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Yesterday, a customer returned an $80 microphone to me without using any padding whatsoever. Literally, they just threw it into a flat rate box, taped it up, and sent the item ping-ponging around the empty box on a trip halfway across the country. I could not believe it. In almost 10 years of selling, that has never happened to me. Somehow, amazingly, the item made the journey intact and apparently undamaged. I reluctantly refunded the money, blocked them, reported them, and moved on. Has this happened to anyone else?
The return was for buyer’s remorse (Reason: “Heard bad things about it. Waste of money.”). Maybe they were mad they had to pay to return it? Oh, and worse yet, this person is also a seller on eBay (albeit they only sell about 10 items). Not surprisingly, the person’s feedback is less than stellar.
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Plenty of times, unfortunately. However, like you, I’ve been pleasantly surprised that most of the time the items are undamaged. Some examples:
I sold some business phones and the buyer returned them in a box about 3x the size of the one I’d used with only 2 or 3 of those air packets thrown in. They’d also been using the box to store dog treats, as there were a few bouncing around inside with the phones. Refunded in full.
This week a buyer returned a $200 bit of stereo equipment but wasn’t a native English speaker, so they couldn’t properly describe the problem. The picture they sent of the issue was taken from like 10 feet away and showed nothing. It was a heavy unit so I’d included a bunch of packing materials to make sure it arrived in one piece, but there was no way the same materials were going to survive return shipping. The buyer ended up just loosely repacking it with all the bubble wrap on top of the unit instead of around it, and there was 2 crazy dents in the case. However, since the buyer couldn’t properly describe the issue they were having and didn’t take a good picture, I had no idea if the damage occurred when I shipped it or when they returned it. I refunded them, but not their original shipping.
I’ve only refused a 100% refund of the purchase cost once (IIRC) when a buyer returned their old vacuum part instead of the one I shipped them. It was nasty, completely covered in dust and full of stuff. I docked the maximum amount from the refund and reported them.
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We just had a buyer return three plates to us. The buyer put them in a box without any padding. Surprisingly only one broke.
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People use broken plates for mosaics and jewellery- a friend’s just done a course on mosaic-making using a mix of tesserae and trimmed sherds.
Also, this for when you do get a box of finely-ground sand back.
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At one time, I knew someone who did mosaics. I gave her all my chipped ceramics and china; however, she started working with other art and didn’t want it anymore.
A friend knew someone who ran a mosaic class, but she didn’t want my castoffs either.
I did hear of a guy that was collecting empty bottles and whatnot for a business based on breaking things, but I haven’t heard from him for a while. Maybe there are plenty of bottles out there as well as chipped ceramics that he is set for now.
Hard to get rid of this stuff for reuse.
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I have an odd addendum to this story. I checked my mailbox yesterday, and that same customer sent me another microphone via eBay returns. It is the same model of mic, but this one is in a bit worse physical condition. He sent it back in the same packaging that I sent him the mic originally, so at least this one was bubble wrapped.
I’m not sure why he sent another one. Pretty crazy. Twice now, this customer has done something I have never encountered before after almost a decade selling on eBay and 9,500 sales.
Anyone else encounter something similar to this situation?
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