SolveYourProblem
Article Series:
Small Business Guide To Buying Items:
eBay Auctions
How
to Resolve eBay Disputes:
When Things Go Wrong
by Jeff Cohen
eBay has quite an intricate and long-winded
dispute resolution procedure. In this email, I’ll try to break
each step down for you, so you can see what’s involved and
how long it takes.
As an example, let’s go through what you would do if you paid
for an item but didn’t receive it from the seller.
Before
you open a dispute: Give the seller a chance to send
the item before you get ahead of yourself and open a dispute.
If you’re concerned about how long the item is taking to arrive,
the first thing you should do is send a polite email to the
seller saying that you haven’t received it and asking whether
they have posted it. You should also check your own email address
in eBay’s options, to make sure that the seller can reply to
you. As a last resort before opening a dispute, you should
try to call the seller on the number eBay has for them. You
might have to pay long-distance charges for the call, but that’s
better than dragging the auction through mediation for months.
Step
1 - You open an Item Not Received dispute:
You can do
this here: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?InrCreateDispute.
All you need to do is enter the item number and say that you
did not receive the item.
Step
2 - eBay contacts the seller: eBay sends the seller an
email that tells them that you’ve said you didn’t receive the
item. Then can then choose to tell you one of three things:
that your payment hasn’t cleared yet, that the item is in the
post, or that they’ll give you your money back. The seller
can also tell eBay that they would like to send you a message.
Step
3 - You talk to the seller: You try to work out what’s
happened directly with the seller, sending messages back and
forward. Hopefully they’ll agree to give you a refund for the
sake of their feedback, or your item will turn up in the post
during this time.
Step
4 - Closing the dispute: After 30 days (or 10 days if
the seller didn’t respond), you have two options to close the
dispute: either you were satisfied or you weren’t. If you weren’t
satisfied, then you can claim under eBay’s purchase protection
program for up to $200.
Independent
Dispute Mediation
If you don’t want to go through eBay’s own process, and especially
if the auction was for a high-value item, then you can use
a third-party mediator. eBay recommend SquareTrade, at www.squaretrade.com,
who provide mediation to many websites where there are buyers
and sellers. They will contact the seller on your behalf and
then mediate as you negotiate what to do from there.
Sellers who are committed to going through SquareTrade’s mediation
for any disputes can sign up to display the ‘SquareTrade seal’
on their auctions. This gives their buyers $250 fraud protection,
and shows that their identity has been independently verified
so they are who they say they are.
When
your sellers aren’t in such good standing, though, you need
to be careful to avoid being a victim of fraud.
# # # # # SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
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