Is Ebay Truly No Risk For Buyer?

Does ebay's money back guarantee mean that purchasing an item on ebay is truly no risk for a buyer?

Normally, I would be hesitant to purchase from a seller with poor feedback, but I'm wondering if ebay's money back guarantee makes a purchase truly risk free for a buyer if the item never arrives, arrives incomplete, or arrives not as described?

My positive experiences on ebay far outweigh the negative ones. The negative ones have been an item sent with no tracking and not received (seller issued refund), one item arrived in both worse than advertised condition and with missing parts (seller issued refund after mailing back item).

What are your opinions on the risk of buying on ebay and being protected either by your credit card or the ebay money back guarantee?

I bought a Keurig from a seller with a low # of Feedback based on a very low price. I never heard from the seller again. No responses to messages, no shipping info just nothing. I filed a DNR with ebay and got my $ back. As far as I could tell ebay paid the refund.

There is no such thing as risk free.

It totally depends on how honest the buyer and seller are.

You can read all kinds of nightmares on the ebay community boards from both sides

Read the fine print
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/...licy?id=4210

Also, ebay counts on being able to recover the money from the seller. But there are times when a seller removes the funds and 'goes dark'. From what I have read in that case ebay will cover the loss but only up to a certain amount.
Don

The disappointment of not receiving something you've purchased (especially if it is vital to a certain type of collection, ie: postal history) is greater than any financial hassle in my experience.

I am a frequent ebay shopper, haven't encountered with non deliveries so far, worst I got was a seller who sent by normal mail when I paid for registered mail. The seller later refunded me for the excess I paid.

Interesting post and comments.

Hundreds if not a thousand or so stamp purchases on ebay. Only two problems. One item never arrived and may still be floating around USPS somewhere. Item quickly was replaced by seller after my DNR note. Second problem involved completely unresponsive seller, who it turns out was a repeat offender. I was reimbursed (I think by ebay) and I believe they "disappeared" the seller from the site. Note that these were all pretty low-value purchases; I don't buy higher end stamps from on ebay (but I do sometimes on Hipstamp, for what it's worth).

I look at feedback not just based on percentages. A lot of times you have one buyer who might be cancer or freeloader/ass-clown that gives negative feedback on an order with multiple items. More often than not, the 8 "negatives" are from one buyer, who is usually an a$$ based on how they post. Usually they post negative with the same comment over and over, and with poor grammar.

That said, I have no issues buying anything under a couple hundred bucks on ebay. Any more than that; I stick to known sellers and/or certs.

I have bought hundreds of items via ebay and sold hundreds of items likewise.
Occasionally things get lost in the post, but its a small percentage.
As a buyer, I have had trouble with unscrupulous sellers -- just because the guy has 100% feedback, doesnt mean he's kosher.
Generally most sellers are ok, and if you dont like the item when it arrives, they'll agree to take it back and refund your money.
but there are some a**holes out here, who will sell dud items and then refuse to refund.
In this case you just take photos of the problem, and file a claim -- ebay will be on your side as the buyer.
The last problem I had (about 6 months ago) was some kiloware where the guy had fronted it with some very nice stamps, but they all turned out to be damaged.
As its kiloware, you expect some damaged stamps, but not all the good ones in the lot.
But he'd also included some catalogue cut-outs in the mix, so I took scans of the damaged stamps and the 'fakes', filed the claim, and got reimbursed straight away.
I think the seller realized I wasnt going to be a pushover.
As soon as you play the 'fake' card ebay goes crazy.

a while back I ordered a set of Scotts catalos from a seller. After I paid, there as no communication no nothin. Never received. I opened a claim and received my funds back, but was a 50 day process from the time I ordered to getting my money back.

It is PayPal that protects you, not ebay. And the risks to a buyer in transacting on ebay and paying with PayPal are VERY low. I've had a handful of disputes over 20 years of buying on ebay and thousands of transactions. Just follow the dispute process and your disputes will be nearly always be adjudicated in the buyer's favor and you will get money back. The risks are on the sellers. I've seen eBay/PayPal make unreasonable decisions in a buyer's favor because they almost always adjudicate for the buyer. It has to be something well-documented and egregious for eBay/Paypal to even consider adjudicating for a seller. I can br a hassle to get a refund, and it might take a bit longer than you think it should, but you'll get a refund if you demand one.

If one pays on ebay via a credit card, does PayPal get involved? I know there is an option to login to a PayPal account in the checkout page, but I just use my credit card on file with ebay.

If you pay with a credit card, Paypal is not involved. Pay with Paypal - it is more convenient and gives you better protection than a credit card.

A tale of two purchases

More than ten years ago I purchased a Fine Scale Miniature kit (model railroading) for about $120. This was before paypal, before money back guarantee, heck you could still communicate directly with other bidders. I sent in my postal money order to a PO Box in Massachusetts and never heard from the seller again. He had pulled the same fraud on two other buyers that week and we were all out our money. No item, no refund, no recourse.

About two years ago I bid on a mint $2.60 Graf Zeppelin from a seller in Spain


Now Don would have done a search on this image and realized the pictured stamp did not actually belong to the seller, but I didn't.
After winning the auction and paying for stamp with Paypal, I received this stamp in the mail


Needless to say I was a bit (understatement) disappointed and replied to the seller that I would be returning the stamp for a refund. Which I did using USPS with tracking. Well tracking to Spain is not that great and is not accessible over the web. I would try and communicate with the seller to ask if he had received the item, but he had gone dark.

I opened a case with ebay, but by now I was beginning to run up against their 45(?) day window for complaints and I still couldn't prove that the seller had received the stamp. The USPS requires a 30 day wait before they would look into the issue. Finally 30 days was up, the USPS started to request documentation from their Spanish counterpart. The ebay window was about to close and I called them and implored them to extend the window, but they refused. The window closed and shortly thereafter I received the proof that the item had in fact been delivered. Good for me, but too late for ebay.

But not to be deterred I sent all of the information to Paypal. They agreed with my case and within a week I had the money returned to my account. I don't know if they were able to claw back the money from the sellers account (optimal case), or whether they found themselves on the hook. If paypal had failed I would then have appealed to my credit card company, which also has a money back guarantee.

So here in 2019 there are many levels of protection and while ebay didn't come through, their subsidiary Paypal did

Willwood42: Glad PayPal came through for you on the second purchase.