What's fair on eBay for damaged items?

January 14, 2009 6:09 PM

Ethical eBay dilemma for items damaged in shipping. What's your thought?

I sold a bunch of new baby clothes to a buyer - 5 outfits, total $25 including shipping. She didn't opt for shipping insurance, so I didn't put shipping insurance on the package. I shipped them as I always do, carefully packed. I took some off of the shipping (Charged her $4.80 when it cost $6.35 to ship).

Something happened and the package ripped open. 1 of the items went missing. 1 was ruined. 3 were fine.

She was upset and returned them for me and asked for a refund for all of the items and the original shipping.

I refunded her the original cost and shipping and PayPal fees. She wants me to give her back her cost for shipping them back to me.

I figure that I am out the lost items too, so it would be fair for her to cover her shipping the items back to me.

Your thoughts?

posted by k8t to Human Relations (28 answers total)

Response by poster: Plus she said in an email "Thanks xx. I will get the outfits in the mail to you in the next couple of days. I trust that you will either reimburse me for the initial postage or the return postage, as I am ending up with nothing. I will let you know when I have the outfits repackaged and in the mail to you. Thanks for standing behind your auction - that's how stars are 'born' in this business."

and she accepted my refund in PayPal already.
posted by k8t at 6:15 PM on January 14, 2009

What is your stated policy on returns and shipping insurance?
posted by MaryDellamorte at 6:23 PM on January 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I don't do a policy - in 500+ auctions over 10 years. it never came up. Guess I need one now.
posted by k8t at 6:25 PM on January 14, 2009

It's too bad that she sent them back already. I have been in a similar situation whereby I simply refunded the complete price and told them to keep the item.

I think that you should likely refund her cost to send them back. Sounds like it's going to be under $10. Chalk it us as a part of the cost of doing business on eBay.
posted by davey_darling at 6:26 PM on January 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

You offered insurance. She declined. She's gambled. She lost. Paying to ship the item back is the least she can do.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:27 PM on January 14, 2009 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: I wish that she would have kept the 3 good outfits and I would have refunded her for the 1 lost and 1 damaged.
posted by k8t at 6:28 PM on January 14, 2009

By rights, since she opted out of the insurance, and it was clearly a shipping problem, you owed her nothing.

You certainly don't owe her return shipping. What shipper did you use? I think UPS and FEDEX have minimum insurance on every shipment.

Going forward, I'd obviously make it clear that buyers who opt out of insurance are on their own. Or build it into the price. The extra cost to you is probably worth it in the end.

(I would call your shipper and ask them about it. Just see what they say...)
posted by gjc at 6:31 PM on January 14, 2009

She should pay to ship it back to you. She opted not to insure it, it was her risk to take. Plus, her email states that she's fine with being reimbursed for one of the shipping costs.

Whether you want to stand on that principle and risk irrationally negative feedback is another matter.
posted by CKmtl at 6:32 PM on January 14, 2009

Eh I would just give it to her, assuming reputation is at all important.

That said, it's unclear why she decided to return them to you, and why you accepted. I don't think you 'owe' her the return shipping if she unilaterally decided to do so. It would have been most efficient simply to reimburse her for the lost and ruined items and have her keep the rest.
posted by norabarnacl3 at 6:32 PM on January 14, 2009

Response by poster: Maybe I'll just sent her $3 to get her to STFU, eh?
posted by k8t at 6:35 PM on January 14, 2009

It's probably worth the $3 to shut her up, but in the future, I'd clearly state "I cannot be responsible for damage to packages when the buyer has not elected to pay for optional insurance." And block her from bidding on your future auctions.

Have you looked closely at this person's feedback, and do you trust them? The reason I'm asking is that it absolutely would not shock me if the one missing item was the one she wanted out of the lot and she concocted the whole "damaged package" story to get it gratis.

It also would not surprise me if she left you a negative feedback after all the bending over you're doing for her.
posted by MegoSteve at 6:43 PM on January 14, 2009

Response by poster: I sent her $3. Before this happened, but after the damaged goods, she bought a bunch more stuff from me. (Apparently she is fond of the baby gifts that people have sent us that are totally opposite of our personal tastes.) She has taken FOREVER to pay for it tho (5 days), which is really annoying. She keeps on emailing about how she likes my products. Maybe I will block her.

