This is not intended to be an I-got-burned-on-ebay rant. I have made only a handful of e-bay purchases and this is the first time I’ve encountered a problem. I would like some e-bay veterans to advise me on how to proceed.
On January 31 I purchased a Walthers structure kit from a seller with an ebay store using the Buy-it-Now option. I immediately paid for it through PayPal. I have not yet received the item I paid for. I have made two attempts to contact the seller through e-bay’s message center and have yet to receive a reply. The seller has a 100% rating with over 1600 transactions so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now which is why I am not naming them or leaving a negative feedback at this time. My question is, what should my next step be. My Paypal recepit tells me to whom the payment was sent. Should I send a message to that address directly. If I am unable to get a response from this seller, is there a way to get a refund through PayPal. If I ran an e-bay store and had a 100% rating, I would certainly want to protect that rating so it baffles me why I have not received a response yet.
If you only paid for standard shipping, you should certainly give it more time. The 31st was a Wednesday. Let’s say this guy has a day job, and can’t get to ship your stuff until the weekend. Maybe it doesn’t get on a Brown truck until Monday the 5th, and we’re only 6 business days past that now. I wouldn’t be alarmed yet.
PayPal and eBay have many options for resolving issues like this. The best thing to do after sufficient time is past is to open a dispute on the transaction through PayPal (this is part of the built in PayPal buyer protection). The only caveat with this dispute process is I believe it becomes too late to file this dispute after 30 days (at least that is how it used to work), so you can’t wait too long. If worse comes to worse ebay also has dispute and fraud declaration on their site. Use the ebay help to find out more how this works if needed down the road.
Try contacting the seller again, after that notify PayPal that you were not sent the merchandise and can not contact the seller. PayPal takes things very seriuosly and will look into any dispute brought to their attention.
One other note about ebay make sure that what you are buying is the size or scale that you want! I bought an H.O. caboose and had an O gauge caboose shipped instead. Personally I don’t like ebay! It should be called buyer beware site!
Let a few more days go by. Contact the sellor directly if you have that information. Communication and assurance that your item is being shipped (A tracking number would be perfect)
Dont pull out all the stops just yet, you are only about halfway through what I think is a typical ebay sales time frame.
I would send the seller a certified letter asking the questions.
I ran across one instance where the seller died and his wife did not have access to his accounts.
Sending the certified letter took a little longer but I was able to make contact with the wife. Unfortunately the seller was killed in an auto accident. His wife shipped me the items I won with a letter explaining the tragedy.
I would give the certified letter a try before giving him / her a negative rating. With good ratings like that it sounds like the seller has been incapacitated by something.
As for getting any money refunded through PayPal, I don’t think you will be able to. That is the one thing I don’t like about PayPal. Once you send the money it’s gone.
There is a process through ebay that can get the seller kicked out but that’s not going to get you your cash back. That is the only retaliation I know you can take.
Just give it a few days and then go threw paypal. I paid for ho scale civil war soliders and never got then. It was like 30 days and still nothing. I messaged him 3 times and of course, nothing. Went threw paypal and they got my money back. Thats you best bet if I was you.
As others have said give this more time. The sellers approval rating 100% says it all. January 31 is less than two weeks ago. I am not making excuses but you have to give a little time to package things and get them shipped. For all you know it is in the mail. I just rec’d today items I paid PayPal for back on January 13. Dont forget The US Mail can get it to you in a few days or two weeks. UPS is pretty consistent for 6-8 days to my town.
I do not do business with approval ratings less than 96% and than I read the feedback to see what the problems were. Sometimes it is sellers and other times it is buyers. I have been buying on eBay since 1999 and have purchased over 800 items from about 450 different sellers. Most of it trains and antique car stuff. I have only one time been stiffed, not by the seller, but by the US Mail losing an uninsured item. Chris
In the simplest form, yes paypal protects you up to $2,000 of fraud and disputed buys under almost all curcumstances, and yes, you should definatley give the item more time, I’m talking a week or two of more time, considering the bad weather sweeping the nation and other things to consider. I’ve had things come in 3 weeks after purchasing, and you will have that with ebay, so if its something you need really bad, either have it express mailed or dont get it on ebay.
My son sells hobby stuff on Ebay all the time (non train related) while he is attending college at Oswego, N.Y.
The stuff is in my basement so he comes home to package things up and then he mails the stuff out. Well anyways, Oswego just got hit with about 6 feet of snow this past week (and it’s still snowing) so he hasn’t been able to mail things out as quickly as normal.
He does let the buyers know that the packages will be coming slowly because of the weather.
Thanks to all for the advice. I guess I’m a little too used to dealing with companies such as Trainworld in which I receive an item usually within 3 days of placing the order. I guess it is different when you are dealing with a “store” that is actually in somebody’s basement and it is a part time job for them. And apparently this seller doesn’t check his/her e-mail everyday either. Still it seems like a long time to get an item delivered but I’ll give it another week or so before hitting the panic button.
You should try contacting them directly through their actual email address. I have had several instances in the past where a seller was completely unable to response to my queries through the eBay system but responded almost immediately when contacted directly, .
Also, a Paypal claim can be filed up to 45 days after the sale, so don’t hit the panic button yet. Negative feedback should NOT be left until you are certain that you’re getting shafted. You have up to 60 days to post feedback, so I would suggest that you hold tight for a while yet.
Every time I do, that means one less person bidding on the train supplies I want, and that is how I’ve managed to build the roster of locos and rolling stock and structures I have.
So keep bashing eBay. The more of you who don’t use it, the more I save money. And I’ve been doing it for nearly ten years.
I’ve been trading on eBay since it’s inception. Only once was I scammed but after talking with the Canadian Mounted Police the guy ended up in jail.Not for my small money loss but when the confronted the guy and looked on his computer he had kiddy porn on it. That’s what got him in the poky!
I had an incident just last week where I sold an item on Friday and the guy didn’t pay for it Wednesday. So if it hasn’t been seven days just cool off till then and then let eBay take care of it.
I agree, give it a little more time. The seller has that 100% feedback for a reason. Anyway, with Ebay I feel its more buyer “aware” than buyer beware. Always take your time, read shipping (especially cost!) and return policies, and then go through some of the sellers recent feedback.