Are fruitcakes running rampant on eBay lately? Selling, buying, listing, feedback, etc...

[Bricklectic]

5 Minutes later a new message comes.

Me: Oh no what now?

New Message:

Hey so that first message that I just sent you may disregard.... I am actually an idiot and did see the minifigures hidden within in the bag. I had not opened any bags at time of messaging you and just went to record the opening, now realizing my mistake. The thing is, I had experienced a scam middle of last year where the minifigures were stolen from "sealed" sets. This was via a seller on Bricklink who was not even aware of the tampering himself. It was quite the headache but were able to sort it out. I had panicked a bit early when I had noticed some of the same signs like tampered exterior seal and defects in the plastic bags. I apologize for any acquisition or panic, sorry!

[KimRose]

Would someone please tell me how I speak to a real person at eBay. Is there an active phone number or are there specific key words I need to use with their chatbot? Chat keeps leading me to articles even though typing "need to speak to agent." I would prefer to speak over the phone. Looking to speak to an actual CS Rep regarding suspected return fraud. Thank you in advance.

[terrymc4677]

Here is a new one. I have no idea how I’m going to solve this one. In this circumstance eBay themselves are the fruitcakes.

I made two international sales through the eBay global shipping program over the Christmas weekend. One to Australia for a Newt’s Suitcase set and the other to South Africa for three vintage Western sets. Both were shipped to the eBay global shipping center in Illinois on 12/26.

Today I get a message from the Australia buyer stating that they received the wrong item. I ask for photos of what they received and sure enough they got the three Western sets that should have gone to South Africa. I asked for a picture of the shipping labels on the top of the shipping box and it appears that whoever processed the package at the global shipping center put the wrong international label on the package.

I double checked the labels that I put on to get the item to the shipping center in Illinois and everything was correct. Name and routing # both matched to the order details. The package with the Western sets they received had the other persons name and routing # on the label I filled out, as it should have, but the international label that eBay put on at the shipping center had the other persons name.

They must have received both packages at the same time and swapped the labels in error while processing them at the global shipping center.

The buyer in South Africa who is expecting the Western sets hasn’t received their package yet, which will contain a Newt’s Suitcase. Now I’m going to have two upset international customers because eBay put the wrong shipping labels on the packages.

Newts Case was around $80 after shipping. I can replace that. The three Western sets were around $300 after shipping. Those I obviously can’t replace. I have no idea who to even try to talk to, since it’s impossible to get ahold of a human being at eBay, and I have no idea how I’m going to get those Western sets back so I can resend them to the correct person.

Finally, eBay better cover any and all expenses regarding this fiasco since it was their screw up.

Any ideas? What a mess…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tacsniper]

3 hours ago, terrymc4677 said:

Any ideas? What a mess…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

eBay will take care of the customers. Have them file a dispute and eBay will reimburse both buyers and seller (you). You fulfilled your transaction once your packages are delivered and inspected by the GSC.

I once sold a card for $1800, shipped it to GSC and they reship it to buyer. GSC did not put signature required, so courier left the package in the lobby. Of course, the package went missing and eBay reimbursed the buyer and with no negative consequences to me.

[KvHulk]

Your obligation is over once your packages arrived at eBay's Global Shipping Center.
I love international eBay sales. Always someone else's problem.

[Tonka858]

I sell a lot of legos with box damange (Thanks Amazon) I get someone that opened a case with Ebay that it was more damaged then they where expecting,

they where worried the lego itself would be broken

[terrymc4677]

Yes, I understand that, but it doesn’t feel right just saying “oh well, not my problem”. The guy spent $300 on three vintage sets that are now on an entirely different continent than they should be, all because some dope at the shipping hub swapped two labels. At the very least the items in question should be returned to the hub and then sent to their correct buyers. What about feedback? I have over 1100, 100% positive. I’d hate to get my first negative over something so stupid and not even my fault.

I appreciate the replies.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MinifigW]

19 minutes ago, terrymc4677 said:

Yes, I understand that, but it doesn’t feel right just saying “oh well, not my problem”. The guy spent $300 on three vintage sets that are now on an entirely different continent than they should be, all because some dope at the shipping hub swapped two labels. At the very least the items in question should be returned to the hub and then sent to their correct buyers. What about feedback? I have over 1100, 100% positive. I’d hate to get my first negative over something so stupid and not even my fault.

I appreciate the replies.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You will be protected from negative feedback. Do not refund the buyer yourself. Let GSC/GSP handle the situation. It's literally not your problem now and anything you yourself do may just complicate it further.