She has 100% feedback for over 800 items, but is primarily a seller. Blah.
posted by k8t at 6:59 PM on January 14, 2009

Going forward, I'd obviously make it clear that buyers who opt out of insurance are on their own. Or build it into the price. The extra cost to you is probably worth it in the end.

Insurance is to protect the seller, not the buyer. If you need insurance to be sure you can get the buyer what they paid for or a refund, then it's up to you as the seller to buy it.

But (#1) insurance is for risks you can't afford. It doesn't make sense to buy insurance for risks you can afford. The insurance costs more than the risk -- it's just spread over many small payments.

But (#2) if you accept PayPal, you are agreeing to a money-back guarantee for 45 days and this over-rides any more-restrictive returns policy you might have stated such as buyer-must-pay-for-insurance (see PayPal's Buyer Protection Policy for details)

I would pay for return shipping if it was worth paying it to get the item back. In the cases I have refunded people for eBay purchases, it wasn't worth paying for return shipping to get it back so I just refunded them and told them to keep it (or throw it out or whatever).
posted by winston at 6:59 PM on January 14, 2009

And this is one of the big problems with eBay - sellers can be coerced by buyers (essentially held hostage) to refund just about anything or face the risk of the dreaded negative feedback.

I completely concur with Joe Beese's comment above. You offered her shipping insurance, she declined. The package was damaged during shipping. IMO, you should not be held liable for shipping damages when you took the time to package carefully AND also offer shipping insurance.

I would hold my ground on this one. The buyer chose to send the items back to you.

I too would encourage you to make it abundantly clear in your listings going forward how you will handle the shipment of items without insurance and also your refund policies.

Best of luck!
posted by karizma at 8:01 PM on January 14, 2009

On one hand, stores don't (usually) pay your gas money if you return a defective item. On the other hand, how much can your feedback take a hit? With the way ebay is set up right now, almost all of the risk is on the seller, with all the leverage in the hands of the buyer.
posted by drezdn at 8:05 PM on January 14, 2009

The only problem is that eBay's feedback system has now changed so that sellers can't leave negative feedback but buyers can.

You're at her mercy.

Refund the extra $3.00 (whatever it is) or take the negative feedback hit.

Anytime you decide to cancel or refund something, open a trouble ticket with eBay and/or Paypal. That way you have a record of the dispute.
posted by wfrgms at 8:15 PM on January 14, 2009

Something happened and the package ripped open.

I don't sell clothes and my approach to packaging items is, uh, obsessive but I too have shipped hundreds of items all over the world and never had a package damaged en route.
posted by mlis at 8:15 PM on January 14, 2009

Oh and refund her $3.00 and then send her a link to this AskMe so she will possibly realize what a lousy miser she is.
posted by wfrgms at 8:16 PM on January 14, 2009

A very similar thing happened to me recently. I was EXTREMELY annoyed because of all the time that went into the photos/posting/packaging/shipping and then dealing with this idiot. Then I realized that the time it was going to take convincing her to give in (read: make her realize she was wrong) was going to be worth WAY more than the small amount of money. And it would result in negative feedback. I was pissed but in 10+ years of successful ebay transactions, the $5 loss wasn't the end of the world. These annoying transactions for some reason are REALLY annoying (more than Craigslist, even) but they're pretty few and far between.
posted by barnone at 8:35 PM on January 14, 2009

This is not about who is right or wrong. (She is wrong.) This is a simple customer service issue. For the less than $10, buy some goodwill. Then, create a shipping policy.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:30 PM on January 14, 2009

Whoa, everyone. Getting the product to the buyer is the seller's responsibility, period. The seller can charge a fee for insurance (just as s/he can charge a fee for packaging or "handling"), but that doesn't shift responsibility for successful delivery of the purchase from the seller to the buyer.

k8t, making the insurance "optional" in your auction doesn't alter your responsibility to complete the transaction successfully -- or to remedy an unsuccessful transaction. Nor does it matter that you packed the shipment carefully, or were nice about discounting the postage. Shipments are always at risk of being damaged. The only question is who's responsible for making things right if they go wrong -- and that's you, right up until undamaged goods are in the hands of your customer.

