I mostly sell refurb'd consoles or custom paint consoles but always worry about being scammed. My margins are thin as this is a hobby not a job, still it would hurt to have what I consider art stolen!
Any advice for the "Box was empty", "Box was full of bricks not item" or just "returns" when they send nothing back scams?
Currently what I do is manually cancel 0 feedback new buyers but this is not fair to those buyers if they happen to be new, and not fair to the person who unexpectedly is returned to the winning bid. I always make clear that I will cancel the auction if need be.
I have no issue with newbs but when it's a one of a kind and worth several hundred dollars I suggest you start your ebay buyer life elsewhere!
- Always send expensive items tracked and insured,
with signature confirmation and properly padded. That way they can't falsely claim it was broken in transit, and on the off chance it does get broken in transit anyway (it happens), you can file an insurance claim. If there is no tracking number and they open a claim, they automatically win. And if it's over $250 in value, even if it was sent tracked, if there's no signature confirmation, you automatically lose the claim.
- Take pictures of everything in working order. It might be useful in the event of an insurance claim.
- Take a picture of the box with the items inside or better yet, make a video of packing it up (preferably both), so you have proof in case they open a claim. This is also useful in the case of an insurance claim.
- This one may be more relevant to buying than selling, but if you open a case against someone, never close it until the issue is resolved 100%. Once you close it, that's telling eBay that you came to a solution and you can't open a new one and eBay won't help you out.
- Like Zero said, if you get a return on a valuable item, have a police officer with you when you open it. Record the whole thing so that you have proof, and if need be, have the contact info if eBay don't take your word for it or consider the video as proof enough. Fraud is no laughing matter though and the officer should take it seriously.
- When sending refunds, do it through the refund option in PayPal (or better yet, through eBay if there's an option for it there) That way, it's registered as a refund and he can't claim that he didn't get the refund or anything like that. Same goes for when you receive refunds for other people. When it's registered as a refund, a fraudulent seller can't open a claim or get a chargeback through PayPal or eBay.
- Follow eBay policies. This one is rather important, since if you don't, the odds may not be in your favor.
A lot of that actually came from this video:
And some from this video: