How To Handle Purchasing Issues On eBay

[The Penguin]

I have used eBay for a while and majority the time I have no issues. But sometimes you will encounter those sellers that is not cooperative. I will share how I handle many purchasing issues I had with many sellers.

A few months ago, I bought many anime figures which I thought was a good deal. However, all items was counterfeits. What these sellers do is steal images from a genuine seller giving you the illusion you're going to get the same thing shown in the picture. I will give you an example. Below is the photos the sellers had for their listing.

However, when I open the item, the product looks like this. Obviously, nothing like the above item.

I filed a claim to the seller at the resolution center on eBay telling the seller what they sent me is nothing like the describe product and there is many flaws. They said I can have a partial refund, or send the item back for a full refund. I requested a full refund. I have included pictures as evinced. Always ensure you take pictures when you file your claim. You are allowed to attach up to 10 photos. From speaking to eBay staff, if the item the seller sends does not comply with the description, the seller is responsibility for the return shipping cost and must provide a shipping return label with prepaid postage.

I believe 3 to 4 business day, if you can't resolve things with the seller, you can get eBay staff to step in which I did. During the process, the seller wanted extra time which was 5 business day to generate the return shipping label. They never did. So after that, I phone eBay and told them the seller didn't delivery their promise and I want my refund processed today which eBay did.

Another seller I have issues with wouldn't give me a refund until I removed the negative review. I told them I can't do this. I informed them if they don't refund my money within a few days, I will get eBay staff evolved to ensure I do get my money back. The seller gave me my money back.

Sometimes when you make a payment to a seller on eBay, you will notice days later you will see the listing on your purchase page appear like this.

When this happens, contact eBay immediately by phone to ensure they give you a refund during that call.

Even though you might hear many people having bad experience on eBay including me, this does not mean all sellers are bad. As I said at the start of the post, most sellers I buy things from I had no issues at all. But sometimes you will encounter a bad seller. The good news is, I demonstrate to you if the seller does you wrong, you can get a refund. If you encounter a deal that too good to be true, then you might be risking going through a conflict purchase like I did. The items I was trying to buy were 70%+ below market value. I sure learned my lesson from this experience.

 

[Judge]

If I didn't know better, I'd say the original images were entirely computer-created 3d images.

Yeah, you got taken. Or what we call "bait and switch". Sorry you got burned.

 

[The Penguin]

If I didn't know better, I'd say the original images were entirely computer-created 3d images.

Manufacture many times does stuff like that. Even on packing sometimes it will have this claim. However, the real product does look like this. I have joined a new forum that people collect anime figures and they have a database which items is commonly counterfeits.

This below picture was taken from a member on Home - MyFigureCollection.net (Tsuki-board.net)

 

[Judge]

Manufacture many times does stuff like that. Even on packing sometimes it will have this claim. However, the real product does look like this. I have joined a new forum that people collect anime figures and they have a database which items is commonly counterfeits.

This below picture was taken from a member on Home - MyFigureCollection.net (Tsuki-board.net)
View attachment 35166

I see. Yeah, that's clearly a physical doll. So we can see where the person who ripped you off modeled their graphics after. One telltale thing to note is the almost complete lack of shadows on the bogus image. Funny though to think they could have added them just as easily. Go figure. Color gradients, but still missing any real shadows.

So much fraud these days connected with high tech. It really, really bums me too.

 

[The Penguin]

One telltale thing to note is the almost complete lack of shadows.

With the right lighting equipment, you can reduce shadows. I bought myself a lightbox and many lamps as I like to reduce or eliminate shadows with my photos. Common thing people like to do of my interest. I even use Photoshop to remove shadows.

 

[Judge]

With the right lighting equipment, you can reduce shadows. I bought myself a lightbox and many lamps as I like to reduce or eliminate shadows with my photos. Common thing people like to do of my interest. I even use Photoshop to remove shadows.

Interesting, but that's bad, IMO. I wouldn't trust anything on Ebay marketed with such image enhancement. It seems to reduce the evidence that the image is actually three-dimensional if that was actually the case.