It's your risk, so you need to insure it -- either by buying insurance or being ready to absorb the loss when things go wrong. That's the cost of doing business. You can choose to recover that cost by charging a fee, or you can build goodwill by not charging a fee -- both approaches have their strengths on eBay. But making your fee optional does not magically turn your responsibility into the buyer's responsibility.
posted by gum at 12:08 AM on January 15, 2009

Whoa, everyone. Getting the product to the buyer is the seller's responsibility, period.

Frankly that's my opinion too. A few months ago I ordered a book on Amazon Marketplace. 3 weeks later it hadn't arrived. When the seller sent me a replacement, they paid for both the replacement book and the shipping on it. Isn't that standard practice?

Now, granted, this places sellers at the mercy of buyers who fraudulently claim items have not been delivered, when they had been. However, if it were the other way around, buyers would be at the mercy of sellers who could fraudulently claim items had been dispatched, when they had not been.
posted by Mike1024 at 12:48 AM on January 15, 2009

I don't sell clothes and my approach to packaging items is, uh, obsessive but I too have shipped hundreds of items all over the world and never had a package damaged en route.

I once had a package destroyed when a container of sheep dip burst in the shipping depot. It got through the thick cardboard box; melted the plastic clamshell packaging and plastic USB thumb drives within; and (this is the best bit) washed the toner off the laser-printed shipping labels, so the shipping company couldn't identify the package except by its contents when I phoned up to ask where it was.

The shipping company picked up the tab on that one.
posted by Mike1024 at 12:55 AM on January 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Whoa, everyone. Getting the product to the buyer is the seller's responsibility, period.

Not sure I agree that this is true. At least in the theoretical realm. If you drive to Best Buy and buy a computer, and then get into a car accident which ruins the computer, is it Best Buy's problem? If I buy a car from someone in Florida, hire someone else to drive it to me, and they smash it up, hasn't the seller done what was asked of them?

After all, the buyer is paying for the shipping- the contract is between the shipper and the buyer. The seller has fulfilled their part of the transaction by putting the thing in the mail. From there, it's the buyer's property.

Again, theoretically. In reality, sellers often choose to make good for the sake of goodwill.

Now, granted, this places sellers at the mercy of buyers who fraudulently claim items have not been delivered, when they had been. However, if it were the other way around, buyers would be at the mercy of sellers who could fraudulently claim items had been dispatched, when they had not been.

That's good reason to use a shipping method that has tracking numbers. Protects both parties.
posted by gjc at 7:13 AM on January 15, 2009

I don't think your analogies line up quite right, gjc.

In the Best Buy example, once you've paid for the merchandise and put it in your car, Best Buy has successfully gotten the merchandise "in your hands" and it is no longer their responsibility.

In the car example, the buyer has contracted a third party to deliver the vehicle. Any problem during delivery is between the buyer and contracted third party.

In this real eBay transaction, k8t has contracted a third party to deliver the buyer's merchandise. Regardless of any fee charged to the buyer, the delivery contract is between the seller and shipment company. If the shipper damages or loses the goods before delivering to the buyer, it is the seller's responsibility to make the buyer whole, and then take the issue of the damaged/missing package up with the shipper. Since no insurance was purchased, the seller is likely out of luck.

The buyer returning the damaged goods without authorization muddies the waters somewhat. Even though I don't personally feel that the seller should be responsible for shipping costs of a return they did not authorize, I can certainly understand the customer service/goodwill angle. When I had an eBay store, I probably would have done the same thing that k8t chose to do in paying for the return shipping to avoid any negative feedback/harrassment.
posted by owtytrof at 7:53 AM on January 15, 2009

your buyer fails. sop is she keeps the undamaged stuff, you refund her the cost of the damaged stuff. shipping is never refunded, unless theseller is super nice, or naive. i can't believe she sent the shit back to you. did she send the damaged item back too?
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:14 AM on January 15, 2009

The $3 you spend now will go a long way to keeping her as a customer, which will enable you to continue to make more money from her. It's a worthwhile investment, I think.

Is she wrong? Sure. Let her be wrong and continue to give you her money in the future.
posted by DWRoelands at 8:21 AM on January 15, 2009

owtytrof:

I see where you're going, but I think there's an issue that muddies it further: the buyer tells the seller what third party to deal with and what contract terms are acceptable. This limits the service the buyer receives in speed of delivery. It also limits the recourses of both in the event of a slow or lost shipment (tracking, insurance included in the shipping fee, extra insurance).
posted by CKmtl at 9:58 AM on January 15, 2009