Buyer asked for refund after package was sent

[Snwboardr]

Hello fellow paypallers First off I want to thank any replies ahead of time, here goes.... 3 weeks ago I sold an iphone on eBay to someone on a buy it now, they paid right away. I have a no return policy on all my items. In the listing I also gave them the choice of 1 out of two cases I had. He responded right away after making payment of which one he wanted. We were in constant contact for the next day and a half because he kept asking when it was going to be shipped out. I finally got it shipped out around 36 hours after receiving payment (within my 48 hours that I always guarantee). Everything was great. A couple hours after having dropped off the package he requests a refund claiming that he made a mistake and thought it was a different phone. First off I found that very hard to believe considering he read into the description enough to see that he needed to message me after making payment telling me which case he wanted. I then started to research what I was required to do in this situation. NOWHERE did I find in either paypals or ebays seller policy that I had to issue a refund at all...especially after the package was already shipped out. We messaged and forth a couple times and in between those he changed his excuse to that he was going to be out of town when it would be delivered. Next day (1 day after shipping) he opened an unreceived item claim with PayPal. There's the first violation...under their agreement it states that you can't even open a claim until at least one week has passed. Anyway I called right away, provided tracking and they released the funds back to me since obviously there was no way he should've even received the package yet to begin with. They kept the case open. I asked the PayPal rep what would happen if he refused the package because that's what he was threatening to do. The rep told me to call back as soon as I saw it was delivered and they would then close the case in my favor because the tracking would still deem it as delivered even if he refused the package. I then asked what would happen when I receive the package back...wouldn't I have to issue a refund? He specifically told me no all you are required to do is make sure the item is delivered and that it arrives as described, as long as that happens no money will be taken out of my account even if I end up back in possession of the item due to the fact of him refusing it, because it will still be shown as delivered. I did exactly that, called an hour after package was marked as delivered, had the case closed in my favor. Asked the SAME EXACT question and received the SAME EXACT answer. A week and a half goes by, I get a call from the UPS store, sir we have a package here for you that was refused by the receiver can you come pick it up please? I proceeded to call PayPal, before I went and picked this thing up I wanted to verify for sure that I was in the clear. Guess what apparently the day after I closed the first case he opened another for the same exact reason, the PayPal rep was stunned and said I don't know how this is even possible because we don't allow a case to be opened twice for the same exact thing. She closed it out after checking the tracking again to verify that it was delivered and that his second undelivered item claim that he opened was untrue due to it was in fact delivered. I AGAIN proceeded to ask her the SAME EXACT question and she as well (the 3rd PayPal rep in a row!) gave me the SAME EXACT answer. Just to be totally 100% sure I then called eBay and asked them if I was either required to issue a refund or try to send the item back out again. I was very specific to make clear that I was in possession of both item and payment. He gave a very clear NO you have fulfilled all your responsibilities as a good seller and even assured me that if a negative feedback was issued by buyer that I could call and have it removed. Well as you can imagine, here we are 9:00 pm EST 2 days after I picked the phone back up, 3 weeks after selling the item, I get an email from PayPal stating they have issued the buyer a full refund. As you can imagine it took all I had not to wing my phone up against the wall at Mach 1 after reading that email. I just got off the phone with PayPal...there is nothing they can do, now they have totally flipped their story and are telling me that if I'm I'm possession of both item and payment that they HAVE to issue a refund and there's nothing I can do. Am I really left here after being told the same thing 4 times by 4 different people to eat the devalue of this phone that has occurred over the past 3 weeks? Phone prices on eBay have dropped around $100 over that time now due to the release of the new iphone release date this September. Basically what they're telling you is that your no refund policy means diddly squat and all the buyer has to do is refuse the package and they get a full refund willy nilly for whatever reason they want. Not to mention that these reps can all tell you one thing then totally change it up the next week and take over $600 from you. The customer service here is blowing my mind, I've never been treated this way by any compny before ever. I was placed on hold by two different reps when I asked for a supervisor only to call back the 3rd time to find out that no supervisors are actually available and that I was on hold for 30 minutes each time for the fun of it...yes the 3rd rep actually said hmmm I'm not sure why they placed you on hold because all our supers are gone for today they left hours ago. So I'm sorry for the long story but I would really like to hear your guys feedback on this one.

