Buyer who used frieght forwarder requests refund

[Gompers]

I sold three books to a buyer about 3 weeks ago. They contacted me today and said the books were damaged and want a refund. They said “binders are broken and pages are falling out” What’s odd about that statement is I sold them Paperbacks. Never seen binders broken on paperbacks with pages falling out. I suppose anything is possible though.

This forwarder is in New Jersey. I looked up the address and its some type of storage unit / industrial building. Also, the USPS tracking says it was “delivered to agent. Which may or may not mean anything.

Since 3 weeks have passed I would assume that’s enough time for the “real buyer” to receive their items from the forwarder and request a refund. However, the “real buyer” would have to send the books back to the forwarder and request a refund from them. I doubt this would make much sense since the cost of intl shipping is high.

IF I accept the refund it seems to me the forwarder would not have the books to return to me, or they would return other books in their place.

This was not a high dollar sale, but I’m curious what would other sellers do in this situation. I’m leaning towards accepting the return because I want to know if they really have the books to return to me.

[Jay]

Obviously if you’re not bothered, so a refund and be done. But we would take time to figure it out.

So who actually purchased the item on eBay? The foreign buyer or the shipping company?

[Gompers]

Shipping company purchased the books, I don’t know who the foreign buyer is. I’ve had this happen before, so I don’t think this is strange at all. This issue happens a lot on Amazon too and there are a number of posts on this subject in their sellers forum.

The consensus seems to be to accept these returns because the buyer (shipping company) doesn’t have the items to return. However, it is also possible that the shipping company would just return incorrect items instead since ebay and amazon seem to not care about that and will side with the buyer anyways.

I would only be out $4 shipping. I’m super curious to know what they will return or if they will return anything at all. They received the books three weeks ago, so if the books were damaged why would they wait three weeks for a return ? That’s something buyers usually complain about right away in the ebay world.

[Jay]

The consensus is how we would handle it.

If the freight forwarder bought the item and they are the ones requesting a refund, we would require them to return the books for a refund.

As you said, the freight company probably repackaged your books poorly and they were damaged from NJ to wherever. Unless they want to pay to ship the books all the way back on their dime, they’ll cover the cost themselves. I assume they have good hipping insurance.

I guess they could ship back an empty box, but I’ve never heard of this. Never happened to us in a decade of selling on eBay. They would threaten their ability to purchase on eBay if they were caught as scamming sellers. Even if you contacted eBay about an empty box would raise a flag on that company if it was an ongoing scam.

[Zach]

Accept the return and make them send the books back to you. They are probably bluffing and figure most sellers will just issue a refund without requiring a return.

[LAwoman]

See my post about a buyer in Russia who freight forwarded from Delaware. Offered a refund on upon return TO THE US… he wants $. I keep telling him to ship the item from Moscow to the address I shipped to in the USA. I thought I was done with him, but no, he keeps trying for $.

I think it was Jay who said that once an item is forwarded (freight forwarder – as he admits) that’s where our responsibility ends.

[Jay]

I feel you’re making this complicated. You are not required to respond to every message a buyer sends. Often buyers send messages that are emotional and irrelevant.

This is why eBay has created Cases.
–Until the buyer opens a case, we usually stay silent.
–Once the case is opened, then we respond to the specific problem the buyer claims.
–Often we call eBay before we respond so they agree to the course of action.
–The Case is what keeps everything logical and unemotional.

[dlvintage]

omg! the freight forwarder is in new jersey? Was it possibly at 600 markley street?

If so…there’s an entire episode about this freight forwarder in new jersey on the reply all podcast. Episode #99! Sketchy stuff happening there.

[Jay]

Here it is: https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/99-black-hole-new-jersey#episode-player

[dlvintage]

The company is Meest in that episode^^^ forgot to add that.

[Ryanne]

and to be clear, the freight forwarding company was not responsible for the scam/stolen item. it was a customer of the the freight forwarder who was scamming people.

[dlvintage]

Oh yeah-thanks ryanne. That was unclear-I didn’t mean the freight forwarder was sketchy-the customer using the the freight forwarder was at fault.

[Zach]

It could be worse. I had a freight forwarder scam where they claimed I sent them an empty box instead of the item. They opened a Paypal case on me and skipped eBay’s return system entirely. They even denied that the item was intended to be sent overseas. The guy claimed he just works at the freight forwarding company and had the package sent to his job. Long story short, it was a big headache. After fighting them in the PayPal dispute resolution system for over a month, they finally just gave up and dropped the case.

If I were you, I would just ask them to return the item and see if they actually send it back.

[Author]

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