What Happens When You Buy a Fake From eBay
Buyers Are Faced With Product Hazards and Refund Obstacles. Sellers Often Remain.
January 13, 2015, Los Angeles, CA – eBay made it easy for counterfeit sellers to market counterfeit products with little or no consequence. The duped eBay buyers may find themselves maneuvering a gauntlet of obstacles for a refund, or unknowingly using a hazardous product.
To identify what happens when buyer’s receive a counterfeit product from an eBay® (EBAY) seller, The Counterfeit Report®, a popular consumer protection website, purchased hundreds of name brand counterfeit products from eBay sellers. The counterfeit products received included electronics, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, sporting goods, children’s toys and fragrances.
To determine just how eBay would handle a duped consumer’s refund claim and any notifications to previous buyers, The Counterfeit Report opened 100 product dispute cases and requested a refund for the counterfeit products received.
The eBay counterfeit product listing and the seller were also promptly reported to eBay’s security team for action to protect other consumers.
Alarmingly, The Counterfeit Report investigation revealed;
As a result, The Counterfeit Report cautions consumer’s against buying any brand name product on eBay from unauthorized sellers. Most manufacturer’s do not authorize eBay sales.
eBay’s counterfeit policy is simple and clear;
“You can't list replicas, fakes, counterfeits, or other illegal copies on eBay.”
“The eBay Money Back Guarantee assures that buyers receive the item they ordered, or get their money back.”
“It may be illegal to return ship this item.”
A proactive eBay consumer safety effort would include notifying prior buyers that they may have received a counterfeit, hazardous or potentially deadly product. This didn’t happen. The counterfeit sellers remained, including sellers of dangerous counterfeit Apple iPhone® chargers, globally reported to have caused explosions, injuries, fires, a coma and one death. Listings for several of the counterfeit Apple chargers purchased by The Counterfeit Report indicate sales totaling over 5000 chargers.
Buyers of counterfeit products are entitled to a refund under eBay’s “Money Back Guarantee.” But, profits seem to win over consumer protection, and buyers aren’t notified they may have a counterfeit. To the contrary, even if eBay removed a counterfeit listing, the listing status simply showed that the product listing was removed, but deceptively states “If you've already sent payment, the sale should process as normal and you don't have anything to worry about.”
Counterfeit listings and their sellers should be removed from eBay, but only a handful of the identified counterfeit sellers are no longer eBay members. The Counterfeit Report went on to make monthly purchases from the remaining dishonest vendors, only to receive more counterfeit products.
Once a counterfeit is identified, there is an option to dispute the purchase and request a refund from eBay. The “Money Back Guarantee” refund process proved to be daunting, time-consuming, and riddled with obstacles and contradictions.
In reality, eBay offers deceived buyers only one option; open a dispute case and return the item for a refund.
However, returning a counterfeit is unlawful, against eBay policy and allows the seller to easily recycle and resell the item. Additionally, the buyer loses their only proof of receiving a counterfeit for the eBay dispute process or credit card dispute.
So, plan to spend some time on the phone. The Counterfeit Report was regularly transferred and placed on hold for up to two hours only to find that customer service representatives and supervisors were often uninformed and contradicted each other. Dozens of promises for return phone calls were unfulfilled.
In most dispute cases, eBay would insist the product be returned, even when the eBay dispute response email stated “it may be illegal to return ship this item.”
If a buyer insists on not returning the product, eBay may ask for written confirmation on a manufacturer’s letterhead and presented in a qualifying acceptable file format to eBay. Acceptable formats; *.gif, *.jpg, *.png, or .pdf, will likely challenge most consumers, and “the file cannot be larger than 2 MB.”
If the product is not returned, or the confirmation conditions are not met, eBay usually decides the case in favor of the seller, denying the refund. eBay does offer an appeal process, but count on more time on the phone. Once again you can anticipate considerable time on hold, arbitrary decisions and generally uninformed staff.
The Counterfeit Report found that after a successful appeal, the counterfeit sellers often remained on eBay, as did many counterfeit listings, and the “counterfeit negative feedback” disappeared.
Several inquiries to Gary Fullmer, eBay’s Director of Global Policy, notwithstanding his commitment to work with The Counterfeit Report, went unanswered.
The eBay Community would be much better served if eBay put consumer protection before profits with aggressive proactive research, harsh penalties for sellers and appropriately staffed anti-counterfeiting efforts.
 |
