eBay Sellers of R107 parts watch out

[DieselPaul]

Watch out for this guy:

acarrington426


Mercedes Benz W116 Headliner 300SD 280 s SE 450SE Ceiling Cover | eBay

Accepted his off of $75.00 shipped.

His email to me almost 20 days after receiving it:

Hi, is this headliner from a convertible? my Mercedes is a convertible and my headliner has rotted out. I don't know where your metal rods hooked on to, please let me know, I have a 1981 280sl
thanks,
Albert

My reply

This was removed from a 1980 300SD W116 sedan as stated in the ad. The W116 is the S-class sedan, not the convertible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_W116

Thanks

His response:

I thought it was for a convertible, then I don't think I can use it, is there anyway I can return it ? please let me know
thank you,
Albert

I offered him a partial refund, less my fees and my shipping costs, which nets out to around $37. I pointed out the ad nowhere says R107, convertible, or SL. I can understand the guy doesn't need the part, but I described it accurately and he did not read the ad. It's not my responsibility to pay for his negligence. He immediately opened an "item not as described" complaint with eBay. The eBay system is automated and granted him a full refund.

Called eBay and got a person on the phone who said this is clearly "buyers remorse" and not covered by their buyer protection, but since the effectively lied to the automated system he usurped all the rules.

I've reported him for every applicable form of Terms of Use Violation with eBay but I doubt eBay actually investigates those.

However, since I sold it as free shipping eBay will not debit his refund by my initial shipping costs. So it cost me $35 to sell and have this item returned since eBay will not refund my fees or my shipping costs.

I've got the $35, clearly he needs it more than I do. It's the principle of the matter that people are willing to lie and essentially steal from other people to cover for their own negligence.

Add acarrington426 to your blocked buyers list. This guy doesn't read ads and will lie to get his money back.

Oh eBay.

[greazzer]

That sux !

[fonzi]

I always wondered about free shipping. Now I see it's something I will never use in any of my eBay ads. In fact, I think I don't charge enough of a surcharge for the hassle of packaging and shipping. It takes a lot of time.

[DieselPaul]

Yeah I used to use it because it got you an automatic 5 stars and it gave you some boost in your seller rating, but according to whoever I talked to in "appeals" today, it loses you pretty much all your seller protections as far as refund is concerned.

[97 SL320]

Somewhere on e bay there was a statement that "free shipping" just means the fees are incorporated into the selling price and not subject to refund on the buyer side.

E bay would do much better to force sellers / buyers leaving neutral / bad feedback to send a message to the buyer / seller stating the issue and giving the other party x days to reply.

[BWhitmore]

Ebay, several years ago, highly encouraged sellers to list items as "free shipping". I am sure that many sellers did this while at the same time raised the price of their item in order to cover the cost of shipping. Who gained from this? Ebay, because as we all know, Ebay calculates their commission based on the sale price of the item which has now been raised by the seller in order to cover the seller's cost of the "free shipping".

[DieselPaul]

Originally Posted by BWhitmore

Ebay, several years ago, highly encouraged sellers to list items as "free shipping". I am sure that many sellers did this while at the same time raised the price of their item in order to cover the cost of shipping. Who gained from this? Ebay, because as we all know, Ebay calculates their commission based on the sale price of the item which has now been raised by the seller in order to cover the seller's cost of the "free shipping".

Currently eBays Final Value Fee is the total price of Sale Price + Shipping. So make sure you mark up your shipping by 10-13% just to cover the eBay and PayPal fees on the cost of the shipping.

[Djenka]

This is rather the vendor site (ebay) issue then the buyer.

I had my car 3 times sold on ebay, each time buyers not even attempting to contact me for payment let alone pay for. ebey wanted to charge me seller fees based on the price sold, irrespective that no money was exchanged ever. Argued my case, but it fell on deaf ears. They threatened to sue me for few hundred of bucks... few month later threats subdued and I had to start another account...

