'Why did eBay side with the buyer when he returned my Apple MacBook?'

Ex eBay employee here. Don't buy or sell on eBay. It's not that no-one there cares, I certainly did, it is that no-one in power cares. The corporate culture is toxic. I worked in bad buyer experience and building algorithms to fix this is trivial. It happens a lot so there is a lot of data and the patterns are simple. The problem is that every fix costs eBay a discernible amount money.

We did customer analysis to show that existing customers were leaving faster than new ones were coming in. Usually people have one bad experience and never come back. They still didn't care and given their culture they will never care until their stock plummets or a real competitor comes along.

Sadly, this is just how things are when you're a 3rd party seller on platforms like eBay, Amazon, etsy, etc.

They side with the buyers. Bad behavior, or fraud, on the part of buyers isn't interesting to them when the seller is a 3rd party because they have no skin in the game. They want that buyer more than they want you.

There's no escalation point either. Push back, and the fraudulent buyer will just file a chargeback. The credit card companies are even worse about siding with buyers engaging in return fraud.

For me, it's just the cost of doing business. I have to pad my margin to account for it. Assholes like the buyer depicted in the article just make prices higher for everyone else.

Edit: It might be interesting if some fairly ubiquitous payment processor offered a shared buyer blacklist. I suppose though, nobody wants to expose themselves to the potential lawsuits. If it were managed well, by only allowing fairly established, higher volume sellers, to add to the list, it might work well.

Can someone please build a better eBay? Something with stronger reputation signals, escrow based payment, and lower fees? I've had many bad experiences on eBay but there's nowhere better to buy/sell certain things.

I sold an old phone on eBay for $100. I choose PayPal as the payment and​ everything seemingly went fine. A few weeks later I wondered where my money was because I still didn't have it. The buyer had sent it but apparently I forgot to 'accept' it. eBay said I had waited too long and no longer had a right to get the money. So the buyer got my phone, eBay got the $100, and I had to pay $8 in seller fees. Sold a phone for negative $8. How is that not fraud?

I tried starting a business selling those 30 day WoW subscription cards as I came on to a box of them for fairly cheap. I sold most of them, then one person falsely reported me of fraud and that was it, my paypal account which had all of my profits in it was frozen and I never managed to recover the money. IIRC I had close to £300 and I never found out what happened to the money; I imagine paypal just took it as profit despite every buyer giving me positive feedback up until that point.

I was considering starting a marketplace on Amazon last year as well with a friend, just selling basic Chinese made goods but it sounds like things like this are rampant there too, and honestly I'm seeing a lot of sellers on Amazon lately that are scammers, so I'm beginning to lose faith in Amazon as a consumer as well.

If I'm going to try and make a business from selling goods online I would want to run my own ecommerce shop using shopify or something similar.

Dealing with finicky buyers - let alone fraudulent ones - is what drove me away from selling stuff online. The system is set up to cater to the oversensitive mindsets of entitled online shoppers, which is the same setup that gives fraudulent buyers an unassailable leg up over sellers.

My marketplace of choice is Craigslist. I meet up with the buyer, they inspect the item, and pay me in cash if all looks good. There is no room for monkey business. I usually set up these meetings in front of the closest police station in order to keep everyone safe. A few times buyers have come to the lobby of my office building. I've never had an unhappy buyer after having sold dozens of items over the last decade or so.

Selling stuff on ebay / using paypal (they're the same thing from a seller's perspective) is a gamble. You can sell a brand new product and then the buyer creates a dispute with ebay/paypal and you're fucked. Often they don't even have to return the item. Paypal will freeze the funds. Only if the buyer agrees to cancel their complaint can you get your money back. It's too bad. Ebay used to be a wonderful platform. But like most Internet companies today, they are shit. Paypal's business is undoubtedly criminal. Craigslist works only because it's not a platform and you don't have to give them money. Much less exposure, but at least ebay/paypal/other shitty Internet company doesn't keep your money. All these advances, and a copy of the classifieds (craigslist) plus cash is still the optimal route for selling safely. Sad.

I've sold one thing on eBay ever and I'll never do it again. My buyer tried to do the same thing mentioned in this article to me; luckily I made the item non returnable and I didn't let the buyer's threats of getting a lawyer scare me into giving in, I knew it would have to go through eBay's dispute system first. It's really a terrible system for sellers, it really sucks that eBay et al. are all guilty.

This is not a new kind of story on eBay but I'm not sure what the answer is. The reputation system works to some degree if someone commits systematic fraud but if someone does this as a one-off thing, I'm not sure what reasonable protections are other than using some sort of escrow service.

You can argue whether eBay's policies should default to favoring the buyer or the seller but they pretty much have to do one or the other. Even if their customer service were better than it is, it's not in the position to do a forensic investigation in cases where the facts are in dispute and can't be easily determined.

At least part of this is on the seller for not keeping track of the serial number. Whenever you deal in used Apple products either as a buyer or a seller you should always check the serial number, always make sure you keep the original packaging, and always make sure the serial numbers on the unit and the packaging match. This is by far your best protection against all manner of shady dealings.

I think there is a fundamental assymetry in buyers and sellers for eBay. A random buyer is much more likely to be a repeat user than a random seller. An individual might sell a few items, but would buy many more items. In addition, a bad experience as a seller where eBay took the buyer's side, is actually more likely to make them have confidence in being a buyer. On the other hand, a buyer that feels cheated is likely to never use the service again. As for businesses that sell on eBay, they assume a certain rate of these kind of things and price in the risk accordingly, so they don't really care as long as it is not too frequent. Given the above, it absolutely makes sense for eBay to be heavily biased in favor of the buyer in a dispute.

I am not surprised. I used to sell old iPhones and MacBooks on eBay but stopped since every experience became bad in some way and the fees are already high and getting higher.

The last straw for me was a MacBook sale. I took great care of it and listed it in great condition and included pictures. The buyer considered it "good" not great condition and after several back and forths arguing I sent him $50 to buy a cover. I searched around for information and experiences from others during the process and eventually realized that he had all the control and eBay essentially always sides with buyers. I'm glad I only got taken for $50 instead of the outcome from the story. Never again though. F eBay

I recently bought MacBook on eBay and it arrived with bended lid that was not mentioned in the description. Messaged the seller hoping that he could at least offer $50 compensation for that. Will see how it goes.

I buy and sell on eBay, but I only sell things on it that I'm OK with losing without compensation, which generally means small items of moderate value that I am trying to get rid of to declutter. Low-value items get donated or trashed. Free or high-value items are given away or sold for cash through Craigslist or other in-person means. This has worked out pretty well for me so far.

I am scared to sell anymore on Ebay given these stories. How can you protect yourself if you are selling a high priced item?

Last time I sold on eBay I remember there being options to restrict who can bid. Like having users that had a good track record. Do they not do that anymore or have the scammers managed to mess that up even?

I've never sold anything on eBay/Amazon because of this. For used items I'd just try anything like Craiglist, Gumtree or alike.

Why not put a tracking chip in the package and get the buyer's physical address?

Or sue the buyer in small claims?

I'm surprised there isn't seller-side insurance... eBay etc all have buyer side insurance.

eBay always, always sides with buyers. If there has been a case of eBay successfully handling buyer fraud, I haven't heard about it. You just have to accept it as a cost of doing business.