[kernowlass]

Sorry but can't read through all that.

Can you edit the salient points and add paragraphs please.

[Me_Me_Me]

Sorry to ask this, but why on earth would you think that you can have the item and his money? Yes, the situation blows, but you act as if you simply want to take his money and not redeliver You did not hit a lottery ticket. You had an unfortunate circumstance. Do you think it would be OK to steal his $600 because you were inconvenienced?

I am 100% sure that no Paypal or eBay representative communicated that because they buyer was a jerk you can just keep his $600 and the iPhone. You were a victim of your own selective interpretation. Pigs will fly before a lone CSR from Paypal or eBay would make such a blunder and tell you it is OK to steal a customer's $600, much less 4 representatives all saying it. I actually find your question not only bizarre, but it shows that you are as much or more of a "scammer" than this buyer.

Forget about the hard and fast rules for a second (which you clearly misunderstood in apparent excitement that you were entitled to rob from him), what about the simple, human decency aspect? I don't mean to sound like a cornball, but you really should engage in some self-examination regarding human morality and what is right vs wrong.

As far as your OP, paragraph breaks would do wonders for getting a reply.

Let me help, though I suspect you might have been better off with the wall of text that nobody read. I don't think you will have get much sympathy.:

ORIGINAL POST

. 

@Snwboardr wrote:

Hello fellow paypallers First off I want to thank any replies ahead of time, here goes....

3 weeks ago I sold an iphone on eBay to someone on a buy it now, they paid right away. I have a no return policy on all my items.

In the listing I also gave them the choice of 1 out of two cases I had. He responded right away after making payment of which one he wanted. We were in constant contact for the next day and a half because he kept asking when it was going to be shipped out.

I finally got it shipped out around 36 hours after receiving payment (within my 48 hours that I always guarantee). Everything was great. A couple hours after having dropped off the package he requests a refund claiming that he made a mistake and thought it was a different phone. First off I found that very hard to believe considering he read into the description enough to see that he needed to message me after making payment telling me which case he wanted. I then started to research what I was required to do in this situation.

NOWHERE did I find in either paypals or ebays seller policy that I had to issue a refund at all...especially after the package was already shipped out. We messaged and forth a couple times and in between those he changed his excuse to that he was going to be out of town when it would be delivered. Next day (1 day after shipping) he opened an unreceived item claim with PayPal.

There's the first violation...under their agreement it states that you can't even open a claim until at least one week has passed. Anyway I called right away, provided tracking and they released the funds back to me since obviously there was no way he should've even received the package yet to begin with. They kept the case open. I asked the PayPal rep what would happen if he refused the package because that's what he was threatening to do. The rep told me to call back as soon as I saw it was delivered and they would then close the case in my favor because the tracking would still deem it as delivered even if he refused the package.

I then asked what would happen when I receive the package back...wouldn't I have to issue a refund? He specifically told me no all you are required to do is make sure the item is delivered and that it arrives as described, as long as that happens no money will be taken out of my account even if I end up back in possession of the item due to the fact of him refusing it, because it will still be shown as delivered. I did exactly that, called an hour after package was marked as delivered, had the case closed in my favor. Asked the SAME EXACT question and received the SAME EXACT answer.

A week and a half goes by, I get a call from the UPS store, sir we have a package here for you that was refused by the receiver can you come pick it up please? I proceeded to call PayPal, before I went and picked this thing up I wanted to verify for sure that I was in the clear. Guess what apparently the day after I closed the first case he opened another for the same exact reason, the PayPal rep was stunned and said I don't know how this is even possible because we don't allow a case to be opened twice for the same exact thing.

She closed it out after checking the tracking again to verify that it was delivered and that his second undelivered item claim that he opened was untrue due to it was in fact delivered. I AGAIN proceeded to ask her the SAME EXACT question and she as well (the 3rd PayPal rep in a row!) gave me the SAME EXACT answer. Just to be totally 100% sure I then called eBay and asked them if I was either required to issue a refund or try to send the item back out again.

