Hi there, please forgive me if I have posted this in the wrong section.
I am looking for a little advice as to how to handle an ebay buyer protection dispute. If I can just provide a little back story;
I won 2 auctions on ebay for the total amount of £74.01 I bought 30 cloth diapers and 60 bamboo fibre diaper inserts, I paid immediately through paypal which is linked to my visa debit card.
I received 2 small envelopes (2 auctions) with 1 insert in each. (not even bamboo and worth virtually nothing). The items received I signed for at my door.
I contacted the seller asking what the mixup was was sent a generic email apologising and promising to put it right, a few days go by I email again, no response. I opened 2 claims with ebay as 'Item not as described'. In the info I did write that I would be happy to wait for my baby's nappys or that I would like a refund.
The seller is a power business seller on ebay, they had over 99% positive feedback I did check this before I bought the items. All of a sudden this month over a hundred people have left negative feedback saying that they had exactly the same issue as me. Some peopke did say 'full refund given' on the feedback. I contacted other buyers through ebay messaging and asked if they got refunds, all of them did and didn't have to send anything back.
Ebay informed me that in order to receive a full refund I would have to send back the inserts at my own expense, they offered me a 25% refund on shipping cost when I explained that it was cost a fortune to send the inserts back. So basically with the discount I am looking at paying about £43 shipping costs... Ebay have specifically requested that the package be signed for in China to prove receipt so I can't just send it tracked through royal mail as this is uk only. Must also use parcelforce to get the dicount.
So basically I know that technically I 'won' the dispute because I'm getting my £74 back but by the time I've spent the money shipping I'm still totally out of pocket, I would be prepared to swallow the cost and learn from it but why is everyone else getting a refund without sending and I'm not? I've called so many times and asked to speak to a manager and nobody ever gets back to me the managers always seem to be in meetings..... I even asked if I could just pay the cost of the inserts which are worth about £2 and just get the rest of my money back... nope.
I found an address for ebay
eBay UK Ltd
Complaints Department
PO Box 659,
Richmond-upon-Thames
Surrey
TW9 1TX
but apparently the letters go into a big black hole and you can't do anything about it.
I've kind of looked into the chargeback facility with my debit card but it looks like they would want the items returned too. Paypal won't help me as I've already logged dispute with ebay itself.
Anyway......Sorry it's so long... Any advice much appreciated. Thanks