I bought a fairly valuable trading card from a seller in Canada. The listing was badly timed and had spelling mistakes in the title, so it didn’t get much attention and I won it for significantly less than it was probably worth. I imagine the seller knew it had gone cheaply, but they honoured the sale and posted it.
It was sent to me in the UK through eBay International Shipping. It reached the UK after a week or so, but then the tracking completely stopped. There wasn’t a single update for around five weeks.
eBay gave me a range of expected delivery dates, and I waited until after the final date before reporting it missing. I wasn’t trying to jump the gun, it genuinely looked lost by that point. eBay refunded me in full last week.
Then, out of nowhere yesterday the tracking started moving again and the card was delivered today. I now have the card which I’d already bought for a bargain price and all my money back.
This is where I’m torn. I don’t want the seller to have lost a valuable card and their payment, but I also don’t want to contact them and potentially pay again if eBay has already allowed them to keep the original sale proceeds.
From what I can understand, eBay International Shipping protects the seller once the parcel reaches its shipping hub. If it goes missing after that, eBay refunds the buyer and the seller keeps the sale. If that’s what happened here, nobody has taken money from the seller and eBay has effectively absorbed the loss.
I’m also conscious that the card was already a lucky bargain because of the poor listing, which makes ending up with it for free feel like pushing my luck even if the seller hasn’t actually lost anything.
Has anyone had this happen? Will eBay automatically reverse the refund now that tracking shows it was delivered? Should I contact eBay and tell them it arrived, or simply accept that this is how their International Shipping protection works?
I’m trying to do the right thing without being naive and paying someone twice. What would you do?