what is it with people trying to get money back?!

[Ifancyanewname]

I have sold a few things on ebay and for every 10 or so I sell there is always one person who claims a button missing or a mark...I'm pretty sure this isn't the case. They never seem to want to return it though and have their money plus postage costs back though oddly enough.

Don't refund until you have received the item back.

I've had the classic one where the buyer won't send it back but says, if you don't refund me I'll leave you negative feedback. I stuck to my guns and said, please return it, and if it's as you say of course I'll refund you in full and I'll give you the return postage, too.

They left me awful feedback immediately, including what I thought was a personal insult, and got told in an ebay message that I was a 'liar'.

I complained politely and forcefully to ebay repeatedly - and ebay will do absolutely nothing.

There are buyers who clearly are determined to have the clothes (often quite low value) for free. It's like online shoplifting. Weird.

Yes its very bizarre, I just think what a low thing to do to someone who is trying to make a bit of money. They are on a par with people who steal from car boot sales!

Yes, I would agree more people seem to be wanting refunds or part refunds.

Unfortunately eBay seems to side with the buyer in most cases so even if sellers are completely unreasonable they tend to get away with it. I can't be bothered with eBay any more - it's about time they realised that their fees come from sellers and give us a bit more protection.

Oh I'm glad it's not just me who's been finding this!

I sold a beautiful Karen Millen trench coat the other week for £15 plus £5 postage. Actually cost me £9 to post so in theory they only paid £11 for the coat. It had cost me £225 - fully lined, lovely lovely coat.

Got a message to say buttons were missing off the sleeves!! There never were any buttons on the sleeves. What was I going to do about it!

I don't understand why you would complain anyway when you have got such a bargain?! EVEN if there were buttons missing, you've still purchased a stunning coat quality wise for £11!!! Craziness. It's actually putting me off selling on ebay if I'm honest, as there is literally no protection for sellers at all.

Thing is on the other side (I buy and sell clothes for me & ds1 &2), recently I've found that the condition of clothes has gone down significantly - probably about 1 in 10 items I buy which are described as excellent, very good etc do have problems with them - marks etc. i've not had this until the last few months and have been using ebay for years. Now my approach to this varies - if it's an item I really want (hard to find etc) and the mark isn't too obvious/i can get it out then I might say to the seller that I will keep it and not return for a refund but will leave neutral feedback. Or if it's an obvious problem I will tell the seller and return for a refund as it really should have been pointed out. Sometimes I forget to do anything about it and then have to resell myself (obviously pointing out the flaws). It's really annoying me tbh and I guess that as a result of a few of these I now check items more carefully.

Of course it's cheeky to expect to keep the item and have a refund and I wouldn't do that but there really does seem to be a considerable increase in poorly described stuff - so maybe your buyers are just getting fed up generally. Of course there are also a lot of nutters who'll try anything on.