Buyer disputed payment as item not as described, never returned the item and got a full refund.

[tman7479]

I recently sold an electronic for $850, shipped it out and the buyer said it arrived damaged and he could fix it. Long story short a item "not as described"  claim was filed with paypal and they closed it in the buyers favor and refunded the full $850.  As far as I can tell Paypal's policies state the item need to be returned by the buyer and the refund should be issued when it is received back by me.  

I've been in touch with the buyer and he is offering to send me $350 back and keep the item and if I want the item back since he has received the refund already he said in an email he'll take some parts out and ship it with "air" meaning he is saying it will arive as junk back to me if I don't accept $350 from him.  

Again he has both the electronic and the $850 back and he feels he can now offer anything I want otherwise he will follow through on his threat of shipping it back in even worse condition or "just disappear" as he put it since why does he care he has the money and the merchandise.  He's basically dictating the terms as he sees fit as paypal closed the case on issuance of the refund and then when I appealed and said the item was not returned they closed the appeal and stated "We sent an email to the customer to ask them to resolve this".   

Again it appears to be direct violation of the agreement that states that Item not as claimed disputes should be returned first then refunded.

In any event I have over 1500 + sales on ebay with not one dispute and over 2000 positive feedbacks so It's not like I'm some jerk that sells broken merchandise.  

Any recourse short of persuing legal action or filing a complaint with the better business bureau?  I can't reopen the claim or find any way to contact paypal about this. I do have an email from the customer to my paypal email stating he will remove parts and ship it back with "air" if I want it back as to discourage me from persuing my merchandise . (Sold for $850 MSRP street price of $2100 MSRP of $3000)

[DPCreations]

Was the dispute through PayPal or eBay?

Why don't you appeal the dispute?

Why are you trying to work with the buyer?  You will have not protection for any deal and my guess is that the buyer has the upper and will win even more from you.

Before persuing legal action, best to review the terms of use and policies you accepted with PayPal; you will find your legal options and restrictions there.  Click on "legal agreements" at the bottom of the page for information.

[tman7479]

I'm trying to work with the buyer only because he contacted me via personal email to basically say he'd destroy the item if he had to ship it back so perhaps if he sent me just $350 back on PayPal of the $850 refund he could keep it.

[lancelotme]

I am assuming he opened a case in Paypal resolution center for item not as described,amount is $850.

When you log into your Paypal account,can you find the case in your resolution section?

If found,did he upload a tracking number showing it has been delivered?

For payment $750 and more,it is not enough to show it has been delivered,it must be signed for.

-If he has uploaded  a tracking number,click on it and see what is the status.

if delivered and signed for ,then ask USPS to send you a signature confirmation if there is any?

USPS will retrieve the signature and send it to you,it may take 24 hours to do so.

If you dont find tracking number ,then you need to appeal ,point out that no tracking,no signature confirmation ,so there should be no refund.

Unfortunately,if the money has been refunded,Paypal may not want to get it back from the buyer,it may reimburse you out of its pocket or they can pursue this matter by debiting his account.

You have to be persistent,

[lancelotme]

Is this an Ebay transaction?

where did he open the case

[tman7479]

He opened it on PayPal as it was a reverb.com sale and they don't have a process like eBay.

[tman7479]

Correct the customer did not upload tracking to the dispute and admits via email he has it and says if I want it back he will ship it with "air" which I take to mean he won't put any bubble wrap on it, etc so the item become purposely damaged in return. The dispute shows as closed even though I never signed for it and the customer never shipped it. When I tried calling PayPal they told me to appeal. So I did appeal and state that item was never shipped back, no tracking provided, etc. shortly thereafter my appeal was closed in the buyers favor with a note stating " we have contacted the buyer and asked them to refund you the money" the buyer wrote me an email at my PayPal address trying to negotiate reduced payment now that he had both the item and all the money. A rep at PayPal admitted they shouldn't have closed the dispute and refunded the money before the customer shipped it back but also I can't find anyone to fix it. There is no way to disputed a policy violation of someone at PayPal messes up on the stated policy which does clearly state item must be returned, etc.

[DPCreations]

Just the facts that happened:

You sold item to buyer; it arrived damaged.

Buyer filed a dispute for not as described.

PayPal did not require buyer to return damaged item.

PayPal refunded buyer from sellers' account.

Did PayPal require that the damaged item be returned?  If PayPal did not require the broken item to be returned, then no return tracking would be required. It would simply be a closed case.

Check the dispute resolution.  If return was required, then you need to pursue the appeal again.

You could also phone PayPal customer service and ask what the buyer was not required to return the item.

Focus on details that actually occurred.

[DPCreations]

I re-read the OP and found that the buyer claimed the item arrived damaged.  When selling any item, it is the responsibility of the SELLER to make sure it arrvies safely; it an item is damaged in shippment it is totally the seller's responsbility to make it right.  A seller should immediately work with the buyer on a settlement which will be costly to seller since seller failed to ship safely.

After settling with buyer, seller could then work with shipping insurance to recover costs.

So, this seems to be a failure of the seller not taking responsbility for for shipping damage.  The seller should have accepted responsbility for shipping and also asked buyer for documentation to show that damage occured during shipping.  After acknowledge of shipping damage, seller should settle with buyer.

[tman7479]

Items arriving as damaged fall under the item not as described and the policy clearly states the buyer must return the item before the refund is issued. In any event the buyer says he fixed the item himself now and want to keep it for $350 instead of the $850 purchase price. When I said no he said he'd ship it in "air" to me which I take as either sell the item now for $350 instead of $850 or be prepared to get something demolished back. In 2000+ sales have not encountered this one before.