How to get anything on EBAY for free (and get away with it)

This article explains how to get anything for free on Ebay. This is very simple, proven and guaranteed to work. You can get, for example, an IPhone 4, a 64GB IPad 2, or even a Macbook Pro laptop for free.

1. If the seller does not use delivery confirmation, you already won. Just tell ebay you never received the item. They will always side with you (bhe buyer) and refund your money, including shipping, AT THE SELLER'S EXPENSE. There is nothing the seller can do. Ebay will not investigate further, they close the case.  I have hard numerous reports of this happening.  See this facebook thread and this article. The buyer now has no item, no money, and in addition he is out the cost of shipping. Totally screwed.

2. If you are dealing with a savvy seller, they will use delivery confirmation. Don't worry, you can still get your item for free. After you receive the item, open a case and claim the item broken. Let's use an IPhone 4 as an example. Open a claim and say the media buttons don't work well. Explain you went to the Apple store and they refuse to fix it due to water damage. The seller may ask you to send proof of water damage (underneath the battery, there are sensors which change color if water touches them). Don't send proof. Ebay will close the case, refund your money (including shipping if you paid for it), at the seller's expense. You can even wait a week or two, and then send your claim.  You will NOT have to send the 'broken' item back and there is no way for the seller to pester you, or for them to pester ebay.

Why am I posting this? By no means am I encouraging anyone to actually do this, you're screwing the sellers over. This just happened to me with an IPhone 4 I sold. The device was in perfect condition. I sold it, and a few weeks later the seller opens a claim, complaining that the media buttons stopped working, that Apple claimed it was water damaged. We talked about the problem extensively, I eventually asked for proof it was water damaged. The seller refused. I asked him to send the phone back. No response. Eventually ebay REVERSED THE CHARGES and closed the case. I can't contact ebay or the seller about this case any more. There is no appeal process. I have no iphone, no money, and I got charged for shipping costs.

This is what you will see in your paypal:

Temporary Hold For

eBay Buyer Dispute

Removed

Details Temporary Hold For eBay Buyer Dispute 9146568253138724F

-$199.99

$0.00

-$199.99 USD

		Nov 29, 2012		Temporary Hold For	eBay Buyer Dispute	Removed	Details Temporary Hold For eBay Buyer Dispute 9146568253138724F		-$199.99	$0.00	-$199.99 USD
		Dec 12, 2012		Update From	Reversal	Canceled	Details Update From Reversal 0SJ660238P781433W		$199.99	$0.00	$199.99 USD

Of course, I also lost the money I spent on shipping the item. In my particular situation, ebay closed the case without even responding to my appeal to at least my IPhone 4 sent back to me. This is the email I got:

	Thanks for your message

Thanks for your message. The case you contacted us about was closed after we made a final decision on it. We'll review your question or concern and get back to you within 72 hours. You can view the details of this case in the Resolution Center.

There were no further messages from ebay (they promised to get back within 72 hours). If I open the case in ebay, this is what I see:

Your case details

Help

Case Closed: Appeal denied  You don't need to do anything else. eBay Customer Support has declined your appeal and upheld the original decision on the case. Dec 14, 2012 at 11:57 AM eBay Customer Support comments: We're sorry there was a problem this transaction. For more information about this case, please refer to the email we sent you.

This is almost humorous, since the email says the case was closed, and has a link to the website. This is an intentionally closed loop.

I'm not going to sue EBay over an IPhone 4. I've been an active ebay user since it was first launched, and have bought and sold 100s of items. The worst part of this is I am now actually afraid to list anything on ebay. There is a non zero chance I will lose the item. I still use ebay to purchase goods, but that is where I draw the line. It is sad and embarrassing how far the mighty have fallen. EBay used to be a model dot com company.


EBAY - FIX THIS SHIT.

Since your legal team is clearly incompetent in understanding a basic customer service scenario, I will even tell you how to do it, for free. These two simple changes won't require you to hire any more customer service folks or spend your own money to cover arbitrated transactions.

• Require delivery confirmation. (Fixes loophole 1)
• Require the seller to send 'broken' items back. (Fixes loophole 2)

Readers - please, please don't actually use this technique. If you do, you're ripping off honest, hard working people like yourself. This is corrupt and immoral. I'm only posting this in hopes that ebay will fix their badly broken buyer-protection policy.