SolveYourProblem
Article Series:
Small Business Guide To Buying Items:
eBay Auctions
Your
Rights as an eBay Buyer
by Jeff Cohen
When you buy things on eBay, you pay the seller
before they send you anything. This means that you, as a buyer,
are vulnerable to all sorts of problems. You might not get
the items you have paid for, or they might be damaged or faulty.
Luckily, you have two very important rights when you buy on
eBay.
The
Right to Receive Your Item
Maybe the seller never sent the item, or maybe it got lost
in the post. Whatever happened, you paid for the item. If it
doesn’t arrive in the post as described, you have the right
to a replacement or a refund, whether it’s the seller’s fault
or not.
The fact that you bought something on eBay doesn’t mean that
you don’t have the exact same rights that you would have if
you bought it in a shop (these rights are pretty much the same
all over the world). Plus, under eBay’s rules, the seller isn’t
allowed to change their mind about selling you the item: once
the auction ends, it becomes a contract – you must buy and
they must sell, or face eBay’s penalties.
The
Right for Your Item to Be as Described in the Auction
Sometimes sellers don’t wrap items properly, and so they get
broken. Occasionally they write descriptions that are misleading
or just plain wrong to begin with, leaving out vital details
that would have caused you to change your mind about buying.
If this happens to you, you again have the right to a replacement
or a refund.
So How Do I Use My Rights?
First, you should take it up with the seller – most will be
responsive, as do not want to have their reputation damaged
when an upset buyer leaves negative feedback for all their
future buyers to see. If that doesn’t work, report them to
eBay.
While eBay don’t have many people handling complaints, they
do have a relatively effective set of automatic process to
handle common problems buyers and sellers have with one another.
Finally, if that doesn’t work, then you should seek advice
from consumer groups in your country, and as a last resort
from the police. You should never have to get this far, though:
problems on eBay that can’t be resolved easily are extremely
rare.
Don’t
Be Too Quick
Remember not to get too annoyed and be unfair to the seller:
nice sellers have agreed to give me refunds for undelivered
items, only for me to find out a few weeks later that they
were being held for me at the post office! Always try your
best to communicate and think of everything that might have
gone wrong: eBay works best when buyers and sellers sort out
their problems together, instead of reporting each other to
the authorities straight away.
More
often that not receiving what they paid for, buyers have
an altogether different problem: they knew what they were
paying
for, but didn’t realise that what they were paying for was
overpriced, low quality or a scam.
# # # # # SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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