Vintage T-Shirt Forum & Community Authentication Appraisals

Sorry this a bit long, I tend to be wordy.

Since I’m a still very new at selling on eBay advice may help in this situation.

I Sold a pair of vintage Exxon Coveralls to a buyer in Canada, he paid pretty quickly and selected the more expensive UPS option vs USPS. He then opened a Paypal dispute and sent me a message last week on eBay stating that he was sorry for opening the paypal dispute and that he had the package was sent to his families house, 2 hours away for him. His family refused to pay customs fees and he’s sick to his stomach that they wouldn’t pay it for them. But he didn’t know that there would be any fees and he just wants a refund now.

I did not state that international buyers must pay all customs fees, ect. in the auction, hindsight is 20/20.

At this point all of my messages to him were though paypal. I called paypal and they confirmed that is the buyers responsibility to pay. I messaged him and told him that is what paypal told me and that he should contact UPS to collect the package.

He messages back saying he didn’t know about the fees and now wants a refund and he’s tried to contact UPS without much success.

I call UPS find out how much the fees are $21 USD. Message the buyer and explain that I am willing to meet him in the middle and refund him half the customs fees because it wasn't stated in the auction.

$25 to ship to canada + $30 for the item and if I want the package back it will be another $25.... it’s just not worth it.

What should I do? It’s been 3 days since I made that offer.

I don’t have a lot of feedback and I’m scared that if I escalate with paypal and I win he might give me a negative feedback, which I can’t really afford to have.

Should I offer to refund the customs amount and just make less then 10 bucks on this? If he’s even willing to do that.

Should I just offer to refund him the cost of the item sans the cost shipping and just forget about the coveralls?

or should I just fork all the $ over and use this as a learning experience.

I know $55 isn’t a ton of money but it’s not a small amount of money either.

Ebay's customer service is actually amazing lately and they are pretty helpful. If he leaves negative feedback because he was not happy about the fees, Ebay will more than likely remove it for you since that is the buyers responsibility whether you mention it or not. Does the UPS service you use offer a true International tracking number (one that shows delivery, not just a customs number)? A quick call to Ebay is probably your best bet to figure out to what extent you are obligated and how to minimize loss. You might just have to refund the cost of the item and let him eat the shipping cost if tracking number shows an attempted delivery to his registered address. If you're not happy with what the Ebay rep tells you, call again. You'll get a different rep that might be more helpful. Not that we would ever do this (because it's illegal), but some sellers declare the value of their items much lower than what they sold for in order to cut the buyer a break on fees.

And...as Canadian...avoid using UPS to send stuff here. They make it affordable to send but screw the receiver with fees over and above duty. ie brokerage and handling fees. Ive grown to hate them over the years.

Thanks for the advice guys. UPS does have true tracking that shows it’s been attempted to be delivered 3 times and is now just sitting in a wearhouse, luckily he said on both an eBay message and a dispute that his family(where he got the item shipped to) refused to pay the customs fees ect. I ended up calling both eBay and Paypal multiple times and eating up a pretty good amount of time. But I had an extremely helpful person on the phone with eBay.

Thanks for the UPS tip, I’ll avoid them if I can.

I’m chalking all the time up to learning and how to handle these situations more quickly while still being helpful.

I can’t wait to sell on here.... I just need come find a spare $50 bucks for a couple of days.

This happened to me before. International buyer balks at customs fees, refuses the parcel at delivery, and then files a paypal dispute "item not received"

Basically you are screwed if the buyer has opened a paypal dispute. If the tracking information says anything but "DELIVERED" paypal will find in favor of the buyer and refund him 100% of the money (including shipping).

Lucky for you it's not a ton of money. Refund his money. Add him to your blocked bidder list. Hopefully UPS will return your item to you.

Don't bother calling eBay, unless he negs you.

How about sharing his Ebay name so we can all block him.

Hermosa - the difference between this dispute and most other international INRs is that he is on records as stating that he/his family refused to pay fees. I would contact PayPal and point this out along with the fact that the item will not be returned to you by UPS This should be closed out in the sellers's favor.

The seller should also contact ebay's Trust & Safety department about what this buyer is doing.

His eBay name is

dave_l_2008 I’ll find the block list thread and add him to it.

Somewhere on ebay I saw a button that said “NEW” Report Buyer and I already did that. Of course I can’t find that button now.

I’ll let you know how it turns out, I screen capped the eBay message and uploaded it to the paypal reolution center and also explained that UPS will not send the package back without me paying the return shipping. I’m hoping to win this, but I’m not holding my breath.

Inmind wrote:His eBay name is

dave_l_2008 I’ll find the block list thread and add him to it.

Somewhere on ebay I saw a button that said “NEW” Report Buyer and I already did that. Of course I can’t find that button now.

I’ll let you know how it turns out, I screen capped the eBay message and uploaded it to the paypal reolution center and also explained that UPS will not send the package back without me paying the return shipping. I’m hoping to win this, but I’m not holding my breath.

Inmind - you need to call them on the phone and get someone to review the messages while you have them on the line. Often times, it is bots that close out the case, so you need to have a real human review the messages that transpired with the buyer.

Thanks for the advise mrs_stout.

I’ll have to do that next time. I woke up this morning with no notifications from paypal but a positive feedback from the buyer apologizing for the transaction. I went to paypal and sure enough, the case was closed in his favor.

You win some, you lose some... At least I didn’t receive any negative feedback. Situations like this sure do leave you with a sour taste in the mouth though.

Inmind wrote:Thanks for the advise mrs_stout.

I’ll have to do that next time. I woke up this morning with no notifications from paypal but a positive feedback from the buyer apologizing for the transaction. I went to paypal and sure enough, the case was closed in his favor.

You win some, you lose some... At least I didn’t receive any negative feedback. Situations like this sure do leave you with a sour taste in the mouth though.

Yes, it does.

HOWEVER, that positive feedback could still be hiding a problem. Wait a couple of days to check your seller dashboard to see if your buyer left you a positive feedback, but hit your DSRs. If so, you'll need to call eBay since it's against policy for a buyer to leave positive feedback/low star ratings (low stars meaning 1 or 2 stars).

Ebay's been cleaning house on buyers with bad star ratings. Unfortunately, there have been many decent sellers caught in the mix.

Thanks for the heads up. It looks like he gave me 5 stars across the board. My DSR went up 1 number and the stars are still sitting at an almost solid 5.

Thanks again for all the advice, I really do appreciate it.