A longtime seller and reader of EcommerceBytes is quitting eBay over a run-in with an abusive buyer in a bad experience that was compounded by eBay's policies and snafus.



A shopper bought 21 items from the seller over the course of two weeks. Two weeks after receiving her first shipment, the buyer started sending in return requests, citing "don't need it anymore."



The seller's return policy stated 100% refund within 30 days, but the buyer has to pay return shipping. "I guess when she went to ship them back, she realized that, so started opening cases of "item doesn't match description." For the reason she put "Other: Don't need it anymore."



Within seconds, the seller said, eBay emailed her that they had found in favor of the buyer. That means the seller is out her original shipping costs, return shipping, and her eBay fees



"I want to point out that she received several shipments," the seller said. "She had the first shipment of 13 items days before she bought more. So, if she wasn't happy with them, for whatever reason, why keep buying? Clearly, she was buying with intent to return."



And there's more. When the seller went to refund the buyer for the 18 items she had received back, she found that on each item, both the refund request and the case of the item not matching the description were open.



"I called eBay to ask how to do the refund. I expressed concern that the refund could be issued twice, once through the case and once through the return request. The customer service rep confirmed that was true. He said that, when the case was opened, the return request should have been closed, but it wasn't. He said he'd straighten it out and call back the next day. He didn't."



The seller said she thinks it's important for sellers to know that eBay keeps fees in such cases, and that eBay automatically approves the "item doesn't match" cases.



"What should happen is that eBay throws her off (I suspect they've done this before and this is a new user ID she emerged with), then provide a way for me to refund her for the items she returned, less my shipping cost. Since she bought with no intent to keep the items, I should not incur any financial loss. And eBay is definitely not entitled to any fees."



What do you think of this case and how eBay handled it?

