Someone has opened a case against me... now what? Amazon or eBay

We have had our share of cases. Most of them unfounded and in our favor anyway. Many of them used improperly.

The first thing is not to panic. There are many times of 'cases' that can open against you. Ill start with Amazon first.

On Amazon someone can open an A-Z Claim or a Chargeback.  A Chargeback is usually when a buyer complains to their credit card company about a charge not being theirs. So its a 'fraudulent'. In the past 3 years we have seen 2 chargebacks on our account. Or rather we have noticed there were 2.  These usually happen in behind the scenes, sometimes they will ask you to provide details to help with the case but since everything is done online you are really protected especially if the item was marked delivered.  Both cases were escalated in our case but they were dealt with by Amazon. We proved they were shipped and received by the buyer and Amazon decided to refund the buyer on their own, we were not held responsible. Unfortunately there are a few dishonest people out there.

An A-Z Claim is when a buyer is disappointed with a product or it was damaged, defective or wrong, or non receipt.  We have had about 3 of these over the years. The most recent was a buyer claiming they did not receive the item. Turned out it was sitting in the post office! They never picked it up or answered the door since it need a signature, Amazon immediately refunded the buyer because the item truly was not delivered, rightfully so. So at that moment I contacted the post office over there and told them to return it to me. Which they did at least I had the product back.

We had one case years ago where they buyer claimed they were over charged shipping. Its one of those where the buyer does not read the listing and selected two day shipping for an item and yells at us telling us it was supposed to be FREE... you know what Im talking about.  Needless to say we won that case but not without getting a nice big fat negative on our rating.  We are starting to call them battle scars lol.

I get a kick out of it when a buyer says they were never informed of the prices! I mean Im actually not a big buyer online but I know that Amazon and eBay show you the prices of the item and shipping MANY times over before you say send payment. Amazon also gives buyers 30 minutes to change the order! So they get an email and they can see the order in front of them!

On eBay buyers can open a case with eBay or Paypal. Most cases with Paypal hold funds on your account until the item is either returned or the buyer escalates the issue and Paypal refund them.  We've seen that happen only a handful of times. When someone opens a case with paypal they never expect that they have to return the item. I ALWAYS  say they have to return the item before we will issue a refund.   We had one were there was a chargeback. I was totally shocked as they buyer ordered a personalized item and we had a complete conversation with this buyer! Not only that they lefts us positive feedback the same day they received it! I had to upload the conversation to paypal and in the end they found in my favor and they dealt with the credit card company.

There are these other 'cases' buyers are opening on eBay. Ive had two in the past month. They work a little differently. The buyer says the item is not described and eBay says we have to 'work it out' perhaps until the buyer is satisfied or closed the case. Not exactly sure what happens on their end.  But what gets me is when they use the wrong thing. Example: The one I got today said the item was not as described, but then it says they want a replacement as its broken. So which is it?  Last one said same thing... but I fixed that. Apparently we shorted an item so we sent them out and they got it. So how does sending one to little mean item not as described?  These cases dont hold funds against us but it still makes me wonder.

What I dont get is why people are so quick to open a 'case' against us when they can just send an email telling what the issue is.

We once had a buyer accuse us of listing the wrong color.  Im like its blue you got blue how is that wrong?  Buyer says the picture is light blue, the item is dark blue, or it may have been the other way around I forget but Im like seriously?  Its not like you got it in red, now thats a wrong color. Disclaimers started becoming a staple in our listings.