I was very specific to make clear that I was in possession of both item and payment. He gave a very clear NO you have fulfilled all your responsibilities as a good seller and even assured me that if a negative feedback was issued by buyer that I could call and have it removed. Well as you can imagine, here we are 9:00 pm EST 2 days after I picked the phone back up, 3 weeks after selling the item, I get an email from PayPal stating they have issued the buyer a full refund. As you can imagine it took all I had not to wing my phone up against the wall at Mach 1 after reading that email. I just got off the phone with PayPal...there is nothing they can do, now they have totally flipped their story and are telling me that if I'm I'm possession of both item and payment that they HAVE to issue a refund and there's nothing I can do.

Am I really left here after being told the same thing 4 times by 4 different people to eat the devalue of this phone that has occurred over the past 3 weeks? Phone prices on eBay have dropped around $100 over that time now due to the release of the new iphone release date this September. Basically what they're telling you is that your no refund policy means diddly squat and all the buyer has to do is refuse the package and they get a full refund willy nilly for whatever reason they want.

Not to mention that these reps can all tell you one thing then totally change it up the next week and take over $600 from you.

The customer service here is blowing my mind, I've never been treated this way by any compny before ever. I was placed on hold by two different reps when I asked for a supervisor only to call back the 3rd time to find out that no supervisors are actually available and that I was on hold for 30 minutes each time for the fun of it...yes the 3rd rep actually said hmmm I'm not sure why they placed you on hold because all our supers are gone for today they left hours ago.

So I'm sorry for the long story but I would really like to hear your guys feedback on this one.

---

[Snwboardr]

First off I did have my post broken up into paragraphs. Considering I graduated honors English in every grade in high school in a private school nonetheless, I would never post such a long story like that without any paragraph breaks. Not my fault this horrible excuse for a company can't get their mobile website to work correctly. I also enjoy the fact that even though they are owned by eBay they don't follow any of their guidelines...totally makes sense. Anyway I don't know if this response is being broken up into paragraphs but if all the forum members are as dense as you I don't really care anyway. Apparently you either didn't read the part where I said I called eBay and PayPal to ask how to proceed after getting the package returned to me or you did read it and it was just too much for you to comprehend. I would give you my eBay account name to show you that my 100% positive rating shows that I am very much NOT a scammer but again I really don't care. Also, why would I come on here and spend all that time typing that story just to lie about it? I am not lying when I tell you that 4 people all told me the same exact thing that if he refused the package that I would not have to take any further action to try to re-deliver the item or issue a refund. This is how I worded my question exactly, I did this because I wanted to be very clear on what was going on...why do you ask? Because I myself even thought it was totally bizarre that I could keep both item and payment. Here was my question to all 4 reps "so what you're saying is that if he refuses a package I sent to him that he already paid for, I end up with said package back in my possession, I will not have to issue a refund or attempt to send the package again?" They were all VERY clear when they said yes that is correct...they did not change their answer until I went and picked that package up and they had made their refund automatically without notifying me. Then I called them, was put on hold indefinitely twice and treated like pure dog crap. It blows my mind how much PayPal and eBay totally favor the buyer instead of the sellers that are actually making them the money. I am not the scammer my friend...the scammer here was the buyer. The one that clearly knew what he was buying, requested a refund for a no refund item AFTER making payment and AFTER it was shipped, and also lying about his reasons for the refund twice. That's not even what **bleep** me off here...what ticked me off was that I was blatantly lied to by PayPal and eBay about what was going to happen with this situation. Why do you think I asked so many different people? Because I thought it sounded insane myself! I didn't want both the payment and the item...I only wanted the **bleep** payment...which is why I paid for free UPS shipping with $600 worth of insurance. I even would've resent the freaking phone had he asked me to and had no problem with it at all but instead he slithered around like a little snake crying to PayPal to get a return for something that he very well knew what he was buying (over 1000 feedback). I guess the lesson here is a no return policy on eBay doesn't mean a **bleep** thing. Anybody can get a return on whatever they want, all they have to do is refuse the package and abracadabra you get a full refund and the seller is left to pick up the pieces from the devalue of the product over the amount of time, losing the 1% of the PayPal fee that they don't get back, the free shipping that they may have paid for, and you also have to call eBay to make sure you get your final value fee back. Total BS.

