Consumer affairs: Ebay denies my refund following fraudster’s non-delivery of Nintendo

In March of this year, I made a £60 purchase on eBay for a Nintendo Switch console. Unfortunately, the item never arrived. Strangely, the Royal Mail tracking number indicated that it was delivered in August 2022, despite the fact that I placed the order seven months prior.




I started suspecting that the seller had used a pre-existing tracking number to deceive me into believing that the order had been delivered. Fortunately, eBay offers a money back guarantee for undelivered items, so I decided to contact their customer support to request a refund. To my disappointment, I received a message stating that my claim was invalid and the case was closed. Feeling frustrated, I decided to lodge an appeal, but it was swiftly rejected within 30 minutes. This entire process has left me utterly exhausted and at a loss for what to do next.

EBay claims that the safety of its members is its highest priority and vows to have a “zero tolerance” policy towards fraud. However, it seems that their algorithms expect fraudsters to abide by the rules, which isn’t always the case.

Under eBay’s money back guarantee, buyers are required to report any issues within 30 days of the estimated or actual delivery date. Given that the seller provided a tracking number for a package delivered to someone else in August, the system automatically assumed that you had exceeded the time limit. eBay informed me that your refund was delayed due to a technical problem but has now been manually processed. It’s uncertain whether you would have received the refund without the public attention this issue garnered. eBay claims to be “addressing” the problems you faced and has taken action against the seller involved.

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