I’ve been buying games off of eBay before I’ve ever owned a credit card, and its web page could render on a PSP. Over the years I’ve purchased consoles, rare games, and common guff for my game library with virtually no issues.
Obviously eBay is full of scams and I’ve purchased my fair share of crap from china which either didn’t work, or never arrived, and grew to look at local sellers with returns or a good reputation. I’ve always saw the eBay Buyer Protection and thought it was neat, and that I’d never use it. Oh boy was a wrong.
Last month I found a console going for an insane price, not too low that it would’ve been an immediate red flag, but good though that I didn’t worry about the sellers non existent returns. The system looked good in the photos and the seller feedback looked legit. The only weird thing was the description was written by AI (eBay is pushing it and it’s as useless as you can imagine), but the condition was used, so I got it.
When it arrive the console was dirty as it was in photos. But nothing that a bit of elbow grease can’t fix. Then I noticed the ports were a bit dirty, and there was signs that it was opened by an ape before I got it. So I got my new cables, purchased separately since it wasn’t coming with any, plugged her in and… nothing.
No light, no life.
Took the system apart myself and the insides of the console was a complete mess. Rust and corrosion everywhere, so much I thought it was used as a boat anchor at some point. Or the side of the road in the rain.
So I contacted the seller and asked them for a refund. They offered to exchange it, and thought to play ball… 2 days later the other system was missing. Suuurreee.
I gave them an offer for a partial refund. Saying hey, this is so broken it’s not with the return shipping. Why don’t we compromise and you give me a return minus the amount it would cost me to return it and we’ll call it even. I paid $92 and I offered $67. They then offered me $27.
Nope going full refund. Then they went silent with no messages or instructions.
I escalated it with eBay, who gave them 3 option, pay for return shipping and refund me when it arrives, I pay for shipping and they reimburse me, then I got the rest of the money back, or we figure something else out.
They opted for the first option. I printed the label and I waited for their currier to pick it up. The seller also gave no instructions but thankfully tracking had enough info from the tracking label I knew what was happening.
Then the day arrived for the parcel picked up, and the currier was a no show. I checked the label and the address was wrong. Despite it showing up. Informed the seller, and they canceled the label. But ghosted me again.
EBay got back to me and told me the case will default in 3 day if it was not picked up. Then 3 days passed and I had to reach out to eBay again, who tried to restart the process. At this point I was frustrated and told them it’s been 3 weeks since I started this return claim, please either refund me or escalate this.
I got my refund that afternoon.
What I learned about eBay buyer protection is this. It works, but it’s work too. It’s quite fair to the seller, but its resolution is heavily in the buyers favor. My only advice is for buyers who’ve been scammed like I was, is to keep on top of your eBay rep, as replies are handed in a shared pool, and the support agent is not going to look back on the case history.
TL:DR got scammed on eBay, got money back from eBay buyer protection, however it took 3 weeks and keeping on top of eBay support.
eBay buyer protection is amazing. If you're buying on eBay do yourself a favor and go find their policy document that describes the requirements for each level of condition that an item can be listed for sale under.
Sellers are often lazy (or scammy) and list items with greater damage than allowed for a given listing condition and think that writing things like "sold as is, no refunds!" in the body of the listing is some kind of get out of liability free move when listing an item as "Used" or "Refurbished ."
Unless you're buying an item that's specifically listed under "for parts or repair" the item must be 100% working with no loss of functionality when you receive it, otherwise you can just open a case and send it back for a 100% refund including shipping. This is a great way to hold a scammy seller over a barrel for a fair partial refund for any missing functionality. Remember that any time you have to send an item back the seller has to eat the cost of shipping both ways plus any fees eBay charges them, so feel free to extort fair compensation if you're willing to keep the damaged item. If you can't get an amount that would allow you to repair the item back to full function you can just say no to any offer and send the item right back. I've shut down dozens of sellers trying to move damaged items this way, all you have to do is point to the policy document and eBay will back you up.