[Pseudoty]

40 minutes ago, terrymc4677 said:

Yes, I understand that, but it doesn’t feel right just saying “oh well, not my problem”. The guy spent $300 on three vintage sets that are now on an entirely different continent than they should be, all because some dope at the shipping hub swapped two labels. At the very least the items in question should be returned to the hub and then sent to their correct buyers. What about feedback? I have over 1100, 100% positive. I’d hate to get my first negative over something so stupid and not even my fault.

I appreciate the replies.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If Any negative or neutral feedback is left it will be removed. 
 

Now as far as getting the items to their correct buyers cross shipping is not an option for you because of customs. Your only hope is that eBay provides them with return shipping labels then reships the sets to the correct location this time. 
 

Wildcard option: you ask the receiver of the valuable sets to make an eBay listing for say $1K OBO and they accept a $1 offer from your other buyer and ship it to them if both countries allow for this on their eBay platforms. You would have to cover shipping and fees. 

[TheBrickClique]

A few times a year, I get ebay sending me a notice that they cancelled a customer's order for suspicious activity and deactivated their accounts.

Today, I've had three already.  The first one happened 21 minutes after the order went in last night.  And the last two never even made it to the stage of notifying me via email that I had an order placed.  The last two items were either automatically relisted or they were never removed.

What's up, ebay?

[Pseudoty]

43 minutes ago, TheBrickClique said:

A few times a year, I get ebay sending me a notice that they cancelled a customer's order for suspicious activity and deactivated their accounts.

Today, I've had three already.  The first one happened 21 minutes after the order went in last night.  And the last two never even made it to the stage of notifying me via email that I had an order placed.  The last two items were either automatically relisted or they were never removed.

What's up, ebay?

Maybe they finally implemented a software fix to help resolve the payment dispute issue that started late August 2023. Were the 3 for items costing less than $100 with shipping and taxes? 

[TheBrickClique]

22 minutes ago, Pseudoty said:

Maybe they finally implemented a software fix to help resolve the payment dispute issue that started late August 2023. Were the 3 for items costing less than $100 with shipping and taxes? 

Yes.  $30 to $55 range so far before shipping and taxes.

And since the my last post, I've gotten two more.  The last two were for the same item -- a set that was cancelled earlier today.  It seems that the item number was updated each time so ebay is relisting but keeping the time left (BIN with autorenewal) of the item identical to the cancelled item.

If ebay wasn't sending me cancellation notices on the last four, I wouldn't have noticed the item number had changed.  I wonder if this is typical and that they just didn't bother to send cancellation notices before.  If this is the new normal, it's going to be annoying deleting a bunch of cancellation notices every day.

And I usually relist my items when one is sold and update the pictures and condition in the description.  Saves me the effort of creating a new listing.  Well, the first listing, when cancelled, was removed from their system.  So, I'll have to create a new listing from scratch.  That will be really annoying if that becomes typical.

[BillyBricks]

18 minutes ago, TheBrickClique said:

And I usually relist my items when one is sold and update the pictures and condition in the description.  Saves me the effort of creating a new listing.  Well, the first listing, when cancelled, was removed from their system.  So, I'll have to create a new listing from scratch.  That will be really annoying if that becomes typical.

I spoke to a CS rep about eBay deleting some of these listings rather than me having the option to relist. I was told something about how the scammer may be targeting that particular listing, so if it got renewed, they would just rebuy it with a different username. Not sure about the accuracy of that, but it was annoying to have to reshoot images of a set that I had already taped up for shipment. 

[rubysue74]

Sold a UCS Sandcrawler last week that I had intended to build for quite a while. Just got a message that the buyer is building it & pieces are breaking. Set was new in sealed box, in a climate controlled garage, on a shelf, without even any light exposure. 
I’ve been doing this for a long time & have never had pieces break for no reason. Anyone had experience with this issue or is this dude fishing? Has a “1” feedback btw. 

[brickvoyeur]

2 minutes ago, rubysue74 said:

Sold a UCS Sandcrawler last week that I had intended to build for quite a while. Just got a message that the buyer is building it & pieces are breaking. Set was new in sealed box, in a climate controlled garage, on a shelf, without even any light exposure. 
I’ve been doing this for a long time & have never had pieces break for no reason. Anyone had experience with this issue or is this dude fishing? Has a “1” feedback btw. 

Reddish brown was a nightmare until a few years ago. My sandcrawler broke mightily, and due to that I decided to sell all of mine locally. Couldn't even disassemble the used one because the pieces I tried to take off were cracking. 

He's not fishing, Lego admits there was a problem with the color. Now your options are accept the return, or try to get them to reach out to Lego for free replacement parts. I'd gamble you're going to be accepting the return. 

[rubysue74]

Thanks for the response. I bought 4 back in the day & never built one so I was unaware this was a thing. Ugh. Trying to find out from him how many pieces it is to see if replacing them is a possibility. 

