Lesson From a Doughnut Fryer Debacle: Let the eBay Seller Beware

The Haggler wins so many showdowns that you might think he doesn’t know how to lose. The truth is more nuanced. The Haggler loses now and then. But when he loses, he keeps it to himself. So what you see in this space is carefully edited to minimize embarrassment. It’s like a list of Meryl Streep movies, minus “Mamma Mia!”

But every once in a while, the Haggler fails, and for reasons that are pretty interesting. And when that happens, he has no choice but to man up and share.

Q. In April, a customer ordered a doughnut fryer from me on eBay. The unit costs about $1,400 and requires a specific electrical environment — the right wattage and amperes — which was noted in my online description of the product.

The customer later claimed that the machine “runs slow,” a sign that the fryer is not getting the juice it needs. But instead of sending back the machine, on her dime — a condition of sale that I laid out in the item’s description — the customer claimed that it was defective.

The reason? A “defective item” claim allows eBay buyers to return items without abiding by the seller’s conditions, which in this case included a return shipping fee. Further, when a customer opens an eBay return request, the purchase price of the item is immediately seized from the seller’s PayPal account.

I tested this machine before I sent it. I even sent a video of that test to the customer. I’ve sold hundreds of these machines, with great feedback.

But after eBay looked into the matter, I got an email stating that the company was siding with the buyer. Now eBay demands I pay return shipping and refund the buyer, or the company will give her the refund and let her keep the machine.

I think that eBay’s conduct is indefensible. Can you get it to look at this again?

Kene Erike
Freeport, N.Y.

A. Mr. Erike is one of many eBay sellers furious over what critics call a “buyer always wins” policy. For years, sellers on the site have complained about that policy, and in some instances, they have sued.

The gist of these complaints is that in disputes with buyers, eBay won’t seriously consider evidence presented by sellers. Or as a lawyer for an eBay seller, Maggie Campbell, put it in a filing in her 2012 class-action lawsuit, “EBay does not and will not review the facts of the case to arrive at a fair resolution of the dispute between the buyer and the seller.”

Why would eBay favor buyers over sellers? Because of money, said Anthony A. Ferrigno, one of the lawyers for Ms. Campbell.

“If the contract is rescinded, if there is no sale, then the company does not collect final value fees,” said Mr. Ferrigno, who spoke on the phone to the Haggler recently. In short, if the deal is unwound, eBay does not get paid.

EBay has responded in court that under the terms of its user agreement, it can do what it likes. The company phrased it a little differently in a court filing in the Campbell case: “Buyers and sellers permit us to make a final decision at our sole discretion.”

Apparently, this is a highly effective defense. Ms. Campbell’s case was dismissed in 2015, and the Haggler knows of no similar case that has succeeded. But Mr. Ferrigno is undaunted. Last year, he filed a new lawsuit, with a new lead plaintiff: an autograph seller named Theo Chen.

What about that user agreement?

EBay has “policies and practices in there that require the company to be neutral arbiters in the resolution process,” Mr. Ferrigno said. For proof, he pointed to a few snippets in eBay’s user agreement that essentially state the company will be fair: “Sellers may not have to pay a reimbursement for an eBay claim if they provide the documentation,” such as “proof that the item was as described.”

Mr. Erike says that he provided exactly that proof with his video, while the customer declined even to send a photo of her electrical setup. Nonetheless, an eBay employee named Brad B. sent Mr. Erike an email in late May that first hit some sympathetic chords (“I can understand how upsetting it can be to have a case opened against you”), but underscored that evidence was kind of beside the point.

“If a seller has a return policy” — that is to say, a policy that returns are accepted under certain conditions — “eBay does not require valid proof from the buyer and take them at their word,” Mr. B. wrote, ungrammatically. “If you have a return policy you are obligated to take the item back regardless of the buyer’s claim.”

The Haggler emailed eBay on Mr. Erike’s behalf in the hopes of persuading the company to re-examine its conclusions. That didn’t work. It only produced the following bit of email boilerplate:

“While the overwhelming majority of transactions go smoothly, eBay has designed a set of robust polices and standards geared toward fairness in cases where eBay needs to step in to adjudicate. We’ve reached out to this seller to provide best practices to avoid similar scenarios in the future.”

Mr. Erike said he needs no best practices advice, and he is unlikely to take yet another no for an answer. Because in addition to selling doughnut fryers, he is also — and this is not a joke — the author of “‘No’ Doesn’t Always Mean No: Strategies for Influencing Behavior and Winning Cooperation.” If he succeeds where the Haggler has failed, expect an update.

■ Speaking of updates, one was promised in the recent case of Joy Cohen and the doggy door she bought from Sureguard, a company in Rancho Dominguez, Calif. It arrived damaged, was returned and then vanished into UPS’s system. That episode ended with Sureguard’s president, Richard Crouley, telling the Haggler that he would send a new doggy door to Ms. Cohen.

Here’s the update: Ms. Cohen has not received a new doggy door. Mr. Crouley has also stopped responding to the Haggler’s emails.

So there you have it. Two Haggler failures, one column. Mamma mia.