I was just doing me usual browsing and stumbled across a book worth perhaps £200 priced at £27. The ISBN matched so did the publisher, and I knew there were no reprints. I thought I'd chance it. If the details didn't match to book I knew I had a leg to stand on for a return.

I'd bought from this seller twice before in a similar situation, both books turned out to be different to how they were described. I only got a partial refund on both. The book arrived this morning, the envelope was far too light to be the correct book. It wasn't the correct book, not by a long shot. So I went to eBay to report this to the seller. The seller's FAQ process redirected me to eBay.com saying that's where I'd bought it - which was odd. So, without further ado, I went straight to Paypal to request a full refund (I'll escalate if they haven't replied within a few hours).

Moral of the story, don't buy from the bulk sellers. They have no idea of edition and have too many books to care. It was silly of me really, but I thought that with all those books there must be hundreds of first editions available - I'd love to browse their warehouses!

Simon.

That's horrible. Those big box people are just not up on collectible books. They are the SCANNER people! I hope you find resolution to your problem. Were there pictures? If there were then they simply tried to bate and switch you. Good luck!

Yep. I've had similar experience. I no longer buy from any listing without 'real' image - I never trust the stock shot part now - no matter how good the deal appears.

Well, I've given them 24 hours to respond so think it's time to escalate it to a claim - I think I get my money back then.

Well this is interesting.

I escalated the dispute to a claim but I don't have the money back yet. When I had a claim against me (seller typed the tracking number incorrectly) the money was taken from my account immediately. I assume this is what's happened at the seller's side. So I guess the money's in a holding account somewhere.

The annoying thing is though, when I had an invalid claim against me, I was without £150 for a good two weeks. Not ideal. Now I'm on the other end of a claim and I'm down £27! The chances are that the seller will just ignore the claim and let PayPal settle it without their input.

Oh eBay...

How did it turn out?

In my favour, the seller complained politely that I hadn't resolved it via email etc. but in my defence, they've had 62 negatives in the last month and nearly 1500 in the last 12 months. Why would I risk it?!?!