RickHarrisMaine Posted December 11, 2008 Share Posted December 11, 2008 here's the e-mail I sent to amazon about a game I sold.... The buyer of this game purchased The Guy Game from me on 12/6/2008. I mailed the item the same day, first class mail, from a satellite post office in Scarborough, Maine. Early Monday afternoon 12/8/2008, I received an e-mail from the buyer saying that the item had been received, and was received broken, and he wanted a refund. This was surprising to me for several reasons. First, the game was not broken when I sent it, and he told me that the case it came in was fine, and that the disc was securely in the case when it arrived. Second, this was mailed on a Saturday, from a satellite post office (Portland, Maine is the hub), and dropped in the outgoing mail bin at the post office. The item was sent to Newberg, Oregon, some 3200 miles away, via first class mail, and it somehow arrived at the buyer's home address on Monday morning, about 48 hours after it was dropped in the outgoing mail bin. All this during the Christmas holiday season. I have serious concerns that this buyer is trying to scam me and also amazon.com, and I wanted you to be aware of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted December 11, 2008 Share Posted December 11, 2008 No Delivery Confirmation? ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickHarrisMaine Posted December 11, 2008 Author Share Posted December 11, 2008 No...... You can be certain that I will always do delivery confirmation from now on....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted December 11, 2008 Share Posted December 11, 2008 No...... You can be certain that I will always do delivery confirmation from now on....... Yeah, even though it costs a bit extra if you're using First Class Mail, it's worth the expense. For a case like this, there would be no doubt if the package had been delivered or not, making this situation a bit easier to deal with. Tell the buyer you'll give him a refund when he sends the game back to you. I haven't sold on Amazon.com, so I don't know what their policies are, although from what I have heard they are pretty good about siding with buyers. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickHarrisMaine Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 Just received the item today..... the disc has a weird inch long crack in it, from the middle hole outward. On each side of it running about 45 degrees is a sort of triangle discoloration. My disc was not like this at all when I sent it.... Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninermaniac Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 (edited) Just received the item today..... the disc has a weird inch long crack in it, from the middle hole outward. On each side of it running about 45 degrees is a sort of triangle discoloration. My disc was not like this at all when I sent it.... Any ideas? Two things come to mind. 1) The item was actually damaged somehow during shipping. Possible from shock. 2) He already had a copy and it was just his nifty little replacement. Did you have a picture of the game before you sent it? Check for anything that does not look similar to what he sent back. Look for those coinicidental markings that was on the copy you had, if you had a good picture, and the one he sent back. I hope this helps but it could have went either way. I would be very skeptical in this situation. Edited December 31, 2008 by ninermaniac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trade-N-Games Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 they can break easy taking them out of the case if you dont push in the center button in the case. I have had customers break them right in front of me taking them out wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickHarrisMaine Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 they can break easy taking them out of the case if you dont push in the center button in the case. I have had customers break them right in front of me taking them out wrong. so what do I do here? Just refund this idiot his money and be stuck? Or tell him that sorry, it was fine when it left my possession..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Almost Rice Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 (edited) they can break easy taking them out of the case if you dont push in the center button in the case. I have had customers break them right in front of me taking them out wrong. so what do I do here? Just refund this idiot his money and be stuck? Or tell him that sorry, it was fine when it left my possession..... You have no choice but to refund upon the return of your product. The buyer can return the product within the first 30 days for any reason. The buyer bears the responsibility of return shipping costs. Also, selling anything mass produced it is a good policy to put a sellers mark on the item. Upon confirmation of the seller's mark, you are obligated to refund the buyer. You can keep the shipping and up to 20% restocking fee if the return for buyers remorse. In a situation like this you may have to refund everything. You may have a case that the item was not in the condition it was sent to keep shipping and restocking fee. On Amazon, I find the there are not many liars and scammers, but they do exist. They mainly prey in video games and electronic products especially with new