As politely as possible I told them not my problem.
Youâre just asking for punishment⊠
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I know itâs a bit of a dirty word, but I wouldâve offered a partial and told them to see if someone else might like it as a gift. Saves me possible retribution or damage from it being shipped back.
Once youâve settled the issue, if it goes south, please post the buyer here !
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Depends on the cost of the book and the amount of the partial refund.
I would still take my chances, and deal with Ebay for any NEG. Would you still want this buyer bidding on your books either way ? I would block the buyer no matter what.
The great unknown is what will eBay do if the customer raises a case to return it. With the no return policy started in the listing and, most importantly, the buyerâs admission that itâs just a case of buyerâs remorse, the return denial should be upheld.
However if eBay does allow a return just because the seller requested it immediately after receiving it or some other random reason, youâll have to accept it or risk losing the money and the book.
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One could also argue to post the sellers info here too. Muhahahahahaah! I know weâre getting the sellers side of the story but if I were to buy something as a gift and realize after getting it, the person already has the item or didnât like, starting off with an apology of inconvenience, I certainly would hate to just be flat out denied a return. I think you gotta give the buyer a little benefit of the doubt without going into some life story of why they didnât want it.
It could have been much worse if you ask me. All too often you get buyers just start a return with zero explanation. By denying them, youâre just teaching other buyers to not even bother reaching out and asking while even apologizing about the inconvience, next time theyâll just make up some half baked excuse of ânot as describedâ or what not and get their money anywaysâŠ
Thatâs just my two cents though, you handle how you want, I think by denying them you sending the wrong message to all future buyers who want to return items.
This type of message reminds me the time I put in my two week notice at a past employer and was walked out immediately. This had happened to other recent employees as well. I called the HR rep after getting walked out (my full intention was to work my final two weeks) and he stated he told them to stop walking people when they resign, theyâre only going to give people the message of donât bother resigning with two week notice but instead give that 5 minute notice on a Friday that you arenât returning to work Monday. That started to happen after I was walked. around 5 other employees who quit gave last minute notices⊠after that they stopped walking people the day of and instead allowed them to work out their last two weeks cause getting walked meant an easy two week vacation since by law, they had to pay everyone for two weeks anyways after walking them.
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Thatâs the thing though, they didnât state the reason as remorse. But even then, Iâve seen eBay accept returns for just about anything despite their own policies as we all know eBay canât even stick to their own rules they set forth for buying or selling.
Maybe we have different approaches to buying/selling.
My Ebay experience is that other buyers only look at your rating, especially if there is a negative. Zeropeppâs experience with the buyer, and all the details will not be captured in enough detail for other buyers to look at, let alone understand. Ebay does not make the details of the case privy to the public.
Now, if there is a NEG, I have faith in Ebay that they will remove the NEG based on the buyers msg. (that Zeropepp provided). No guarantee but theyâve done this for me; of course takes some effort.
The chance Zeropepp takes is that the NEG does not get removed, and then I would reply with a positive for the seller clearly explaining my rebuttal in bold. I did this with herrlejeff1, and then Ebay eventually removed his NEG.
In my limited Ebay experience, there is no message being sent to potential buyers except by your rating, your feedback, and your description.
Thats not to say I am always hard-nosed about dealing with buyers.
For Zeropepps case, if the buyer had messaged me BEFORE I shipped the item, I would be pissed but I would cancel and refund his purchase. Doing it after the item is shipped, is my red line, and my implied message would be âthink before you buy !â AFTER I deny his return. I would still block this buyer no matter what ! And hope that I dont get more buyers like them.
My contention is that nothing a seller does is going to discourage someone who wants to use a âNot as describedâ excuse, and my expectation is that I could be Mother Teresa as a seller and still see this happen. The âNot as describedâ is a big flaw in Ebays return system. Personally, I think they should have seller options that says âNo returns/Ebay offers no guaranteeâ OR âAccepts returns/Ebay does offer a guaranteeâ. As a seller guess which option I would select, even if it costs me some buyers ?
Still their Seller Protection scheme is a work in progress and has benefitted me.