Kind of like all those magazine centerfolds, neatly airbrushed for so many years. Or the hamburgers that look so good in advertising, but so poor in a bag. LOL.

Unnecessary photo manipulation of any kind. No thanks.

It's done in the marketplace on a broad spectrum, but it doesn't mean I'm willing to buy it. Imagine being able to digitally retouch overtly damaged merchandise! Easy enough to do, but wholly unethical. I'd just be inclined to walk away from anything that appeared so retouched. But that's me.

 

[The Penguin]

That's bad, IMO. I wouldn't trust anything marketed with such image enhancement.

True but many companies does it. Though I sure you already know this.

Any back the subject of the post. I was kinda prepared for this event for this bad purchase as I knew it was too good to be true. I took the risk anyways. But I knew I could get my money back if all else fail. Now, if I bought this on the black market in person, I would have been out of luck.

 

[Judge]

True but many companies does it. Though I sure you already know this.

I knew it as a teenager. When I bought my first airbrush and first copy of Playboy.

Photoshop? Well, that came a little later.

 

[Judge]

True but many companies does it. Though I sure you already know this.

Any back the subject of the post. I was kinda prepared for this event for this bad purchase as I knew it was too good to be true. I took the risk anyways. But I knew I could get my money back if all else fail. Now, if I bought this on the black market in person, I would have been out of luck.

Yep. On very select purchases I've made some risks. I bought a chiclet keyboard from Amazon for around $11. Worked for about three months, then mysteriously stopped functioning. From the customer reviews, I knew I was gambling. But the selection of beige mini keyboards for older computer systems is quite small. A calculated risk and I lost. It happens.

I may still buy another, but not that brand and perhaps not quite that exact style. But the odds of getting burned remain high for much of anything in that price range from China.

 

[The Penguin]

Yep. On very select purchases I've made some risks. I bought a chiclet keyboard from Amazon for around $11. Worked for about three months, then mysteriously stopped functioning. From the customer reviews, I knew I was gambling. But the selection of beige mini keyboards for older computer systems is quite small. A calculated risk and I lost. It happens.

I may still buy another, but not that brand and perhaps not quite that exact style. But the odds of getting burned remain high for much of anything in that price range from China.

Same thing happen to me on Amazon for this cheap Bluetooth mouse. Was not worried if I would lost $10. There times good low cost items I had great success. When I find those type of items, I will buy more stuff from that seller.

 

[Judge]

Same thing happen to me on Amazon for this cheap Bluetooth mouse. Was not worried if I would lost $10. There times good low cost items I had great success. When I find those type of items, I will buy more stuff from that seller.

Good point. If a particular vendor has a reliable track record...even cheap items might work out.

 

[xudo]

Another seller I have issues with wouldn't give me a refund until I removed the negative review. I told them I can't do this. I informed them if they don't refund my money within a few days, I will get eBay staff evolved to ensure I do get my money back. The seller gave me my money back.

I had the exact same issue with an eBay seller. eBay were fantastic, as in the end I had to call them to get it resolved. Basically it was fabric I had ordered, and for about a week it still said it hadn't been dispatched. I messaged the seller, and they then marked it as dispatched that day. It was coming from within the UK, so I expected it in a couple of days. I then checked the tracking information the next day, and it said that the item had been delivered to me and signed for the day before, in the evening.

Now, I know couriers are quicker than Royal Mail...but not quick enough to get an item which had been dispatched earlier that day roughly 109 miles from the seller to me. I messaged the seller, and they confirmed they had dispatched it the previous day, and it was delivered and signed for that day too. They would not accept that I knew they were lying and refused a refund because I had left negative feedback. Anyway, eBay sorted it, got me the refund (including postage) and the seller had their account removed.

Like you said though, people shouldn't be put off, because that's the only negative incident I've had on eBay in over 10 years of using it, and I buy a lot of stuff there (mainly craft supplies).

 

[The Penguin]

I posted negative feedback and he in turn posted false negative feedback about me;

That happen to me too. After I got the refund, the seller asked me to remove the negative feedback but I never replied to their message.

