Beware of selling stuff on ebay, their new system is to ensure that buyers feel safe buying on their so in turn they will screw you (the seller) over in an instant to keep the buyer happy.
I recently just went through a huge ordeal with them and in the end I would have been totally screwed over if I did do some counter fuc you defensive tactics.
Here is the story if you are interested, it is lengthy but it will give you an idea of what to look out for and how to potentially protect yourself if you do plan to sell still with them:
I sold a limited edition of a game with a figure that was in mint condition. Sent it to the buyer and they had it in 3 days of them using buy it now and had sent him the delivery/tracking number the day I sent it out so he could keep an eye on it as well. Buyer emails me back saying everything looks great, he just needs to make sure the discs work and he would leave me positive feedback. Two days after that email he send me another one saying that the statue looks to have been broken before and that I had attempted to solder it to repair it, he said he took it to a game shop so they could look at it too (lol).
I replay back telling him that the item never had any repairs/modifications/etc done to it, that it has been in position since the day it came out since I had preordered it and was the only owner from day one of it coming out. He says I am lying and whats a refund and money to pay to ship it back. I simply told him no, there is nothing wrong with the item and I made it clear I wont accept an refund in the auction listing as well.
So he then submits it to ebay, and this is where the fun starts. ebay ask me for my side of the story since he submitted his ticket as a significantly not as described and told him that I had solder it to repair it.
So I first go and google to find out how ebay handles these types of things. To my shocking findings, tons of sellers get dicked over by buyers using the significantly not as described claim. Stories of sellers getting back their items in destroyed condition to not even receiving them back but an empty envelope shipped with a tracking number (ebay requires buyers that send back things to the sellers to have a tracking/delivery number) leaving the seller with no money from the sale, no item or if they got their item back in drastically worse condition, and on top of it the seller still has to pay the ebay auction and paypal fees cause it was the sellers fault for not describing the item correctly.
After reading this, first thing I thought was holy shit batman (literally that is what I first thought). I knew this buyer I was dealing with fell into one of these categories of either A, he had buyers remorse, B, he broke it and fixed it with solder, or C, he was going to ripped me off and not send the item back at all.
So my instincts kick in to protect myself and do counter fuc you to this buyer.
I did some research on how ebay refunds them, and they do it automatically with the paypal account you received the money and if the money isn't in your paypal account then try to take the money from either your bank account connected to the paypal account or from the credit card connected to it. Well I started reading about removing my bank account and credit/debit card from paypal. I do that then started coming across some forums and a few websites that state that even though you remove your bank/credit info from paypal they still keep that info on file just not in your view anymore.
So then, I am curious does paypal have anyway of hurting my credit score (was fairly sure they can't but had to make sure at this point). Doing more research, they can not, but they put on the front that they can cause they forward claims where they can not get money from you to some credit collection agency that is, guess what? A part of paypal. They use all the same "scare tactics" that real collection agencies use but have no way of actually hurting your credit score.
So with this new information at hand, I deployed operation counter fuc you. See, I never trusted paypal enough to start with having to connect my bank account to them and all, so a long time ago I made one of those free checking accounts at Washington Mutual and had a credit/debit card for that account and used this account for my online buying and use with paypal. So I go to Chase (who bought Washington Mutual) and told them I wanted to close current account out with them, the lady had no problems, had to sign a few papers and was given the rest of the money in the account in cash. She assured me that if someone tried to charge something to the account that nothing can happen cause it is close. I had also made sure all money that was in my paypal account was all gone prior to this as well.
Excellent, I have now protected myself as I am very confident from my research that when a buyer uses the significantly not as describe claim I was gonna be screwed. So now, to actually defend myself and show my side of the story to ebay. I do research on what this figure was made of and find out it was made of a certain type of resin, I then research the melting point of it and the melting point of solder, the solder melting point was much higher then the resins melting point, and from future research from the limited amount of info I could find, solder doesn't exactly stick to resins in general. The figure itself, appears to be metal due to its grey and silver paint job and it has some weight to it so I guess it could be mistaken for metal.
So I respond back to ebay with my findings about the solder and figure. Next day, get a response back from ebay saying they have notified the buyer to mail back the item in question.
Even though I knew this was coming, it still pissed me off to no end. So the buyer was suppose to have it shipped back to me with a tracking/delivery number in 10 days ebay said. Well 13 days later and nothing still, I figure maybe the buyer just didn't want to go through the hassle anymore or whatever, frankly I didn't care anymore since I had my ass covered.
On the 13th day, ebay sends me and email, on your behalf we have tried to issue a refund to the buyer for xxxx item but could not due to no funds, please correct this. I click on the link to see what would come up cause I haven't even received anything and they want to give this buyer his money back already? ebay claims that I have received the item back (o'rly? where the fuck is it then?) and tried to issue a refund. I simply send a response of "I have not received anything back from the buyer as of yet."
All I have gotten back in the pass 10 days from that was generic responses about paying the funds back to the buyer, blah blah blah.
So to summarize this a bit of what would have happened if I didn't do some research and employ my counter fuc you tactics to the buyer.
I would have 1, be out of my item sold as I have never received anything back yet, 2, I would be out of the money that I received from the buyer for the item thanks to ebay and paypal, 3, I still would have had to pay the ebay auction fees as well as the paypal fees. So all in all I would have paid money for someone to steal from me is what it comes down too and ebay was helping them all the way with their new policies in place to do so.
My largest inconvenice besides the time invested in doing the research which I am glad I had done, was going to the bank to close this little side account I had for online/paypal things and having to open up a new account and setup a new paypal account.
Sorry for it being so long but a lot of people have no idea that this stuff can happen till it is happening to them and I've found people learn a lot quicker when they sees anothers situation on it then thinking oh it wont happen to me. I never thought this could happen cause it is just freaking theft but ebay's policies are setup in such a way that they do allow it or don't follow up on things at all to keep buyers happy. I was an ebay user for over 12 years with a perfect rating before this happened and will not ever use them again.
TLDR
1 ebay sides with buyers automatically with use the claim significantly not as describe
2 buyer tries to rip me off of item I sold them with such claim
3 I employ counter fuc you tactics on buyer
4 Don't use ebay and use dummy accounts for paypal
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