of ridiculous.

[ravenb99]

So I have an issue right now with an Ebay buyer. Trying to see if anyone has been through this:

 

- They bought an item early November. Evidently they had it shipped to an address they no longer live at. They have forwarding set up, so it got forwarded, but is taking forever.

 

- They opened up a case against me on Ebay stating they hadn't received. They claimed they wanted a refund as they have waited long enough and that if I refund them, Ebay will help me since its obvious I sent it (this bothers me).

 

- I asked them about the forwarding and said that it can take a while.

 

- They basically replied they were getting screwed and wanted their money back or they were escalating the case to Ebay.

 

My feeling is Ebay will just refund them anyway. And I don't care to refund it (although its a 60$ item). What I don't want is to refund it and they get it a day later with no reason to return it (Ebay certainly wont make them).

 

Any thoughts? 60$ isn't going to kill me at all, but its still kind of ridiculous.

Yeah it happens a lot.  I usually just refund them and hope it comes back. Ebay will side with them anyways as it doesn't show delivered.  I usually just refund it and tell them to refuse it if it arrives.  It usually doesn't arrive and probably will come back eventually (had some take months).  If it does arrive and changes to delivered you can always go back to ebay and probably get the 1 time courtesy where they pay you back as well (although I usually would save that for a bigger transaction).  I just had one get back to me that was 4 months old.  

Edited November 17, 2014 by ravenb99

[Migration]

Agree that you will have to refund the buyer, but does anyone know if you can report them for not updating their address. Seems like a simple fix that would solve many headaches.

[asharerin]

DNIM the key to these cases is if the tracking shows delivery at all to your buyer's paypal zip code. If so you are covered. Once an item is forwarded from there the buyer loses all protection per ebay policy. Make no mistake you will still be fighting an unhappy customer and ebay reps to get any negs or defects removed however.

 

It might pay to develop a business plan to address these issues in house rather than through the ebay system. 

[naf]

Did you try calling ebay to make a case for yourself?  If you have a tracking number, and you shipped to the address provided by the seller on the paypal transaction, you might be able to get somewhere with them.

[ravenb99]

Agree that you will have to refund the buyer, but does anyone know if you can report them for not updating their address. Seems like a simple fix that would solve many headaches.

It does not matter, had that happen once and they called me asking for me to ship the buyer another item to there new address.  He admitted he didn't update it but they did not care.  I didn't have another to ship and it still hadn't been returned so I just refunded them.  It finally did come back though.

[ravenb99]

DNIM the key to these cases is if the tracking shows delivery at all to your buyer's paypal zip code. If so you are covered. Once an item is forwarded from there the buyer loses all protection per ebay policy. Make no mistake you will still be fighting an unhappy customer and ebay reps to get any negs or defects removed however.

 

It might pay to develop a business plan to address these issues in house rather than through the ebay system. 

problem is forwarded items do not show a delivered scan until they get to the forwarded address (unless it happens by error because they miss the forward adress, in that case it would show delivered at that zip and like you said you'd be covered ).   When they get hung up by the mail forwarding system it will have some sort of notice on the tracking depending which one they put but it won't say delivered so that's why you're still not covered.