In December I sold a set of Christmas ornaments on EBay. A woman won the auction and immediately paid me via PayPal. I shipped the items forthright paying more to ship then the buyer paid me. Upon receipt of the items the buyer contacted me claiming damage to one of the pieces. At this time Paypal had already put the money on hold as I was a "first time" seller. appreciatedequested a refund through EBay wwich I refused telling the buyer that the package was insured and the insurance from the shipper would cover the damaged piece. EBay closed the request and transferred the funds from Paypal to my bank account. The buyer immediately filed a claim at Paypal claiming "item not as described" and once again the funds were placed on hold. I responded to her claim in a timely manner, including photos of the original listing as well as my shipping receipt showing the insurance of the items. In the resolution center the claim status was Paypal is reviewing. After waiting weeks I called Paypal to check status of the issue. I was then informed that the claim was being reviewed by some bank as the buyer paid for the transaction using a PayPal credit card. WTF? Basically the foreign customer service rep said that to resolve the issue I needed to request return of the items. Once I recieved them the money would be refunded to the buyer and the claim closed. How is that a resolution if one of my items is now damaged. And the buyer did upload a picture of the item broken in 5 places. How does that make me whole? When does seller protection kick in? I feel this buyer took advantage of my inexperience as a first time seller and manipulated the entire resolution process. Did I mention that at the onset, when Ebay notified me of the request for refund the email from EBay included the following statement in red " this buyer shows unusual return activity" Again, WTF? They tell me this now? If I was made aware of this initially I would not have done business with this buyer. As it stands today, I have yet to rec eive my items back, Ebay is hounding me to pay my monthly invoice which I factored into the selling price of the items, and this buyer will be refunded monies she never really spent in the first place. Any guidance would be appreciated.
