eBay has made it extremely easy for buyers to rip off sellers now. Here’s how the scam works:
You place a product on eBay. It sells. The buyer finds one tiny, small thing wrong with the product, or worse, damages the product slightly but not to destroy it’s functionality. They take a picture of the “damage” and submit a dispute stating the product was received “Not as Described”. eBay tells the buyer to ship the damaged product back and upload a tracking number. When return delivery is confirmed their payment will be refunded via the glorious PayPal.
All good right? They get their money back and you get your “damaged” product back. Except, you didn’t get your “damaged” or “misrepresented” product back. You got back an empty box. An empty box shipped for the benefit of a tracking number.
What the hell eBay? Their response: It’s now a legal matter. Go through the Post Office or carrier and bring wire fraud charges. Scam buyers know you won’t go through this legal expense for some product under $150. They win, you lose. eBay facilitates this theft through their policies of automatically siding with buyers.
Another growing problem eBay now is sellers who don’t monitor their inventory as represented in their eBay stores only to take your payment and then send an email saying “sorry we don’t have that”. Now you wait a few days for the PayPal refund process. eBay is truly failing on all fronts now and should wither and die by the unhealthy buyer/seller conditions they’ve implemented by design.