Horrible purchase experience!!

[Jsully423]

I am sorry about your unpleasant experience. It is a good thing you contacted the seller. Give the seller about 48 hours to respond, since it is the weekend.
Although, a good seller will reimburse the return shipping cost if the item is not as described, the seller is not obligated to do so. Base on Buyer Protection Policy, buyer is responsible for return shipping even if the item is not as described.

Exactly this. I was refunded by eBay buyer protection but had to ship it back.

 

[uadjit]

Buyers have to accept certain responsibility for making choices that they make. Buying online you have to assume the certain amount of risk, whether it is on Ebay or from a big department store. If you purchase something from Neiman Marcus and it comes dirty and used (and yes, I have gotten a dirty and filthy "new" Fendi bag from NM), I still have to drive to the store and return it. If Ebay made a requirement for "free" returns, can you imagine, how many chronic returners will take advantage of that?
A good seller will reimburse the buyer for return shipping if the item is not as described. Do your diligence and research your sellers well.

With all due respect, the victim-blaming here is kind of making my point for me. The attitude that anyone bold enough to try to buy on eBay should expect to be shafted by unscrupulous sellers is exactly the problem that buyer protection is trying to address.

Sellers complain about lack of sales and an increasingly difficult selling environment but then insist that buyers should all be savvy and take it on the chin when they're mistreated. Why should they? Especially with increasing competition from other outlets and for the prices that sellers are asking?

It is one thing if the buyer doesn't read a listing properly and suffers buyer's remorse. It's a different thing when they receive something that is completely different than what was described as in the OP's case.

If you buy online from a department store and they make a mistake they will send you a pre-paid return label to mail it back to them. As they should. Because a buyer who does not received what they purchased has the legal right to be made whole. Not to mention that retail companies understand that reputation among customers is their most important asset and they want to minimize the damage from their errors.

I'm not saying that refunds should be liberally awarded over and over again but a one-time courtesy refund of just the shipping charge to a new eBayer who was clearly taken advantage of seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The problem is with serial returners and scammers which eBay could crack down on if they made the effort. It isn't with a goodwill refund now and again to an honest buyer who was ripped off. Buyer protection and occasional refunds could be beneficial to eBay sellers if they were used judiciously.