Ebay's attitude is: whichever way we make the money more -this is the rules we will follow.

[fonzi]

Originally Posted by BWhitmore

Ebay, several years ago, highly encouraged sellers to list items as "free shipping". I am sure that many sellers did this while at the same time raised the price of their item in order to cover the cost of shipping. Who gained from this? Ebay, because as we all know, Ebay calculates their commission based on the sale price of the item which has now been raised by the seller in order to cover the seller's cost of the "free shipping".

As stated in post 7, you pay the same fees on shipping as you pay on the value of the item. So yes, mark up the shipping too! But when I let eBay calculate shipping, it seems to always work out ok for me as a seller. Rarely do I lose money on shipping when I let eBay price it and create the label for me. That is one thing that is VERY convenient about eBay selling IMO.

[lorainfurniture]

This kind of crap happens to me at least twice a week. It's not worth arguing as eBay will side with the buyer 99% of the time. eBay did actually side with me one time for a similar situation.

Despite it happening so often, it still feels like a kick in the teeth.

[Idle]

An old used car scam is to buy a car at auction and then flip it before you need to pay for it. You get the car on credit, sort of, and then your buyer that you flipped the car to pays for everything including your profit.

I started buying cars at city auction sales about 40 years ago and then one day a change in the rules was announced. You had until the end of the day to pay for your purchase. If not you were banned for three months.

This seemed fair to me but the next time I went there was a smaller crowd. I was only buying stuff I wanted to play with or needed for a parts car but the used/salvage guys were there to make a living. One of them told me why the crowd was smaller and what had been going on.

But Ebay is still one place where a buyer can string out a seller and not suffer for it. I don't buy or sell cars on Ebay, mostly because of the distance involved in dragging something home, but perhaps this 'business method' is at work in all of the buyers who never show up?

[Desert Panther]

Originally Posted by Djenka

This is rather the vendor site (ebay) issue then the buyer.

I had my car 3 times sold on ebay, each time buyers not even attempting to contact me for payment let alone pay for. ebey wanted to charge me seller fees based on the price sold, irrespective that no money was exchanged ever. Argued my case, but it fell on deaf ears. They threatened to sue me for few hundred of bucks... few month later threats subdued and I had to start another account...

Ebay's attitude is: whichever way we make the money more -this is the rules we will follow.

I had this same exact thing happen to me years ago, though not for a big ticket item like a car. But still they were charging me sales fees on items that the buyer never actually bought/paid for. So in the end, I got screwed. And no longer will I do business as a seller on ebay. They've proven (to me anyway) that they cant be trusted.

[fonzi]

Originally Posted by Desert Panther

I had this same exact thing happen to me years ago, though not for a big ticket item like a car. But still they were charging me sales fees on items that the buyer never actually bought/paid for. So in the end, I got screwed. And no longer will I do business as a seller on ebay. They've proven (to me anyway) that they cant be trusted.

There are both manual and automatic actions that can be performed like filing a non-paying bidder claim. It is just part of selling on eBay. Non-paying bidders are one of the reasons I don't like:
- auction listings (preferring buy it now with best offer).
- accepting "best offers" from bidders. I would prefer to send them a counter-offer.

I prefer a condition when the buyer decides to buy that they must pay (at least a deposit) immediately. Situations where the buyer doesn't have to be present at the "end of listing" are too commonly ignored by the winning bidder.

[JimFreeh]

Originally Posted by fonzi

There are both manual and automatic actions that can be performed like filing a non-paying bidder claim. It is just part of selling on eBay. Non-paying bidders are one of the reasons I don't like:
- auction listings (preferring buy it now with best offer).
- accepting "best offers" from bidders. I would prefer to send them a counter-offer.

I prefer a condition when the buyer decides to buy that they must pay (at least a deposit) immediately. Situations where the buyer doesn't have to be present at the "end of listing" are too commonly ignored by the winning bidder.

Now that's some good advice.
I'll try this next time I list an item.

Jim