A Really Bad Couple Weeks
So it's been a bad couple weeks. It started on the 27th of April, when I sold a doll on eBay. She was a Tonner doll, and the buyer received her the very next Monday, just four days later. Tuesday, she opened a case against me for sending a broken doll. That's right. She accused me of purposely sending her a damaged doll.
And thus the fight began.
I tried working things out with her, but her story sounded fishy from the start. She finally sent me pictures, and it seemed to me the doll had been tampered with. Tonner doll's are tied into the box, and the doll had been removed, her hairnet had been mussed, and her swimsuit disturbed. Even the elastic hang tag on the doll's broken arm had been removed. But why? None of these things made sense. However, I couldn't prove she'd tampered with the doll and caused it to break, and eBay wouldn't consider the pictures as evidence unless the buyer uploaded them to the case. It took her two days to get it figured out, but finally she did. I asked her a lot of loaded questions about the observations I'd made, she answered with a huge load of crap.
eBay said, take the doll back and then appeal. Call us right away when the item is returned to start the appeal. I did all of that. On receiving the doll, I found that she had indeed been broken by the buyer. She's an older Tonner Marley doll, one of the first Tonner made, and her arms don't move out from her side like most of Tonner's newer dolls. The buyer, or someone related to her, tried to do just that and snapped her arm right off. Then made up a bunch of crap about how it arrived broken and all her other tampering made sense. Which it didn't. Not by a long shot.
I appealed to eBay, but the eBay rep I called said, oh, let me close the case and refund the buyer. I said okay, what difference did that make? Well, a whole lot of difference. eBay denied my appeal because they had to get involved! Can you believe that? They involved themselves when I asked for their advice and gave me no warning of the consequences. They took over my case and then said, too bad, you don't get anything because we got involved of our own volition. All of this took two weeks.
I'm pretty fuming right now. All I have is a broken doll, and no way to resell her and make back my loss. All that to say, not a good idea to trust eBay as a seller. I've begun to rethink my involvement with them as a seller to the point that yesterday I took all my active eBay listings down. In essence they said I'm dishonest by siding with a dishonest buyer that accused me of being dishonest. And I know now that if anything happens, I can't trust eBay to back me up. They say they "trust" their sellers, but that is not true. I recommend never selling on eBay. As I mentioned, I'm getting off of there myself, especially if their rep's helpful "let me close the case and refund the buyer" causes any possible negative feedback to stick. It hardly pays to be an honest seller on eBay. At least I got my final value fee credit, and don't have to pay eBay for the pleasure of them helping the buyer rip me off.
And to top it off, I caught a cold on Friday, and I'm still getting over it. Talk about insult to injury...
Well, I know that was a rant, and I also know that it didn't have much to do with dolls, especially BJDs. So here's a photo I took this afternoon.
Horace met Wyn for the first time.
"I've never seen someone as pale as you," Horace wrinkled his nose.
Wyn laughed. "Yeah, well, we're even. I've never met someone as short as you either."
Now, I'm coming back down off my frustration high, and trying to cheer up.
~SilverStar-Burst
And thus the fight began.
I tried working things out with her, but her story sounded fishy from the start. She finally sent me pictures, and it seemed to me the doll had been tampered with. Tonner doll's are tied into the box, and the doll had been removed, her hairnet had been mussed, and her swimsuit disturbed. Even the elastic hang tag on the doll's broken arm had been removed. But why? None of these things made sense. However, I couldn't prove she'd tampered with the doll and caused it to break, and eBay wouldn't consider the pictures as evidence unless the buyer uploaded them to the case. It took her two days to get it figured out, but finally she did. I asked her a lot of loaded questions about the observations I'd made, she answered with a huge load of crap.
eBay said, take the doll back and then appeal. Call us right away when the item is returned to start the appeal. I did all of that. On receiving the doll, I found that she had indeed been broken by the buyer. She's an older Tonner Marley doll, one of the first Tonner made, and her arms don't move out from her side like most of Tonner's newer dolls. The buyer, or someone related to her, tried to do just that and snapped her arm right off. Then made up a bunch of crap about how it arrived broken and all her other tampering made sense. Which it didn't. Not by a long shot.
I appealed to eBay, but the eBay rep I called said, oh, let me close the case and refund the buyer. I said okay, what difference did that make? Well, a whole lot of difference. eBay denied my appeal because they had to get involved! Can you believe that? They involved themselves when I asked for their advice and gave me no warning of the consequences. They took over my case and then said, too bad, you don't get anything because we got involved of our own volition. All of this took two weeks.
I'm pretty fuming right now. All I have is a broken doll, and no way to resell her and make back my loss. All that to say, not a good idea to trust eBay as a seller. I've begun to rethink my involvement with them as a seller to the point that yesterday I took all my active eBay listings down. In essence they said I'm dishonest by siding with a dishonest buyer that accused me of being dishonest. And I know now that if anything happens, I can't trust eBay to back me up. They say they "trust" their sellers, but that is not true. I recommend never selling on eBay. As I mentioned, I'm getting off of there myself, especially if their rep's helpful "let me close the case and refund the buyer" causes any possible negative feedback to stick. It hardly pays to be an honest seller on eBay. At least I got my final value fee credit, and don't have to pay eBay for the pleasure of them helping the buyer rip me off.
And to top it off, I caught a cold on Friday, and I'm still getting over it. Talk about insult to injury...
Well, I know that was a rant, and I also know that it didn't have much to do with dolls, especially BJDs. So here's a photo I took this afternoon.
Horace met Wyn for the first time.
"I've never seen someone as pale as you," Horace wrinkled his nose.
Wyn laughed. "Yeah, well, we're even. I've never met someone as short as you either."
Now, I'm coming back down off my frustration high, and trying to cheer up.
~SilverStar-Burst
Comments
Post a Comment