Ebay Refusing To Provide Money Back Guarantee

[Dangerous_Dave]

Essentially Ebay provides a money back guarantee in the case that the item you paid for does not turn up. Several items I've bought there have not turned up, and now they have declared out of the blue that they will not be providing the money back guarantee because I have made too many claims. Nowhere on the site does it say there is a limit to the number of claims you can make. All of my claims were 100% legitimate. What can I do?

[hc4361]

Have you appealed the decision?

[Mojo-Jo-Jo]

Do you wait the 10 working days that Royal Mail allow for items to turn up, or do you kick off the day after the estimated delivery date?

[EDDIE51]

How many claims have you made? I have never needed to make a claim in over 1,000 transactions.

[boxtops]

I really find this hard to believe, dave. Nothing I have ordered hasn't turned up (eventually). How many items are we talking about, what sort of value?

[Dangerous_Dave]

To add more context, I'm a seller on ebay (power seller 1600 feedback, 100% positive), and I also have a buying account on ebay. It's best to keep the two separate to prevent malicious retaliatory buying (and perfectly within ebay regs in case anybody's wondering). So I've bought a lot of items on ebay. I'd estimate, on average, about 1 in 5 of the items that I buy fails to turn up. Probably within the last 12 months, about 30 to 40 items I've bought haven't turned up (just a rough estimate).

I have appealed the decision. They have said that because the computer has suspended the buying account due to a magic number having been reached (they won't say what), they will no longer honour the money back guarantee.

[Dangerous_Dave]

Please could I only have answers of the form 'what you should do now' and not of the form 'I don't believe you/this never happened to me'. The latter isn't helping anything.

[Dangerous_Dave]

Ebay makes you wait I think 8 days? I can't remember off the top. Anyway, you get a feeling with some sellers - the ones that stop responding after they've got your money, don't add any dispatch details or tracking information. In those cases I open the case as soon as possible as it freezes the funds in their paypal account, hopefully before they've had the chance to remove them.

Perhaps some of you buy in categories not quite so prone to fraud as the one that I buy in (high value electronics). High value electronics is riddled with fraudsters due to the large market on the internet and the value of the items involved. If people are buying socks and marvelling that they always seem to turn up, I'd suggest that most crims wouldn't bother trying to defraud people of £4.99.

[tamborine]

Cant the seller claim the loss from the  PO?

[Dangerous_Dave]

The seller is a fraudster. They've not engaged with the dispute process at all. They'll probably never visit this particular ebay account again.

[Kathyan]

Is it just one seller that you are not receiving goods from or several?

[ladybirder]

Kathyan, he is hardly likely to have continued to order from the same person who has already let him down.

[maclarencat]

If I were not receiving 1 in 5 items from different sellers I would be asking questions about the delivery company. I agree though that there is nothing on Ebay saying they have a maximum number of claims. The trouble is it is not a UK company so any attempt at redress through the courts would be very costly. Sorry but Ebay have their system stitched up tightly. All I can suggest is you open another buyer account (using a different email) if you want to continue to buy from Ebay. But I would seriously rethink your buying if 1 in 5 losses are typical.

[boxtops]

I too find a 20% non-delivery very unsatisfactory. I'm assuming that you have checked that your delivery address in 100% accurate on eBay - but I too would be far more suspicious of your delivery company, particularly given the nature of what you are ordering. Forget eBay for the moment - have you reported this high percentage to your local Royal Mail service, or to whichever carrier delivers to you?

It is of course the seller who reclaims the money from the carrier if non-delivered, but it's then the seller who refunds the buyer (either directly or via deduction through eBay).

It seems to me that you have either been particularly unlucky, or someone in the delivery system has got wind that you buy high-volume stuff which is marketable if stolen.

[Dangerous_Dave]

Most of the time the seller doesn't respond to the dispute process at all, and it's fairly clear that they haven't sent the item. I think some of you might be surprised how many fraudulent listings there are in the electronics category. Not very long ago there were listings constantly popping up where, if you clicked on them, it automatically redirected you to a phishing website. Ebay did nothing about them for weeks.

Can Ebay UK not be sued in the UK?

[hc4361]

You'd be throwing good money after bad if you tried, Dave.

"Other terms
Buyers and sellers permit us to make final decisions about cases, including appeals."

"Fraudulent claims
Fraudulent claims may include:
A buyer opening excessive cases.
A buyer colluding with a seller to wrongly declare an item’s value for customs.
A buyer filing a chargeback after receiving a refund.
Buyers who file fraudulent claims are subject to consequences outlined in the Abusing eBay section of the User Agreement."

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/buyer-protection.html

eBay pay their lawyers and accountants big bucks to make sure their terms and conditions are watertight and legally compliant.

[hc4361]

I assume you exercise all reasonable caution before buying, Dave - you do have a lot of experience after all.
You check sellers' feedback; the prices are realistic and not 'too good to be true'; you get a quick response to your questions before you bid or buy.

[ToraToraTora]

don't shoot the messanger here but in their eyes you are either dishonest or incredibly unlucky, either way they are not interested. It's like a bookmaker banning someone that wins too much. There is nothing you can do.

[Dangerous_Dave]

hc4361: Are you essentially saying that the Money Back Guarantee isn't worth the paper it's written on because Ebay reserve the right to make whatever arbitrary decision they please and suspend the guarantee at any given moment?

What do others thing about the legal standing of that?