Ebay problems

[Revvhead]

Hiya Guys,
This was mailed to me from an aunt of mine.
I thought the response from Ebay was pathetic.
i have bough stuff when it was Bazee, but i guess this will make me more wary in the future

Anyone has any similar experiences or suggestions

ps. i deleted her name from the bottom ( she has signed it) as i havent checed with her if its ok to post her name on a public forum

Cheerio, read on


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This could happen to you on E BAY
On September 26th 2007, I was still a naïve and starry-eyed buyer. Through my son who is a member, I bought a Nokia 9500 (item No 320160760358) on the E Bay site for Rupees 17000/- (Approx $ 425 at the current rate of exchange.) This mobile phone was advertised as brand new and with a national warranty. The seller was Messrs Skyways, but that's really immaterial because it was the E Bay banner that I trusted, so the purchase was made.

When the keys started sticking after just a few days I took the phone to the nearest Nokia Service Centre. Surprise! Surprise! I received a copy of their report that declared (in black and white no less) that the phone was an old one and had in fact been repaired on 20th April 2006! Quite put out, I faxed off the Nokia report to E Bay and we began a lengthy and finally fruitless, claim process.


E Bay replied that they could not honor the claim since the parcel was received by hand. Now this really surprised me since I thought the Seller should be penalized for this infraction. After all I had already paid for insurance and courier and had not asked for the phone to be hand delivered. Surely if a buyer is unprotected with certain types of delivery then the seller should be required to use acceptable Shipping methods and he should be held accountable if they are not used.

Here, I also have a suggestion for E Bay. If it is a primary requirement in a claim settlement that the item be couriered, please write this in bold letters on your site. And not hidden somewhere in the fine print!

Plus E Bay's stand made no sense because except for my declaration and compounding their very own contention there is absolutely no proof that I had in fact received any phone at all, though I had paid for it in full online. If I wanted to cheat them so badly, why didn’t I go the easier route and say I never received the phone, since no proof of delivery still exists, apart from my own admission?

Experience always makes us wiser and I do hope E Bay also profits from this one, as I have. I never received the warranty despite repeated reminders to the seller and to the best of my knowledge E Bay neglected to follow up on this matter with him. Or with the “legal” bill the seller claimed he had, but was never asked to produce by E Bay, though my son’s mails kept insisting on it, we never received a copy of that either.

My experience during the five months of frustrating correspondence that followed was that I was not protected, by what I had foolishly assumed, was the mighty E Bay’s reputation for integrity. In fact I found their claim process to be farcical, repetitive and time consuming. Because the claim was passed from department to department, I actually lost out on a chance to file with the Consumer Court; a process that has to be done within three months of purchase. Was this their intention? Perhaps. It was truly ironic when the seller also responded that so much time had elapsed he could not possibly compensate me! Ha Ha!

Having persevered since October 2007, it was in the last week of February 2008 that E Bay once again wrote to say that the claim could not be settled because the phone was hand delivered. Huh?

That was the decision given us, but hey fellas at E Bay, I really would like to know what decision you took on the seller. Or did you?

The worst part is that by their eventual indifference E Bay seemed to me to be actually encouraging fraud on their site

If you have a similar story you'd like to share, please do e-mail it to me...who knows? We might even be able to gather enough material for a book. If you are still foolhardy enough to wish to buy on E Bay, please, please do read the fine print first. You could be surprised at how little you, the buyer, are actually protected against fraud.

Please do pass this on to ALL those you care for. You might be saving them a great deal of heartburn and unnecessary stress. You could also c.c. a copy of your mail to E Bay at sgrswebform@ebay.com and let them know that we consumers are just not willing to be pushed around.

xxxxxxxxx

[hydrashok]

What a coincidence! I just read a post on this issue, made by a person (her son I guess) on PaisaPay forums today. There weren't as many details as this, but I did get the idea about what happened.

This is really a shame. eBay's "Buyer Protection" seems to extend only as far as nondelivery of purchased items, in practice.

I also read a lot of scary stories (from a seller's point of view) about eBay's PaisaPay payment system on the forum.

I have bought quite a bit of stuff off eBay and luckily for me, I have not had a similar experience. But then I've never bought priced more than Rs.500.00 to 600.00 off eBay either.

[vivekiny2k]

on the other hand, rediff india reimbursed my money (minus the postage, which they had promised too), after a seller sold a filmsy plastic inline skate after advertising it as aluminium reinforced body.

[normally_crazy]

The only one time I bought stuff off ebay - I got it for free. Why ? Because the courier guy who came to deliver the package went away without collecting the money.

I called up the seller but he did not seem interested - so I did not bother and later I got a email from ebay regarding defaulting of payment. So I emailed ebay the whole story and nothing happened after that.

What did I buy ? A 1 into 4 usb converter for 150 Rs.