[Snwboardr]

Btw I broke that response up into paragraphs as well. Apparently I was right, this joke of a company can't even put together a mobile version of their website that works correctly. PayPal is worthless, I'm glad all the money I'm making them is going to good use.

[Me_Me_Me]

Sigh.

For an honors graduate to lack the ability to hit the enter key twice for each paragraph break. It is no wonder the world is leaving us behind. Regardless, once you saw another wall of text, why did you not just edit your post? Do you think I have a secret ability to add paragraph spacing that you do not?

Do you understand that people skip posts like yours not because they lack comprehension? They skip it because anyone who is selfish enough to expect people to read in that format are either very rude of they lack the intelligence to have posted anything of value. They also skip it because authors of text walls tend to be incapable of simple civility and most people just do not like to feed trolls like that.

I, on the other hand, very carefully read your entire OP. I understood every word and statement you made (despite the grammatical butchering you imposed upon the English language).

I also carefully read your reply just now. The most amazing thing is that you were able to spew out all those semi-sentences without answering my question or addressing the issue. At the end of my third read (wanted to make sure I did not miss anything), you still are defending the idea of keeping your buyers money and not sending him the phone.

Whether your plan was to leave it unclaimed at the Post Office or whether you were going to once again assume possession of the phone is not germane. I could note however that having possession of the phone and his $600 would satisfy the legal definition of grand larceny and fraud, but I do not want us to get bogged down on silly talk of felonies and such. Without doubt, if you were indeed told  by four crazed representatives that it was OK then I cannot see any prosecutor thinking he could win such a conviction (regardless of the absolute certainty of your guilt). The scary fact remains that you actually still feel that you are the victim here.

So, let’s get silly. Let's say every PayPal and eBay rep you spoke to all happened to attend the exact same LSD party the day of your calls. However, this was a special LSD party. This acid makes people not only forget everything they were ever trained, it also somehow drives them to conspire against one single stranger and mislead them into thinking that we live in a new world. This world is not only anarchistic; it is also devoid of any common sense and rationality. If this LSD party happened, then I owe you my deepest apologies.

BUT! – Even if the trippy party happened, I still am curious about something. I asked it in my original reply but you chose to ignore it. So I will ask again and I will underline bold, italic because everyone knows that anything that is underlined, bolded, and italicized MUST BE IMPORTANT! RIGHT? JUST LIKE EVERYTHING IN CAPS IS IMPORTANT, RIGHT?

So here goes;

Even if you were told it was OK to leave the customer hanging for his $600, do you not see the immoral behavior in of such an act?

Would it be OK, even if you were a jerk, if I kept YOUR $600 and did nothing to get you your phone at the very least? In addition, even if PayPal made this type of fraud acceptable, general policy, can you not grasp that this would lead to immediate chaos and eventual total destruction of the market model? I know that is second level thinking, but it should be an easy concept to understand. That’s easy-peasy rationality for an honor's graduate to process, right?

So, what say you?

BTW, I can continue this conversation for years, so please do not bail on me now!

[Eliot]

You said, "Even if you were told it was OK to leave the customer hanging for his $600, do you not see the immoral behavior in of such an act?"

For a buyer to refuse delivery is a breach of contract; the seller has the right to not only NOT refund, but to sue for damages, as well. This is the law in every English-speaking country on the planet. There are only three valid, legally-recognized reasons for a buyer to refuse delivery: (1.) an incomplete shipment or (2.) a "not as decribed" shipment, or (3.) unreasonably late delivery.

For example, if George buys two truckloads of apples from Bob, an apple farmer, and Bob delivers two truckloads of apples to George, the buyer, then George must take delivery of the apples or be in breach of contract. He CAN legally refuse delivery, however, if Bob only sends ONE truckload of apples, or if the apples are not the apples that George ordered as stipulated in the sale (wrong size, wrong type, etc.), or the apples were to be delivered in June and they weren't delivered until August.

If George has no valid reason to refuse delivery, then Bob can take George to court and sue not only for loss of income, but any additional damages that he may incur.