Try this last resort to get your money back.
Sometimes all the diplomacy in the world won't convince a seller to refund your payment [Hack #40] . In cases such as this, it's good to know there are other ways to get your money back.
Often, disputes are caused by nothing more than email problems (spam filters, full mailboxes, etc.). You may find that filing a dispute is the only way to get a message through to the seller [Hack #9] .
If a seller misrepresented an item, never shipped it in the first place, or refuses to refund your money after you return an item, here are the tools you can use in your attempt to recover your money:
If you paid for the item with PayPal, you can use PayPal's Buyer Complaint Form; log in to PayPal, go to Help → Contact Us → Contact Customer Service. Then choose Protections/Privacy/Security → Buyer Complaint Process. Unfortunately, PayPal's Buyer Protection Policy covers only purchases you never received.
At one time, eBay had a "nonpaying bidder" complaint form, yet no way to report a "nonshipping seller." In early 2005, eBay created the Dispute Console to take care of both tasks.
Go to My eBay → Dispute Console (feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewDisputeConsole) to file a dispute or to view a dispute currently in progress. Then, choose a dispute type by clicking Unpaid items (if you're a seller) or Items Not Received or Not as Described (if you're a buyer) from the box to your left.
In the case of an item you purchased but never received, as well as a misrepresented item, click Report an Item Not Received or Not as Described, respectively, to start a new dispute. Next, enter the item number [Hack #13] of the listing and click Continue. You can file a dispute at any time between 10 and 60 days after the close of a listing.
Note that eBay's buyer and seller protection services are available only to participants in officially completed auctions. This means that if you weren't the high bidder in an auction or if the reserve wasn't met, you won't have access to these services.
Then describe the problem to begin an unmoderated discussion between yourself and the seller in a private forum on eBay's site. In most cases, the structure of the discussion is enough to help both parties resolve the dispute without any help from eBay.
If you fail to come to a resolution within 10 days of filing a dispute through the Dispute Console, you'll be given the option to escalate the dispute to a fraud claim. You fill out a special form that eBay provides, fax it to eBay along with proof of payment, and they mull it over for a few weeks. Then, if eBay determines that the other party is at fault, you may be entitled to a claim of up to US$175 ($200 minus a $25 processing fee). Naturally, this claim won't exceed the amount of your payment.
If you funded your payment with a credit card, you'll have to contact your credit card company and dispute the charge. You'll have to carefully explain the situation (providing relevant emails and all tracking numbers), but in most cases you should get a full refund whether the seller is cooperative or not. No other payment method offers this level of protection.
Don't dawdle when it comes to filing charge disputes, but don't file them frivolously, either. Although you'll typically have only 30–60 days in which to file a dispute, it's always better to handle it directly with the seller, so try to be patient. Sometimes filing a dispute is enough to convince a seller to cooperate, at which point the dispute can simply be canceled.
You can also pursue a fraud investigation through SquareTrade (www.squaretrade.com), a separate company that offers dispute resolution services to eBay customers. (See "Remove Unwanted Feedback" [Hack #7] for another service provided by SquareTrade.) Squaretrade's free service works much like eBay's Dispute Console, but you can also get a professional mediator to help with your case for an extra fee.
An eBay user who knowingly commits fraud will undoubtedly take steps to hide his or her true identity, but there are a few things you can do to learn more about who you're dealing with:
Check the user's feedback profile and look for a possible pattern of behavior. Next, contact other buyers and sellers with whom the user has completed a transaction. Use the buyer search and seller search to find relevant auctions in the last 30 days, or use the auction numbers in the user's feedback page to view auctions up to 3 months old.
Use the Find Contact Info form (from any eBay page, go to Advanced Search → Find Contact Information) and enter the user's ID and the auction number, and eBay will email you the phone number and mailing address on file for that user. The user will also receive a notice that you've requested the information. But don't be surprised if Mr. John Doe lives at 123 Fake St. in Springfield.
If the user has an unusual domain name (as opposed to something common like aol.com or hotmail.com), the domain itself may provide more insight. Use a Whois tool, such as the one at www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois, and find out who owns the domain behind the user's email address.
If you've received any email from the user, look for IP addresses in the email headers. For example, you might see something like this:
Received: from mx22.sjc.ebay.com (mxpool11.ebay.com [66.135.197.17])
where 66.135.197.17 is the IP address of one of the computers
responsible for routing the email to you. In this case, the IP
address is a machine at eBay, but if the user emailed you directly,
his IP address would show up somewhere in the headers. If the
machine name (here, mxpool11.ebay.com) doesn't appear next to
the IP address, use the NSLookup tool to resolve the address.
NSLookup is included on most modern computers, such as those
running Windows XP/2000, Unix, or Mac OS X. Just type nslookup 66.135.197.17 into a terminal
or command prompt window, and click OK. If you don't have NSLookup
on your system, you can use an online NSLookup gateway (try
www.his.com/cgi-bin/nslookup or
www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/nslookup.cgi).
The computer name is often useful in determining the user's own domain, or at least his ISP (such as aol.com or notmyrealdomain.com). Use the Whois tool to find out more about the domain in the machine name.
Try searching Google for the user's name, email address, postal address, phone number, Zip Code, or anything else you know.
Use eBay's forums [Hack #81] to reach out to other eBay users for help. You may even find someone else who has had dealings (negative or otherwise) with the seller, and can possibly offer some insight or advice.