Buying and selling etiquette

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Johannes9

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It hasn’t happened to me but has anyone ever sold a knife on the secondary shipped it and the buyer doesn’t like it and says they want to return it and get their money back? Do they now take the PayPal goods and service hit that you ate originally. I guess now I see why people say $XXX.XX “Net” to me but even then would you send money back? How does one deal with this professionally
 
Johannes9 said:
It hasn’t happened to me but has anyone ever sold a knife on the secondary shipped it and the buyer doesn’t like it and says they want to return it and get their money back? Do they now take the PayPal goods and service that you ate originally. I guess now I see why people say $XXX.XX “Net” to me but even then would you send money back? How does one deal with this professionally
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You would initiate a full return of the funds that were sent to you and you would eat the feea for the original transaction. It's the cost of doing business.
 
unwisefool said:
I'd wait to refund until I got it back though.
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Oh, that should go without saying.

In cases where a knife is misrepresented or if the seller outright lied, I’d expect exactly what I put in. Maybe even shipping cost back to them. If I just didn’t like it for whatever reason I’d either keep it and hope it grew on me or just resell.
 
Not sure how PP is doing it now, but they used to refund the fees. I think I read they no longer do that.
In any case it would be a full refund to the buyer. Seller eats the original shipping and any fees. If it seems like a ridiculous return, don't deal with that person in the future.
Luckily this doesn't come up often if you described the item well
 
I Believe when a refund is issued in full amount there shouldn’t be any charges to the seller. Maybe I’m wrong
 
AntDog said:
Oh, that should go without saying.

In cases where a knife is misrepresented or if the seller outright lied, I’d expect exactly what I put in. Maybe even shipping cost back to them. If I just didn’t like it for whatever reason I’d either keep it and hope it grew on me or just resell.
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I think this is a great point. I'm not Amazon, if you have buyers remorse, that shouldn't be my problem. If I missed a giant scratch on the blade on my description, and the buyer is upset about that, I'd need to take ownership for my mistake and refund the money.
 
Agree with the above two posters. We are talking about individual occasional sellers not knife dealers. If the knife is accurately described and it is pure buyer remorse, it seems unfair for the seller to accept the return AND eat the PayPal fees and shipping fees. Shouldn't the buyer pay all the fees (PayPal and two-way shipping)?
 
Johannes9 said:
It hasn’t happened to me but has anyone ever sold a knife on the secondary shipped it and the buyer doesn’t like it and says they want to return it and get their money back? Do they now take the PayPal goods and service hit that you ate originally. I guess now I see why people say $XXX.XX “Net” to me but even then would you send money back? How does one deal with this professionally
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I have personally never liked that "net to me" business, since it also implicitly implies violating PayPal's TOS by sending funds as F&F for a G&S transaction (assuming PayPal is used to make payment).

Any knife deal on *this forum* has to end with both ends equally satisfied, otherwise the deal MUST be undone. This requires both parties to be involved in the transaction -- the buyer asking all questions, requesting all photos, etc., and the seller checking the buyer's history, reputation, etc. (the forum software provides excellent "search" functionality that should be used here). Additionally, the onus of making sure all goes well is on both parties and not the forum or its moderators -- so do your homework, and there is slim-to-none chance of stuff going south. In over a decade, I maybe had one instance where things were iffy, but other than that, it has been a smooth ride all along.

This section, and the stickies at the top are a great way to get educated in the "art" of buying and selling on this forum... please take time to read through them, as well as the numerous GBU threads, and you'll rarely encounter trouble. :-)
 
If a knife is not as described, the buyer ships back, seller refunds on receipt of the item + cost of buyer's shipping. Frankly if someone has no better reason than "I don't like it as much as I thought," or "I changed my mind later," then IMHO the seller would be justified in refunding the purchase price less the cost of the nonrefundable fees and his/her shipping cost.

The trickiest situation is what if the buyer wants to return but ships the knife back to the seller in a different condition than it arrived in - i.e. it was taken apart and reassembled incorrectly or damaged during reassembly, or he/she sharpened it, etc.
 
Buyer's remorse is the buyer's fault on secondary market; return policies are going to vary by store. If I miss something, I'd offer a refund just to be nice.
 
I'll add
It is pretty unlikely a buyer says they want to return it because they changed their mind, or it at least has not happened to me. Instead they will come up with a flimsy excuse of a problem that doesn't exist.While this may be poor etiquette on the buyers part, I personally take back all returns no ?'s asked(though I will ask out of curiosity). This is my policy. It comes up so infrequently that it isn't worth arguing over a few $'s fees(which I have never lost) or shipping.
I have lost so much money buying and selling knives. the amount from these 3 transactions wouldn't even show up as a blip. Really not worth worrying about IMO
 
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Peter Hartwig said:
I'll add
It is pretty unlikely a buyer says they want to return it because they changed their minds, or it at least has not happened to me. Instead they will come up with a flimsy excuse of a problem that doesn't exist.While this may be poor etiquette on the buyers part, I personally take back all returns no ?'s asked(though I will ask out of curiosity). This is my policy. It comes up so infrequently that it isn't worth arguing over a few $'s fees(which I have never lost) or shipping.
I have lost so much money buying and selling knives. the amount from these 3 transactions wouldn't even show up as a blip. Really not worth worrying about IMO
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Same with me. I typically tell the buyer they can return it for any reason (unused) as long as they pay shipping. If there is anything wrong with the knife that I missed, I will pay shipping also. That being said, I tend to be a bit restrictive on who I will sell a knife to also.
 
It's only happened to me twice. When the buyer wasn't happy for whatever reasons, I asked them to ship the knife back, had them tell me what the shipping charges were, and refunded their purchase price plus the return shipping. My intent was that the buyer not be out any money for dealing with me... just their time for packing and returning the knife.

I don't remember the reason for the first return years ago. The last one was for a blemish in the lettering on one side of the blade in a Para 3. But the reasons don't matter to me. If the buyer isn't happy, I'm not happy. Send me the knife, I'll send you your money.
 
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