 

[Nitro]

I got a runaround on a Cox model airplane engine early on in my eBay experience.
It was a used racing engine I won at a fair price. The seller claimed it had excellent compression,but there was no way to tell that because it was frozen up.Another winning bidder had the same complaint about the other engine he won that he sniped out from under me.They fixed him right up. eBay stepped in and rescued me on mine,so I trusted that part of them to work.

As I got deeper into buying the no longer produced Cox high performance units,I stuck to new in box ones so I could be reassured that they were in A-1 condition for resale outside of that community.

A couple of years ago,I purchased a Windows 7 computer from a guy that had IT credentials I was able to look up and owned a shop in the eastern part of my commonwealth. It was claimed to be one of ten he got when he upgraded an office. It should have taken less than one week to travel 250 miles to my location.

Instead,after one full week,I contacted him and asked what was up. He told me he had a death in the family that kept him from work,but assured me that it would ship that day. A week later,no tracking had even been entered. As it was using up my time,I contacted him a third time and got a song and a dance again,so I escalated it to eBay after another week of no responses. In the mean time,the same spec computer he sold me was denied to another buyer who he played the same game with. eBay fixed that buyer up and then got my refund back to me a week later.

Like any auction setting,it is always buyer beware and ask lots of questions before you bid on anything since you can't look at it with your own eyes. If a seller is honest,they will provide additional pictures if you still aren't sure about a used item.
Your communication with a seller gets recorded,so there can be no disputes if you have to escalate a claim of what was said about your purchase.

I look at seller feedback ratings to determine what the complaints were about before I enter into an agreement with any seller. If they have tons of negative feedback over disputes,items not as described or failure to ship,I avoid them like the plague.

Your best bet is to buy from sellers who have true 100% positive feedback with very high items sold counts on their records. I often will not buy overseas items because of the extended waiting times and the communication errors when dealing with foreign sellers. (read China)

 

[xudo]

I posted negative feedback and he in turn posted false negative feedback about me; that's when sellers could post feedback about buyers.

Yeah, I'm so glad they changed that.

I should also point out that I pretty much never buy stuff that's on as an auction. I can't be bothered with all that, especially when there's usually someone there who'll snipe you at literally the last second. I always look for 'buy it now' items.

 

[The Penguin]

I read something once that there's a program that people use that will automatically bid that makes it nearly impossible to outbid.

eBay does have a feature max bid. Whoever have the highest max bid, it ensures it bid some cents higher than the 2nd highest bidder. I normally do this during the last 5 seconds of the auction to increase my odds to win stuff. Bear in mind, there could always be someone else might put a higher max bid than me during the same time that could make me lose.

 

[The Penguin]

especially when there's usually someone there who'll snipe you at literally the last second.

Yes I did that for the anime figure stuff I won. However, this time it didn't work in my favor since all items sent to me was low quality counterfeit items which resulted me creating this post.

One thing I learned about bidding something on eBay is work out the max your willing to bid for something and place that bid during the last 5 seconds. I ensure the max bid is always lower than retail price and the average price people are selling the item on eBay.

 

[xudo]

I read something once that there's a program that people use that will automatically bid that makes it nearly impossible to outbid.

I did wonder if something like this existed, as the last time I tried bidding on an item (a few months ago, I wanted the game guide for Lego City Undercover on XbOne..but they only ever released a gyide when it was on WiiU, so they're not that easy to come by) I had been high bidder with a max bid for 2 days and at the literal last second, sniped.

One thing I learned about bidding something on eBay is work out the max your willing to bid for something and place that bid during the last 5 seconds.

That's a really helpful tip! I might try that if there's something I really want on an auction again

 

[Nitro]

I play a psychological game with my bidding that forces another bidder's hand to bid above a rounded off number if they want to beat my bids.

Like The Penguin said,I max out my bid to where I feel like paying for an item,using the same tactics with the price games as I do otherwise. To me,using a sniping tool isn't fair play and I have lost many items after the 5 second mark.