What To Do When You Do Not Receive What You Bought
eBay has quite an intricate dispute resolution procedure in place to use when buyers do not receive what they bought.. I’ll try to break down the process into steps 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.
Step 1: Give the seller a chance to send the item before you 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 letting him know you haven’t received it and asking whether they have sent it. You should also check your own email address in eBay’s options, to make sure the seller can email you.
Step 2: 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. You can get to the form by clicking here.
Step 3: Open an Item Not Received dispute by going 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. You have up to 60 days to do this after the auction ends.
Step 4: eBay contacts the seller via email and tells him you’ve said you didn’t receive the item. The seller can then choose to tell you one of three things: that your payment hasn’t cleared yet, that the item has been mailed, or that they’ll give you your money back. The seller can also tell eBay that he would like to send you a message.
Step 5: You talk to the seller and try to work things out directly with, sending messages back and forward. Hopefully he will give you a refund for the sake of his feedback or your item will turn up in the mail during this time.
Step 6: Your dispute is closed. After 30 days (or 10 days if the seller didn’t respond) you have two options to close the dispute. You can either say you were satisfied or not. If you weren’t satisfied then you can file a claim through PayPal (if you paid with PayPal) or through your credit card company.
Independent Dispute Mediation.
If you don’t want to use eBay’s own process or if the auction was for a high-dollar item then you can use a third-party mediator. eBay recommends SquareTrade (www.squaretrade.com), which is a company that provides mediation for 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.
God bless,
Clint
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