3 Months of eBay Lies: From "Refund Processed" to "Our Staff Made a Mistake."

[xwxw2828]

I’ve had a smooth run on eBay this year—spent about $16k with zero issues or returns. However, I’ve hit a ridiculous situation with a $454 purchase that has turned into a 3-month cycle of broken promises.

I bought a card listed as a /99 parallel, but it was actually a base card. eBay’s AG passed it despite the clear error. I have a paper trail of eBay admitting fault and then simply "changing their mind."

October: The AG Specialist Admits Failure. Rep "Crystal" from the AG department was direct:
"In the title it states the card is an /99, however upon looking at the card it is a base card. I see that this was passed even with the discrepancy. We will need to have a return open... we will be working on an appeal with you."

November: The Refund "Confirmation". Per their instructions, I waited for it to hit my PSA Vault. Rep "Carlos" then confirmed:
"You don't have to return this item to the seller. The refund could take within 3 to 5 business days... In my experience, a refund of this type did not take longer than 24 to 48 business hours."

December: The Betrayal. The refund never arrived. I reached out to @AskeBay on X, and they now claim:
"I cannot speak to why that was mentioned by him, but Carlos isn't a member of our AG specialists... we've alerted them to not make such assumptions."

At this point, I’m almost more interested in the outcome as a case study than the $454 itself; I’m looking for a way to get this in front of someone with actual authority to see if eBay stands by their written word, or if I’m just supposed to accept being deceived twice by their own staff. Does anyone have a direct email or a more senior contact to skip the runaround? I’d appreciate any leads on how to resolve this properly.

[jamcas997]

One of the reasons I sell my own cards NO CONSIGNORS and keep my items in my hand NOT THEIR VAULT.

No idea who you need to go to, but ebay is home based in SAN JOSE. Maybe pitch forks and torches at their parking lot will get this attention.

[xwxw2828]

Originally Posted by jamcas997

One of the reasons I sell my own cards NO CONSIGNORS and keep my items in my hand NOT THEIR VAULT.

No idea who you need to go to, but ebay is home based in SAN JOSE. Maybe pitch forks and torches at their parking lot will get this attention.

Haha, I’m less than 20 mins from their HQ! Currently looking for pitchforks and torches on eBay

[Sonnys88]

From personal experience, you will get very different answers to the same question depending on what eBay rep you correspond with.

Some reps will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you off the phone or to stop messaging. And eBay will not stand by whatever a rep tells you to do. Or whatever a rep says will happen with an open refund case.

I had a situation where a buyer bought an unopened wax box, got the box and opened half of it, then opened a return case saying the box was tampered with. It was a clear case of the buyer attempting a scam return - so I contacted eBay and the reps said they agreed it was a fraudulent return, and the return would be denied. This was confirmed by multiple eBay reps as the situation unfolded. Well long story short, in the end, the buyer was able to return the opened box and I had to issue a full refund.

And despite me having written and recorded conversations with eBay reps saying the complete opposite would happen - eBay said that they would not stand by what those reps said.

So, unfortunately you might be in a similar boat. I'd keep messaging or calling eBay as they are a little more sympathetic to buyers. They want to keep buyers happy in the end.

[xwxw2828]

Originally Posted by Sonnys88

From personal experience, you will get very different answers to the same question depending on what eBay rep you correspond with.

Some reps will tell you whatever you want to hear to get you off the phone or to stop messaging. And eBay will not stand by whatever a rep tells you to do. Or whatever a rep says will happen with an open refund case.

I had a situation where a buyer bought an unopened wax box, got the box and opened half of it, then opened a return case saying the box was tampered with. It was a clear case of the buyer attempting a scam return - so I contacted eBay and the reps said they agreed it was a fraudulent return, and the return would be denied. This was confirmed by multiple eBay reps as the situation unfolded. Well long story short, in the end, the buyer was able to return the opened box and I had to issue a full refund.

And despite me having written and recorded conversations with eBay reps saying the complete opposite would happen - eBay said that they would not stand by what those reps said.

So, unfortunately you might be in a similar boat. I'd keep messaging or calling eBay as they are a little more sympathetic to buyers. They want to keep buyers happy in the end.

Thanks for sharing your story. I’m honestly shocked by the lack of consistency and how easily they walk back on their promises. I always thought eBay leaned more toward protecting the buyer, but clearly I was wrong.

The frustrating part is that I don’t mind repeating the story—I have the emails from the previous reps ready to go. The problem is they’ve stopped responding to emails entirely.

Does anyone know of any communication channels other than authentictradingcards@ebay.com or @AskeBay on X? I'm looking for a way to actually get a response.

[cfern023]

Truthfully, I try to keep the rep on the line while they resolve the issue. I usually won't hang up until I get an email confirming what is happening - in this case a email saying a refund is on the way. It's rough.

[DynaEtch]

So it sounds like (originally, at least), eBay was going to take the return and eat it, whereas the seller retains the sale of selling a base listed as a /99 card, merely because they lucked out and eBay AG didnt catch it?

In terms of eBay AG…so much for these “experts” at PSA that can’t see if it’s a base card vs a /99 parallel. Do you have a link for the original listing by chance? Was the picture of the card, just titled /99?

