Ebay has come a long way, after its partnership with Paypal ended, I always wondered how buyer friendly would its policies be and what all would eBay do to promote businesses on its platform at the cost of buyers.
Last year i had uncovered a warranty scam on eBay, wherein sellers were illegally farming personal information to file fake warranty claims for Philips toothbrushes. eBay took no action on those complaints and wrote an unsatisfactory response to the WA state AG.
This time I have uncovered a new eBay scam. A few weeks ago, I ordered a faucet from eBay. Unfortunately i discovered that I would have no use for that faucet and decided to return it. I returned it without even opening the package.
The seller did offer 30 day free returns. After the return was complete, I saw that I was refunded only 50% of the item value. There was a note by the seller which I saw later:
“This item was open installed and removed shows marks from use … sold brand new sealed”
This is obviously a lie. I filed a case and left negative feedback for the seller to warn other buyers. eBay eventually decided to give me back the entire amount. However to my surprise, my negative feedback was removed in less than 30 minutes.
The seller in this case is blackdiamondpawn which is Black Diamond Pawn shop based in Florida. They never responded to my angry messages calling them out on their fraud. They did however get their negative feedback removed in less than 30 minutes.
At present, eBay shows no negative rating for this seller. I wonder how many other negative ratings were removed by eBay without any regards to the genuineness of the ratings.
The lesson is never trust eBay and always pay using a strong credit card like Amex which protects consumers. Lesson #2 is not to but anything from Black Diamond Pawn shop based in Florida or their ebay store ‘blackdiamondpawn‘
I plan to file a WA ATG complaint asking eBay on what basis was my negative review removed and isnt it biasing its marketplace by removing legitimate negative reviews. I dont think anything will come off it but the state AG should be aware of these incredibly shady tactics by eBay.
Post on Yelp too https://www.yelp.com/biz/black-diamond-pawn-pompano-beach-2