A new ebay scam!

New to me any way.

We had a bidder with “private feedback” win one of our auctions. Private feedback means no one can read the comments left for them or see what they purchased. And since sellers can no longer leave feedback on buyers, the feedback system is less than helpful when trying to size up your trading partner!

Anyway, this person with “private feedback” outbids all of the other bidders and wins our musical instrument. We pack it up and send it. Today I get an e-mail that according to this buyer, the instrument is not as described, is not in good condition and they want a refund! So I offer to have them send it back, let us do whatever work they want on it. I even offered to refund her shipping costs. But this buyer will have none of that and escalates it to claim, demanding a partial refund!

At first I was tempted to give it just to get her out of my hair. But Mr. Pete was adamant that we get the entire instrument back and issue a full refund. He’s right and here’s why! If the buyer got a partial refund and got to keep the instrument, she would have cheated all of the other bidders who made higher bids! In other words, she would have gotten the instrument for a lot lower price than the people she bid against. In addition it’s a very good instrument (she’s delusional if she really believes it’s not!) and since this person owns a music store, she will be able to sell it for a very good price – a real win for her!

And although I’m ticked because Paypal froze our account until I used a credit card to bring it up to date, she has ten days to return the instrument with tracking and a proven signature, and SHE HAS TO PAY FOR SHIPPING!

So for those of you following along at home, she just lost about $30, and the instrument. We break even and get to either offer a second chance offer to the second highest bidder, or try to sell it again.

Rule here for eBay sellers, especially if you sell high priced items, is to NEVER give a partial refund. It’s all or nothing! I’m also never trading a gain with a “private feedback” person.

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