Back in summer, I had a problem with a buyer from Netherlands, who obviously was too busy to inform me of her supposed problem with the bag she has bought from me. It took me a good bunch of reasoning to finally convince her that she won’t get anywhere without giving me my money or bag back. However, it was not an easy ride and it took a lot of “foreseeing” powers to rightfully get my bag back.
We went to the Makati Post Office to retrieve the package, but I already had a bad feeling that thing won’t go smoothly. I was right. Even if I clearly instructed the buyer to indicate that it was a returned item, she did not follow me and I was made to pay $80 by the customs official. As I did not have supporting evidence with me that it was indeed a returned item, I had to go back hours later just to present the proper documents. I have kept the original receipt, and printed copies of the email exchange with the buyer and they were enough to get my item released free of charge!
The whole experience taught me two things: 1) STOP selling bags on Ebay international because it was not worth the headache; and 2) use IEMS over Registered Mail because the latter was prone to messing things up for the seller. I was actually significantly dissuaded by the whole experience that I haven’t listed anything for several weeks. I always have a nagging voice in my head that it will end up bad as well. Ugh, I just hate these problematic buyers.
