"Ebay advice please" Topic

Hi all,

I ordered some loose "Shopkins" on behalf of my daughter a few weeks ago from China. You probably already can see where this is going. The products arrived today and she discovered that they were, in fact, knock offs. I suspected as much and should have told her so. I did not think it would be a big deal but it was and she was not thrilled.

So, I posted a request for a refund. I got an immediate response with an offer for a partial refund. Essentially, the refund covered the cost of the items but not the shipping. There is no mention of shipping the item back. I suspect the seller is going to "eat the cost" how ever small that may be. The cost was about $27.70 USD with shipping and she would get $15 USD back.

So what would you do were you in my shoes? Take the money or decline for a better offer?

Thanks in advance for any help.

John

If you paid by Paypal, let them fight for you. Enter a dispute on the grounds the goods were not as advertised, send them copies of the electronic invoices and scans of any paper invoices that indicate what the goods were. Check if the seller is still offering the same counterfeit goods and save a screen shot of that too to send.

If you paid by credit card you may still be able to get your bank/credit card company to 'charge back' the seller's account, give the bank copies of everything relevant.

Ebay may or may not be interested in the counterfeit goods being sold, ditto the company that sells genuine 'Shopkins'.

Fight them. You paid shipping for the actual item.

I would fight them too. Enter a paypal dispute, you were sold something that you didn't get. You shouldn't have to pay the shipping on it.

eBay takes a very dim view of counterfeit goods, so I suspect you may have the upper hand in negotiations.

PayPal is on your side, decline the offer.

If the collection is large, which I'm guessing it is, use a commercial office supplier to buy a suitable volume of boxes, jiffy bags and bubblewrap. The price of all these items in ordinary shops is high, and bulk buy saves money in the long run.

I have for instance bought a 25m roll of bubblewrap for about £15.00 GBP, whilst in the shops a tiny roll is £3.00 GBP+ and probably isn't more than 1m.

HTH

I guess the bug struck…

I've rejected the deal. I'll see if they want to make good on a full refund or not. If I don't hear anything from them in a couple of days, I'll file with PayPal.

Normally Ebay jump all over stuff like this. I once bought my wife some perfume; when she smelled it she thought it was not quite right, but before we could register a complaint, Ebay contacted us and said we were getting a refund as they thought the goods were counterfeit. You are doing the right thing in refusing their offer.

eBay takes a very dim view of counterfeit goods, so I suspect you may have the upper hand in negotiations.

Regrettably not in my experience. A few years back I bought a baseball jersey as a gift for my GF who is a big Yankees fan. What I got was an obvious counterfeit, the Yankees wear dark blue pinstripes, this jersey had black. The authentication tag was missing the hologram that MLB allows on all licensed merchandise and they spelled "Jeter" as " Jetir". Informed ebay, they never responded to three emails. So I contacted the Yankees (on the advice of a store I contacted in NYC) who were VERY interested. They sent me a real Jersey and a gift card for $50.00 USD and they paid for me to send them the fake along with the seller's info, receipt, etc.. I noted that about a week after contacting the Yankees that seller was no longer on ebay. I had another case where some tickets that I bought turned out to be forgeries, again no help from ebay, I wound up turning them over to the cops and was out my money. Had I really known at the time I would have contacted PayPal (although PayPal was at the time owned by ebay they are covered by banking laws as regards complaints and refunds.) That seller also disappeared from ebay but not for a couple of months. Sometime later when I told that story to an attorney friend he told me that he wasn't surprised, eBay's actual customers are their sellers, they're the folks who pay the fees, they don't make anything off the buyers.

Ebay only really listens to the rights holders. Contact the manufacturer and see if they're interested. Possibly one of their suppliers running off some (thousands) extras.

Well, the seller refunded me the whole amount. They did not give any return instructions. So I guess we now have 100 fake Shopkins. I'll probably end up throwing them away. They have a slight oder to them. Not sure if it is because they were never left to fully cure or it was made with inferior material.

Regardless, it appears we have a happy ending.

Thanks for the advice and support!

Halloween's coming! Give 'em out as treats. Or tricks.

Kid: "Trick or treat!"
You: "Do you want a trick or a treat"
Kid: "Uh… a trick?"
You: "HAHAHA! You get a fake Shopkin! Trick's on you!"

Nah, get a flat basket and offer it with the fakes and candies. (: