I shipped the iPhone on October 17 via UPS almost immediately after receiving full payment in my PayPal account. I had the money, so I assumed everything was going to be fine. Everything was not fine. The buyer waited a few days after receiving the package and then fabricated a disagreement claiming that the phone was damaged and not as described. The delay and the his outlandish claims made me suspicious, but I offered to refund 5% of the value of the transaction just to make him go away and preserve my good seller reputation.

The seller immediately rejected my refund offer and made a return request. I am not completely naïve. I don’t accept payment by check or Western Union and I don’t accept returns. So I was pretty surprised to find out that eBay could force me to accept a return request – eBay explained that my options were to refund the buyer and let him keep my phone or approve the return request. Grudgingly, I accepted the return. On November 2, eBay instructed me to refund the buyer when the return was delivered. On November 4, eBay invoiced to me $46.53 for the listing and sale, which I paid… More at Matthew Sag.

Well worth reading if you go anywhere near eBay. I have had 3 experiences in the past year where eBay was firmly on the side of the buyer no matter what happened, even to the point in one case where a buyer accidentally said that an item I sent him was faulty and that he meant to raise a case against another seller. The black mark against my account could not be removed by eBay despite the buyer explaining the situation and all they said to me was that “Your account is in good standing so don’t worry.” It is a worrying time selling anything on eBay.

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