As for the phone reps at eBay AG- I don’t trust a lot of what they say. Here is what I have gathered over years in terms of how eBay phone reps work. The “main” phone reps for a regular eBay question are all off-shore, probably based in India or somewhere in Asia. These phone reps just go off scripts- basically the eBay help pages. If you get transferred to the eBay “AG dept”, it will go to a domestic line and you’ll be talking to someone here in the US (the difference in accent is the giveaway). So you’d think the eBay AG phone reps would be downright experts in trading cards, right…..NOPE! In fact I question if some Ive talked to even know much about cards at all…somehow. To take one example: I (the seller) sold a 1997 Topps Finest Gold Refractor that failed eBay AG *only* because the card was listed with this name in the parallel field: Gold Refractor. According to the brilliant authenticators at PSA….it is not a gold refractor, it is just a refractor (since the set is tiered and the parallel is technically just “Refractor” that happens to be in a subset that is gold). So they took away a sale of mine because a called a 1997 Finest gold refractor a…gold refractor. Needless to say I called the eBay AG rep dept and I got some lady who basically had no idea what I was talking about- “Gold refractor? What does that mean?” Etc. had no idea about anything going on. So at that point I realized the reps in that specific dept arent experts.

Another case, where ebay AG directly cost me $264 (potentially..still in the works)- eBay AG up in Canada mistakenly filled out customs forms causing a card I bought (Canada to US) to see a false $264 tariff bill- they neglected to mention the country of manufacture is USA for the card and should be seeing $0 tariffs (I have spoken with a customs expert who has confirmed this- should see no tariffs at all). Problem is eBay AG botched the paperwork resulting in a $264 bill which I’m currently in a 4+ month dispute with FedEx with. Thanks eBay AG. I called them multiple times about it- it’s a circus and you get get someone different every time- they say one thing then do another often, they won’t take a shred of responsibility for their own mistake…I kept escalating until I got a “supervisor” of the eBay AG dept who finally called me back after 5 days- might be one of the rudest people I’ve talked to at the entire eBay company in my duration on there since 1998. He angrily responded from the getgo in short responses, if at all, and then just hung up on me…(So that idea above about not getting off the phone until they fix the problem…not always possible!). The issue at hand again here was that eBay AG single handedly caused me to receive an unnecessary $264 bill.

So yea that dept is a total crap shoot…the only thing I would do is to keep calling back until you get someone who at least can understand the situation, but I don’t have much faith in these reps.

[xwxw2828]

Originally Posted by cfern023

Truthfully, I try to keep the rep on the line while they resolve the issue. I usually won't hang up until I get an email confirming what is happening - in this case a email saying a refund is on the way. It's rough.

eBay tried calling, but I insisted on email to keep a paper trail and avoid repeating the story. It’s regrettable that even after two agents promised a resolution, a later agent completely overturned it. Unbelievable

[xwxw2828]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

So it sounds like (originally, at least), eBay was going to take the return and eat it, whereas the seller retains the sale of selling a base listed as a /99 card, merely because they lucked out and eBay AG didnt catch it?

In terms of eBay AG…so much for these “experts” at PSA that can’t see if it’s a base card vs a /99 parallel. Do you have a link for the original listing by chance? Was the picture of the card, just titled /99?

As for the phone reps at eBay AG- I don’t trust a lot of what they say. Here is what I have gathered over years in terms of how eBay phone reps work. The “main” phone reps for a regular eBay question are all off-shore, probably based in India or somewhere in Asia. These phone reps just go off scripts- basically the eBay help pages. If you get transferred to the eBay “AG dept”, it will go to a domestic line and you’ll be talking to someone here in the US (the difference in accent is the giveaway). So you’d think the eBay AG phone reps would be downright experts in trading cards, right…..NOPE! In fact I question if some Ive talked to even know much about cards at all…somehow. To take one example: I (the seller) sold a 1997 Topps Finest Gold Refractor that failed eBay AG *only* because the card was listed with this name in the parallel field: Gold Refractor. According to the brilliant authenticators at PSA….it is not a gold refractor, it is just a refractor (since the set is tiered and the parallel is technically just “Refractor” that happens to be in a subset that is gold). So they took away a sale of mine because a called a 1997 Finest gold refractor a…gold refractor. Needless to say I called the eBay AG rep dept and I got some lady who basically had no idea what I was talking about- “Gold refractor? What does that mean?” Etc. had no idea about anything going on. So at that point I realized the reps in that specific dept arent experts.

Another case, where ebay AG directly cost me $264 (potentially..still in the works)- eBay AG up in Canada mistakenly filled out customs forms causing a card I bought (Canada to US) to see a false $264 tariff bill- they neglected to mention the country of manufacture is USA for the card and should be seeing $0 tariffs (I have spoken with a customs expert who has confirmed this- should see no tariffs at all). Problem is eBay AG botched the paperwork resulting in a $264 bill which I’m currently in a 4+ month dispute with FedEx with. Thanks eBay AG. I called them multiple times about it- it’s a circus and you get get someone different every time- they say one thing then do another often, they won’t take a shred of responsibility for their own mistake…I kept escalating until I got a “supervisor” of the eBay AG dept who finally called me back after 5 days- might be one of the rudest people I’ve talked to at the entire eBay company in my duration on there since 1998. He angrily responded from the getgo in short responses, if at all, and then just hung up on me…(So that idea above about not getting off the phone until they fix the problem…not always possible!). The issue at hand again here was that eBay AG single handedly caused me to receive an unnecessary $264 bill.

So yea that dept is a total crap shoot…the only thing I would do is to keep calling back until you get someone who at least can understand the situation, but I don’t have much faith in these reps.

I was hoping to find a backchannel to someone competent at eBay here. The irony is that they employ an army of agents just to make empty promises and pass the buck.