Ebay and other online Scammers

PayPal is a good place to turn to, within 6 months. But they do want you to try to figure things out with the seller first. So what does one do with an uncooperative seller?

GubernatorFan wrote:PayPal is a good place to turn to, within 6 months. But they do want you to try to figure things out with the seller first. So what does one do with an uncooperative seller?

One you open a case in the 'help' section, eBay ask you to contact the seller, if they haven't replied within 7 days, eBay will ask if you want them to intervene, say yes, they then contact the seller, if there is still no satisfactory reply from the seller after a further 7 days they will conduct an investigation that usually ends up with you getting a full refund within a few days or so. That's been my experience in the past.

venator5, did you try contacting the seller?
Most likely you'll get the standard "don't worry friend, we'll ship it soon" response, but there is a chance the seller admits it's not in stock and offers a refund.

Visisonor wrote:venator5, did you try contacting the seller?
Most likely you'll get the standard "don't worry friend, we'll ship it soon" response, but there is a chance the seller admits it's not in stock and offers a refund.

Well the seller just responded in the morning. According to him the lunar new year just ended and he was in holidays which resulted in that orders gotten piled up.

He said the order will be shipped within 48 hours. Which would be Marc 06 8:11 for me (central european time)

So I will wait for a bit I guess.

None of you meet with such issues recently? Delays?

venator5 wrote:None of you meet with such issues recently? Delays?

My February orders were delayed, some by a week, one has been returned to sender, according to the tracker.
One package has been lost a few years ago (but it was Giantoy, and they've sent a replacement).
I also remember seeing mentions of shipping disruptions on this forum around this time, so it seems to be common.

I had something similar with my latest order. Two weeks after my order was confirmed and payment received it still hadn't shipped. When I inquired it was shipped later that day, and that same day I got an email that they were understaffed and very busy, so there were delays. I've got the feeling there was some hiccup in the process, and my order was forgotten.

Incidentally with that same order there was an error at customs. Since it was from Japan, I had to pay taxes. When I did that, I didn't get confirmation it was paid. So a day later I called customer service (from the shipping company, who handles the customs), which didn't really get me further, because they said my payment wasn't registred, and if it still wasn't registered in a few days, the package would be sent back. But if I had proof of payment I could request a refund. That was not really helpful, because the webshop had already mailed me when the package was in customs, that if it was to be sent back because I hadn't paid the taxes, they'd only resend if I paid shipping costs again.

So a day later I decided to try to pay again, which thankfully worked. I then immediately filed for a refund. A few days later I was called that indeed there was an error in the system and I would get a refund, which would take week or so, because there were a lot of people who had the same issue, and there were even people who paid 5 times. Kinda weird they hadn't noticed it yet when I first called them.

The joys of buying internationally.

Quick update: Today was the deadline of the 48 hours given. I have sent a message to the seller who responded within 15 minutes: According to him the order was just being sent to the China post but Ebay has not received the tracking number yet

Update: My order has been shipped, I received a tracking number and ebay marked it as shipped.

Visisonor wrote:

venator5 wrote:None of you meet with such issues recently? Delays?

My February orders were delayed, some by a week, one has been returned to sender, according to the tracker.
One package has been lost a few years ago (but it was Giantoy, and they've sent a replacement).
I also remember seeing mentions of shipping disruptions on this forum around this time, so it seems to be common.

After having good success on eBay, I went a little crazy in early February.  About six orders went two weeks or more without shipping and three were "returned to sender" according to the tracking service.  I contacted sellers of those three and received the standard email response (Sorry friend, yada, yada, yada...), a partial refund and a promise to enclose a "gift" along with the item.  One is still checking.  It's been over six weeks and tonight I requested refunds for the undelivered items.  One refunded right away and the other is asking me to wait another few days claiming it is in my local post office (but he gave me a bogus tracking number a few weeks ago).

The three orders that were not returned to sender were a few weeks late, but they did finally come in.  In my limited experience the order is shown as "Shipped" when the seller creates the label, but it may not actually be taken to the shipping center until a week or two later.  Once the shipping service actually gets the item, the transit time to delivery is surprisingly fast.

I'll need to remember this experience next February, if I'm still picking up things on eBay.

Wow, that's quite unfortunate re: multiple returned to sender orders.
I am quite sure you are right about shipped status meaning "label created" (not just with eBay).
There were 1-2 week delays for me with other statuses (statiii?) this time. Yeah, not the best time for ordering from China.