The Bid Blog

eBay has quite an intricate and long-winded dispute resolution procedure. On this email, I’ll try to break each step down for you personally, so you can see what’s involved and how long it requires.

As an example, let’s undergo what you should do if you taken care of something but didn’t receive it from your seller.

Prior to deciding to open a dispute: Provide the seller a chance to send an item prior to deciding to get ahead of yourself and open a dispute. If you’re concerned with how long them has taken to arrive, the very first thing you should do is send a polite email to the vendor saying that you haven’t received it and asking whether they have posted it. It’s also advisable to check your own email address contact information in eBay’s options, to ensure that the owner can reply to you. As a last resort before opening a dispute, make an attempt to call the seller on the number eBay has for them. You might have to pay long-distance charges for that call, but that’s a lot better than dragging the auction through mediation for months.

Step 1 – You open a product Not Received dispute: This can be achieved here: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?InrCreateDispute.

All that’s necessary to do is enter in the item number and say that you didn’t get the item.

Step 2 – eBay contacts the owner: eBay sends the seller a contact that tells them that you’ve said you didn’t get the item. Then can then choose to let you know one of three things: that your payment hasn’t cleared yet, that them is incorporated in the post, or that they’ll give you your money back. The owner may also tell eBay that they’d like to post you a note.

Step 3 – You talk to the seller: You attempt to work out what’s happened directly with all the seller, sending messages back and forward. Hopefully they’ll agree to offer you a refund just for the sake of their feedback, or your item will turn up inside the post during this time period.

Step 4 – Closing the dispute: After Thirty days (or 10 days if the vendor didn’t respond), you have two options to close the dispute: either you had been satisfied or you weren’t. If you weren’t satisfied, then you can claim under eBay’s purchase protection program for up to $200.

Independent Dispute Mediation.

If you don’t want to go through eBay’s own process, and particularly if the auction was for a high-value item, then you can use a third-party mediator. eBay recommend SquareTrade, at http://www.squaretrade.com, who provide mediation to some where there are clients. They will contact the seller on your behalf then mediate as you negotiate what to do from there.

Sellers that are committed to dealing with SquareTrade’s mediation for almost any disputes can register to display the ‘SquareTrade seal’ on their auctions. This gives their buyers $250 fraud protection, and shows that their identity has been independently verified so they really are who they say they’re.

When your sellers aren’t in such good standing, though, you need to be cautious to avoid as a victim of fraud. There are some scams that you especially need to be aware of – we’ll cover them in the next email.

Alvaro Medez creates informative content articles around various subjects such as articles on auctions