sellers like yourself. I assume you are new to Amazon. I would send the buyer an email about returning the product and bluff the confirmation of the seller's mark. It might scare him off scamming you(assuming that he is scamming you). In no circumstance do you refund prior to the receipt of your product. He would have no reason to return the item to you. He will either return his broken item or break your item in the way he describes then return it to you, or he will back off and then say the disk works anyway. I just reread and saw that you got the item. You have to refund or else he can AtoZ you and he will win. I hope you mentioned anything about a seller's mark. If you want to continue doing business on Amazon, I would just refund and move on since you have no evidence this disk was not the one you sent. That way he has no reason to give you a negative. Negs on Amazon only affect the seller. Buyers can get them but it does almost nothing. Goodluck, AR BTW, it would be good to read some of the amazon sellers forums before selling anything else. Be aware you must read some first because they will bitch slap you with the rules you must follow in order to sell on Amazon and that you did not read the policies before posting. Edited December 31, 2008 by Almost Rice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 they can break easy taking them out of the case if you dont push in the center button in the case. I have had customers break them right in front of me taking them out wrong. so what do I do here? Just refund this idiot his money and be stuck? Or tell him that sorry, it was fine when it left my possession..... You have no choice but to refund upon the return of your product. The buyer can return the product within the first 30 days for any reason. The buyer bears the responsibility of return shipping costs. Also, selling anything mass produced it is a good policy to put a sellers mark on the item. Upon confirmation of the seller's mark, you are obligated to refund the buyer. You can keep the shipping and up to 20% restocking fee if the return for buyers remorse. In a situation like this you probably have to refund everything. On Amazon, I find the there are not many liars and scammers, but they do exist. They mainly prey in video games and electronic products especially with new sellers like yourself. I assume you are new to Amazon. I would send the buyer an email about returning the product and bluff the confirmation of the seller's mark. It might scare him off scamming you(assuming that he is scamming you). In no circumstance do you refund prior to the receipt of your product. He would have no reason to return the item to you. He will either return his broken item or break your item in the way he describes then return it to you, or he will back off and then say the disk works anyway. I just reread and saw that you got the item. You have to refund or else he can AtoZ you and he will win. I hope you mentioned anything about a seller's mark. If not, I would just refund and move on. Goodluck, AR BTW, it would be good to read some of the amazon sellers forums. Be aware you must read some first because they will bitch slap you with the rules you must follow in order to sell on Amazon and that you did not read the policies before posting. Wow, Amazon really sucks! I though ebay was bad! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Almost Rice Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 (edited) Wow, Amazon really sucks! I though ebay was bad! It is not that bad. The buyers are on the higher end. For video games and electronics, if the buyer knows the rules, he can scam sellers. So, I avoid selling video games and electronics. Amazon holds sellers to a higher standard and we must cater to the buyer. It weeds out many bad sellers. Amazon takes 15% for the privilege, but does some advertising in search engines your listed products. Also if the buyer is a scammer, they will most likely AtoZ and they have 5 to use. After that Amazon keeps on eye on the account and limit their use of AtoZ, but buyers can easily make another account. you got me editing my original post. Edited December 31, 2008 by Almost Rice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickHarrisMaine Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 Guess I have no real choice in this..... Kind of sucks because I can really smell a rat here, but then again, if someone goes to all this trouble for a $14.99 game, I guess they are the ones that have to live with themselves and deal with the karma. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bojay1997 Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Guess I have no real choice in this..... Kind of sucks because I can really smell a rat here, but then again, if someone goes to all this trouble for a $14.99 game, I guess they are the ones that have to live with themselves and deal with the karma. I guess there's no way of knowing either way, but in all the years I have been collecting optical disc based games, I have received maybe five or six that cracked like that just from being jostled around in the mail. I have even bought a couple of games at big box retailers that have been cracked like that. It happens, it sucks and as the seller you just have to deal with it I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarian63 Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Wow, Amazon