Technology Toolkit

When you take it upon yourself to buy something on eBay, you give the seller your money before you receive anything. This means that you as the buyer are potentially vulnerable to many sorts of issues. There’s that chance that you might not receive the product that you paid for or the product could be damaged and/or faulty. Luckily for you, you have two very important rights when you purchase something on eBay.

The Right to Receive Your Item

Maybe the seller never sent the item, or maybe it got lost in the post. Whatever happened, you paid for the item. If it doesn’t arrive in the post as described, you have the right to a replacement or a refund, whether it’s the seller’s fault or not.

Te very fact that you purchased someone online on eBay doesn’t mean that you do not have the same rights that you would have if you decided to buy it in your local store; the rights are virtually the same all over the globe. Under the rules and regulations of eBay, the seller does not have the right to change their mind about whether or not they want to sell you the item once you auction ends, it essentially becomes a legally binding contract, you must purchase the product and they must sell it to you or face the eBay penalties.

The Right for Your Item to Be as Described in the Auction

Sometimes sellers don’t wrap items properly, and so they get broken. Occasionally they write descriptions that are misleading or just plain wrong to begin with, leaving out vital details that would have caused you to change your mind about buying. If this happens to you, you again have the right to a replacement or a refund.

So How Do I Use My Rights?

Your first step will be to take the issue up with the seller, the overwhelming majority will be responsive as they do not want to have their reputation damaged as a result of an upset buyer leaving negative feedback which effects them as future buyers will be able to see it. If the first method doesn’t work, then the next step would be to report to eBay.

While eBay don’t have many people handling complaints, they do have a relatively effective set of automatic process to handle common problems buyers and sellers have with one another.

Lastly, if all of the above doesn’t work, then you should seek out professional advice from a consumer group present in your country of residence and as a last resort, contact the police. But you should never have to go that far, largely because problems that can’t be resolved right off the bat are very rare.

Don’t Be Too Quick

Remember not to get too annoyed and be unfair to the seller: nice sellers have agreed to give me refunds for undelivered items, only for me to find out a few weeks later that they were being held for me at the post office! Always try your best to communicate and think of everything that might have gone wrong: eBay works best when buyers and sellers sort out their problems together, instead of reporting each other to the authorities straight away.

In most cases receiving what the buyer actually paid for, buyers on the other hand have a completely different problem, because they know exactly what they are paying for, but are completely unaware that the product they purchased was either of low quality, overpriced or a scam.
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