eBay Seller Woes


I sell items on eBay from time to time.  I’m not a retailer or some big store with a tried and true return policy.  I always list my items as “no returns”.  So I sold a wireless Sony media streamer to a Maryland buyer.  It works fine.  It’s like new.  The moron who bought it e-mailed me after he received it.  He said, and I quote, “wifi not work”.  I can see problems in the offing.  Wound up with me being forced to refund this idiot his purchase price in full, as well as his shipping costs.  All because he’s too stupid to figure out how to use the item.  While I was trying to “satisfy” this dude, I actually tracked down the user manual on the web and e-mailed him the link.  Also wrote out the process to set it up properly and find his wireless network in the device interface (provided, of course, that he actually had a home wireless network, which I doubt).

Nevertheless, he was too stupid to figure it out.  He demanded that I refund his price.  I e-mailed him that I’d be happy to refund his purchase price, less shipping, upon his return of the perfectly good Sony media streamer.  He wanted EVERYTHING back including shipping, and made a claim with eBay.

eBay police allows for me, as a seller, to refund him everything, but allows no process for an independent fact-finder to ascertain if the item is or is not usable (which is what the marginal citizen alleged).  So I refunded his money, including shipping, so that I could maintain a good eBay rating. I now have the Sony media streamer back, which still works fine.

Not long thereafter, I received an automated e-mail survey from eBay regarding my experience with the eBay protection process.  I hammered them.  For all the good it did.

Wrote the whole thing off the the general intelligence level of people who live in Maryland, and eBay’s punitive policy regarding sellers.  Then I  went on with my life.

Until today.

I received a follow-up auto-generated e-mail from eBay thanking me for my rapid resolution of the case, thanking me for being an eBay seller, and offering some links to their site so that I can avoid such nonsense in the future.  I read all the contents of all of their links.  Not one includes a process for a small-time eBay seller to not get screwed by a village idiot from Maryland.  And, I already do all the simple stuff that you recommended, eBay.

Please cease sending me a dump-load of "thank-you" e-mails, eBay.  It's not helping.

“wifi not work”.  What a fargin' moron.

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