really sucks! I though ebay was bad! It is not that bad. The buyers are on the higher end. For video games and electronics, if the buyer knows the rules, he can scam sellers. So, I avoid selling video games and electronics. Amazon holds sellers to a higher standard and we must cater to the buyer. It weeds out many bad sellers. Amazon takes 15% for the privilege, but does some advertising in search engines your listed products. Also if the buyer is a scammer, they will most likely AtoZ and they have 5 to use. After that Amazon keeps on eye on the account and limit their use of AtoZ, but buyers can easily make another account. you got me editing my original post. who weeds out the bad buyers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickHarrisMaine Posted January 1, 2009 Author Share Posted January 1, 2009 Wow, Amazon really sucks! I though ebay was bad! It is not that bad. The buyers are on the higher end. For video games and electronics, if the buyer knows the rules, he can scam sellers. So, I avoid selling video games and electronics. Amazon holds sellers to a higher standard and we must cater to the buyer. It weeds out many bad sellers. Amazon takes 15% for the privilege, but does some advertising in search engines your listed products. Also if the buyer is a scammer, they will most likely AtoZ and they have 5 to use. After that Amazon keeps on eye on the account and limit their use of AtoZ, but buyers can easily make another account. you got me editing my original post. who weeds out the bad buyers? I think higher prices do.....I tend to get more on amazon than I do ebay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sl0re Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Guess I have no real choice in this..... Kind of sucks because I can really smell a rat here, but then again, if someone goes to all this trouble for a $14.99 game, I guess they are the ones that have to live with themselves and deal with the karma. It is too much trouble for $15. They probably didn't push the button on the case and broke it when they removed it. Then they're treating you like retail store that selling new stuff... that they can RMA to the manufacturer when this happens for just the price of shipping (combined with all the other bad ones) while the maker replaces it with another one they stamped out for a few cents plus almost no shipping throwing it in with new ones the store bought.... Its uncool... sorta like being in an antique store and breaking something and acting like you don't have to buy it.... still, not much you can do... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickHarrisMaine Posted January 6, 2009 Author Share Posted January 6, 2009 I just found out that amazon decided in favor of the buyer here (without any inquiries to me as to the condition of the game upon its return to me) and debited my account the amount of the game, but also the shipping charge..... this is bullshit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Almost Rice Posted January 6, 2009 Share Posted January 6, 2009 (edited) I just found out that amazon decided in favor of the buyer here (without any inquiries to me as to the condition of the game upon its return to me) and debited my account the amount of the game, but also the shipping charge..... That is why you need to refund before Amazon decides. I have kept shipping when I had buyers file materially different when I am the manufacturer I am the judge. So, I refund and keep shipping. Remember never let Amazon decide disputes. They almost always side with the buyer. It is better that you refund and keep the maximum shipping plus 20% restocking fee. You see what happens when you let Amazon decide. The buyer gets everything. I would have refunded only 80% and left it at that. I even had a person AtoZ me. I refunded only the item and kept shipping and Amazon does nothing since I responded. had I not, buyer gets FULL refund including shipping. Amazon only checks to see if the buyers sent back the product in a dispute. If yes, they expect a refund to be issued. Remember this is Amazon not Ebay. Edited January 6, 2009 by Almost Rice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickHarrisMaine Posted January 7, 2009 Author Share Posted January 7, 2009 I just found out that amazon decided in favor of the buyer here (without any inquiries to me as to the condition of the game upon its return to me) and debited my account the amount of the game, but also the shipping charge..... That is why you need to refund before Amazon decides. I have kept shipping when I had buyers file materially different when I am the manufacturer I am the judge. So, I refund and keep shipping. Remember never let Amazon decide disputes. They almost always side with the buyer. It is better that you refund and keep the maximum shipping plus 20% restocking fee. You see what happens when you let Amazon decide. The buyer gets everything. I would have refunded only 80% and left it at that. I even had a person AtoZ me. I refunded only the item and kept shipping and Amazon does nothing since I responded. had I not, buyer gets FULL refund including shipping. Amazon only checks to see if the buyers sent back the product in a dispute. If yes, they expect a refund to be issued. Remember this is Amazon not Ebay. well that was a painful lesson to learn, that's for sure..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.