[Pseudoty]

33 minutes ago, rubysue74 said:

Thanks for the response. I bought 4 back in the day & never built one so I was unaware this was a thing. Ugh. Trying to find out from him how many pieces it is to see if replacing them is a possibility. 

Yep, I have a day one built and displayed set that I tried to disassemble summer of 2020 during the great used Lego selloff boom and instant breakage of multiple parts, it's a mess.  Like @brickvoyeur said probably best to sell the other 3 locally and inform the buyer of the known issue and that they can request replacement parts directly from Lego. 

Edited January 31 by Pseudoty

[rubysue74]

2 minutes ago, Pseudoty said:

Yep, I have a day one built and displayed set that I tried to disassemble summer of 2020 during the great used Lego selloff boom and instant breakage of multiple parts, it's a mess.  Like @brickvoyeur said probably best to sell the other 3 locally and inform the buyer of the known issue and that they can request replacement parts directly from Lego. 

Thanks guys. Will proceed accordingly. Luckily the other 3 are long gone. This was the one I was saving to build. I informed him of the parts replacement possibility, waiting to hear back on how many pieces have broken so far. 

[weemsc54]

If listed and sold as a 'sealed' set, I'd suggest they contact LEGO for replacement parts and be done with it. 

Not the sellers responsibility to guarantee quality for LEGO years down the road on a platform like eBay. 

[CsabaLazlo]

On 1/31/2024 at 10:46 PM, weemsc54 said:

If listed and sold as a 'sealed' set, I'd suggest they contact LEGO for replacement parts and be done with it. 

Not the sellers responsibility to guarantee quality for LEGO years down the road on a platform like eBay. 

My assumption is that eBay would view it differently. Like it or not, the retailer is generally on the hook with this kind of thing.

[brickvoyeur]

8 minutes ago, CsabaLazlo said:

My assumption is that eBay would view it differently. Like it or not, the retailer is generally on the hook with this kind of thing.

This is exactly correct. Best case scenario is they force you to accept the return. Worst case scenario (though unlikely) is they just refund the buyer out of your pocket without a return. Then you get to fight eBay about it. 

[weemsc54]

If you don't allow returns in general, eBay shouldn't force a return unless the item description was incorrect. 

I'm not seeing the issue (from the seller's perspective with seller protections) with some parts inside a sealed set being less durable than others. 

[TheBrickClique]

On 1/26/2024 at 5:38 PM, BillyBricks said:

I spoke to a CS rep about eBay deleting some of these listings rather than me having the option to relist. I was told something about how the scammer may be targeting that particular listing, so if it got renewed, they would just rebuy it with a different username. Not sure about the accuracy of that, but it was annoying to have to reshoot images of a set that I had already taped up for shipment. 

A little update:

The instant cancellations (cancelled and relisted before I even knew the order existed and was never notified -- but a different item number) only happened for a couple days on a couple of items as far as I can tell.

However, it's clearly part of a drop shipping scam with stolen credit cards.  My relistings kept selling (they were targeting two sets in particular, but it looks like about four different sets were used so far).  Always to someone with no previous feedback, usually an account created in October 2022, and with a username like abcdef_12.  They must have created a ton of burner accounts back then and have been waiting for them to age to create less suspicion.  Now the payment disputes are rolling in (three just today) and ebay is eating the costs because of seller protections. 

The past 36 hours have been quiet -- maybe ebay caught on, or incrementally raising the prices of the sets (I figure I'd let ebay pay for their piss poor fraud screening) finally turned them off.

[Brystheguy]

9 hours ago, TheBrickClique said:

A little update:

The instant cancellations (cancelled and relisted before I even knew the order existed and was never notified -- but a different item number) only happened for a couple days on a couple of items as far as I can tell.

However, it's clearly part of a drop shipping scam with stolen credit cards.  My relistings kept selling (they were targeting two sets in particular, but it looks like about four different sets were used so far).  Always to someone with no previous feedback, usually an account created in October 2022, and with a username like abcdef_12.  They must have created a ton of burner accounts back then and have been waiting for them to age to create less suspicion.  Now the payment disputes are rolling in (three just today) and ebay is eating the costs because of seller protections. 

The past 36 hours have been quiet -- maybe ebay caught on, or incrementally raising the prices of the sets (I figure I'd let ebay pay for their piss poor fraud screening) finally turned them off.

I had this happen with HP Knight Bus. Sold a bunch in a week and I've gotten unauthorized charge reports on at least half of them. I don't pay too much mind as I never lose money on these. So odd though.

[spener90]

8 hours ago, Brystheguy said:

I had this happen with HP Knight Bus. Sold a bunch in a week and I've gotten unauthorized charge reports on at least half of them. I don't pay too much mind as I never lose money on these. So odd though.

I have had the same thing happen on my Forestmen Hideouts.