eBay Buyer Issue

[Alipes]

So eBay has been relatively reasonable (as far as crazy buyers goes, their fees are still ridiculous).  Of course that had to change! 

On the 28th of July I sold an auction for two ponies, and when I received payment on the 30th I also received a note from the buyer wanting me to ship to a different address than the one provided by Paypal.  The last time that happened, I'd asked for advice here and was directed to some good info about Paypal's protection policy, so I knew that was a big no-no.  So I refunded her payment, and kindly explained that due to Paypal policy I could only ship to the address provided by Paypal, and that she could change it during Paypal checkout.  What followed was several messages where she tried to guilt-trip me, be passive aggressive, and then finally resent payment and said just to ship it to the address provided by Paypal, because she wasn't good at computers and didn't know how to change it.

So I shipped her package on the 1st of August, and as of the 4th it was sitting at the post office, with tracking status of "Notice Left (No Authorized Recipient Available)".  Today, I received a rather nasty message from her, that it had been too long and that I needed to track them down before she contacted eBay.  I sent her a message explaining that she told me to send it to the first address and what the current status of the package was.

According to USPS, it looks like a package left in the "Notice Left" state gets returned to sender after 15 days.  If that's correct, it should get returned to me sometime next week.  Would it be unreasonable in this case to just give her a full refund and consider the matter finished?  She has been rather rude to me over the whole thing and there's no way I'm going to go out of my way for her to get these ponies. 

Also, I didn't realize at the time, but she's a rather notorious reseller as well, one who has sold ponies and hid flaws.

[ponylady]

I think you have handled the situation well.

If I were you I would make sure you have written the buyer through "my messages" that his package is at the post office and a notice was left. Remind him to pick it up timely and if it is shipped back to you, he will have to pay for reshipping. Ebay should support you as a seller if you shipped to the address given to you from them and Paypal and if you have that tracking, you should be fine.  Perhaps you could call customer support also and maybe they can send the buyer a message on your behalf.

I also want to add I believe that if a buyer refuses a package then they lose their buyer protection. I am not positive on that, as there are tons of new updates rolling out this month.

[Alipes]

Well, I sent the buyer a message this morning letting her know the status of the package.  I did take your advice and give eBay a call and was rather surprised by the response.  Basically, they said that if there's a situation where the buyer requests a different address through messages, it is okay to ship to that address and they will lose their buyer protection (but you will keep your seller protection).  That was not at all what I expected, as I thought mailing packages to a different address was considered a major red flag?  In any event, at this point I just need to wait for the buyer to send me a message back, and/or for the package to get sent back to me before I can do anything else.

Thanks for your help!

[Whoa1234]

Well, I sent the buyer a message this morning letting her know the status of the package.  I did take your advice and give eBay a call and was rather surprised by the response.  Basically, they said that if there's a situation where the buyer requests a different address through messages, it is okay to ship to that address and they will lose their buyer protection (but you will keep your seller protection).  That was not at all what I expected, as I thought mailing packages to a different address was considered a major red flag?  In any event, at this point I just need to wait for the buyer to send me a message back, and/or for the package to get sent back to me before I can do anything else.

Thanks for your help!

That is really interesting!
I had something similar happen, where a buyer had moved and did not update their shipping address in PP.
They had asked it to be sent to the new address( it had already been shipped).
I talked to paypal on the phone maybe a month ago? They told me sending it to any other address than the one confirmed on PP and I would have lost all seller protection.

I hope everything works out for you!

[Alipes]

That is really interesting!
I had something similar happen, where a buyer had moved and did not update their shipping address in PP.
They had asked it to be sent to the new address( it had already been shipped).
I talked to paypal on the phone maybe a month ago? They told me sending it to any other address than the one confirmed on PP and I would have lost all seller protection.

I hope everything works out for you!

Yeah, I was honestly surprised too.  What she told me specifically is that if there's an issue, eBay will look at the message traffic as well, and if they requested shipment to a different address in a message and you shipped to that address, they lose buyer protection but the seller protection stays intact.  Which is really weird to me personally!  That was speaking with eBay though, so maybe Paypal's policies are slightly different?

To be honest, it still seems much safer to me just to stick with the address provided by Paypal checkout.  Relying on message traffic in case of an eBay dispute just seems like a really iffy proposition.

[flying_narwhal]

I did take your advice and give eBay a call and was rather surprised by the response.  Basically, they said that if there's a situation where the buyer requests a different address through messages, it is okay to ship to that address and they will lose their buyer protection (but you will keep your seller protection). 

I would definitely NOT take this advice! Everything I have seen, read, and experienced is quite to the contrary of what that rep told you. Especially considering eBay's "buyer can do no wrong" attitude in 99.9% of cases. Whenever someone requests shipping to another address other than the one they checked out with, I always refund their payment, apologize and tell them I am unable to complete such a request due to eBay policies, request they recheck out using the correct address and profusely apologizing for the inconvenience. Your gut was definitely right

I had something similar happen, where a buyer had moved and did not update their shipping address in PP.
They had asked it to be sent to the new address( it had already been shipped).
I talked to paypal on the phone maybe a month ago? They told me sending it to any other address than the one confirmed on PP and I would have lost all seller protection.

I have had this happen several times as well. Super frustrating when a buyer wants something sent to a new address AFTER it has already been shipped out! [wrong address + poor communication = frustration!]

To be honest, it still seems much safer to me just to stick with the address provided by Paypal checkout.  Relying on message traffic in case of an eBay dispute just seems like a really iffy proposition.

I totally agree. I was in a dispute once as a buyer in a case where the seller was clearly a scammer. It was clear from the outcome that eBay didn't bother to read the messages. I had to get on the phone and argue with a rep. It took me faxing a police report alleging mail fraud against the scammer to eBay before they finally started to listen.