The message (âremorseâ) is not explicit, but the implication is as clear as mud !
Also, if this buyer is a âgoodâ buyer maybe he can pay for the return postage and offset some of the cost of the book for labor to return the book. I might be OK with that, though there is still the stress of the condition of the book being shipped back.
No one should ever get âpissedâ due to a return imho. If you let the little things bother you in life, youâre probably not suited to sell anything because itâs going to happen, one day or another.
Iâve had people want to cancel all the time. I just happily allow the return. I think being the âbetter personâ in the situation always makes you come out on top, even if you ended up losing a little bit of money and time in the process. There will always be more opportunities to make more moneyâŠ
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Once upon a time I sold a Harrow County #1. I sold it for like $13 or so. The seller said it didnât meet his expectations on grade so I was like, go on and send it back. Once received, I relisted and it ended up selling for like $25. So I made more moneyâŠ
Doing the right thing in my opinion will only reward you later. I guess if youâre strict with the rules of, âNo Returns means No Returnsâ then I hope youâre also prepared when you find yourself in similiar situations and the seller says the same thing to you when asked if you can return for whatever reasonâŠ
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Little things dont bother me to the point of regulating my life, and the loss of money will not break the bank for me. Its not my primary profession; just a way to fund my hobby.
I will say that losing âa little bit of money and time in the processâ will add up. Its the principle, especially when I place a lot of importance on making sure a buyer gets what he paid for, in the best possible condition. May be some OCD also 
I had the same thing happen to me as with you (Nice House âŠLake 1; First print). Guy mentioned that the book was damaged in the mail, and sent pics. I couldnt see any defects in the pics ! Still I accepted the return, and refunded him. The book was as I had sent it, otherwise near mint. I think there was a spine tick that I had mentioned in the listing. Sold the book later at a higher price, so I was OK with it. I wont mention the name, because he gave me positive feedback after I refunded him. But I blocked him nonetheless. My listing in big, red capitalized letters implores buyers to âpleaseâ not buy my book if they are concerned about grades or minor imperfections, besides the one I list with pics. I am âpissedâ when someone does this still and then complains about a condition. I can live without these kind of buyers, my stress level is more important.
Poyo, you and I probably wont see eye to eye on this, and Iâm OK to agree to disagree ! Ones buying philosophy is one, one should be comfortable with ! Can be flexible depending on the circumstances.
I have to agree that there is a cost for time and money of packaging a book and mailing it. What is. It reflected in my return of a book for a full refund is the cost of the mailers I use to ship the book out, printer ink and paper, labor of packaging a book plus cost of things like tape, bag and board, and gas to drive it to the post office. Just a blanket âgive the guy back his moneyâ is a loss no matter what.
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Itâs the cost of doing business in the retail world⊠sadly, no way around it at times.
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Donât a lot of big corporations have at least 5%-10% losses from returns built into their plans as they know at least 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 20 customers will be a pain to work with?
Depends on âyourâ business model, and its impact.
That doesnt mean you dont contest it, if you know the customer is taking advantage of your return policy. Its not a âNo excusesâ return policy !
I know I am going to face some bad transactions, doesnât mean I cant contest it/fight it. I personally dont want the person back as a customer, as I wouldnât trust him. And as I mentioned before, aside from the feedback, rating, and description, other customers dont know and dont have the time/inclination to find out what happened.
Anyways, you do you !
Also, may be someone with more business experience than I can comment, but doesnt a big retailer also have some insurance against loss due to shenanigans ?
Long ago during my Best Buy working days in college, the store I worked at already wrote off close to $100k each year for losses (returns, damages, theft, etc)⊠So yes, big retailers likely donât carry insurance due to loss but itâs a definite tax writeoff for those who make profit.
I doubt most comic shop retailers can afford insurance for such things but itâs a tax writeoff for sure that most likely do.
I cant afford insurance either, but I cant claim a tax write-off also. Another reason for my selling strategy 
Also, Iâll take your word about Best Buy losing 100K$/year. I work for a company (just a peon), that makes $10 billion/year. I will say that if they lost 100K$/year for returns, damages, theft, etc., heads would roll !