The notification hits: a buyer opened a “not as described” case, or SNAD, claiming the item was wrong, damaged, or not what they ordered. Your pulse spikes, especially if you know you described it perfectly. Here is the honest truth and the game plan: these cases lean toward buyers, but how you respond decides whether this stays a small, clean return or becomes a mess on your record.<\/p>\n
eBay’s Money Back Guarantee is built to make buyers feel safe, so on a not-as-described claim the deck is tilted their way. The key thing to accept up front: on a genuine SNAD, the seller pays return shipping and refunds in full, even with a no-returns policy. Fighting that basic structure is a losing battle. Where you actually have leverage is in the response, the evidence, and the speed.<\/p>\n
You have three business days to respond, and silence is the worst move – if you ignore it, eBay can refund the buyer from your funds and you may not even get the item back. Instead:<\/p>\n
Do all of this before asking eBay to step in. If you and the buyer cannot resolve it, either side can escalate, and eBay typically reviews and rules within a couple of days.<\/p>\n
You “win” a SNAD less by proving the buyer wrong and more by having handled it cleanly and having receipts. Strong evidence: detailed original photos in the listing, accurate condition wording, and proof of what you shipped. If a buyer’s claim is clearly false or looks like abuse, document it and report the buyer, but still follow the process. Note that eBay updates its Money Back Guarantee and seller-protection terms periodically, so confirm the current escalation window and any protections before you rely on them.<\/p>\n
The best defense is prevention: listings so accurate and photo-heavy that “not as described” barely holds water. That is where I lean on Nifty<\/a>. Its AI listing creation builds thorough, honest descriptions from your photos, and because it crosslists the exact same detailed listing everywhere, a buyer on any platform sees precisely what they are getting – which is the quiet secret to fewer SNAD cases. My full dispute-proofing and automation system is in the AI Reselling Playbook<\/a>.<\/p>\n A not-as-described case leans buyer, so do not waste energy fighting the structure. Respond fast and professionally, accept the return or offer a fair partial, get the item back, and refund cleanly. Then tighten your listings so the next buyer has nothing to dispute. Handle it like a pro and one SNAD is a Tuesday, not a crisis.<\/p>\n New here? Nifty is the AI crosslister I use to list once and sell everywhere – and if you want in, my code ALEXIS44 gets you 15% off: https:\/\/nifty.ai\/?referral=ALEXIS44<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A buyer opened an item not as described case against you on eBay. Here is exactly how to respond, what evidence helps, and how to protect your money and your account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[203,189,202,188],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ebay","tag-ebay-disputes","tag-ebay-returns","tag-not-as-described","tag-selling-on-ebay"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theautomatedreseller.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The bottom line<\/h2>\n