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Bad Ebay Buyers (and Sellers)

Started by wds, October 19, 2014, 09:41:23 PM

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Babybearjs

John

Sargeguy

#16
I just received my first negative feedback!

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=sargeguy

I mailed a few capacitors to someone in MN a couple weeks back.   They were in a hand addressed padded envelope sent via USPS 1st class.  The tracking is on a receipt from the PO in my car somewhere.  Here is the total of my correspondence with the buyer:

Sent Date: Jan-24-15

QuoteDear sargeguy,

When were the capacitors shipped please?

-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sent Date: Jan-24-15
Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

I mailed them on Saturday, they may not have gotten picked up until Monday.

Thanks,

-sargeguy


Sent Date: Jan-24-15

Dear sargeguy,

Thank you Greg !

-XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sent:  Jan-31-15

Dear sargeguy,

I left you bad feedback as I tried to alert you to the fact that I never got my capacitors. You did not seem to care. Maybe if you would send them to me I would have the bad feedback removed. I would take better care of my buyers if I wanted to stay in business.

- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Greg Sargeant
Providence, RI
TCI /ATCA #4409

TelePlay

Quote from: Sargeguy on January 31, 2015, 12:48:57 PM
Dear sargeguy,

When were the capacitors shipped please?

-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sent Date: Jan-24-15
Dear XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

I mailed them on Saturday, they may not have gotten picked up until Monday.

Thanks,

-sargeguy


Sent Date: Jan-24-15

Dear sargeguy,

Thank you Greg !

-XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sent:  Jan-31-15

Dear sargeguy,

I left you bad feedback as I tried to alert you to the fact that I never got my capacitors. You did not seem to care. Maybe if you would send them to me I would have the bad feedback removed. I would take better care of my buyers if I wanted to stay in business.

- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Wow! Reading along in the conversation I didn't see that last reply coming. Quite a statement by that buyer.

Sargeguy

Exactly.

I replied:

Quote

Dear XXXXXXXXXXX,
The only correspondence I received from you prior to this was a message asking when I shipped the items, to which I responded. If the shipment has not arrived you should have notified me. If you wanted me to send replacement capacitors you should have asked and I would have sent the replacements. I have 1300 positive feedbacks and I have always been able to work out any problems. I have never had a negative feedback or needed to leave one until now.
Thanks,
Greg


I then reported him to eBay for inappropriate feedback and misuse of the feedback system, claiming he "might" remove the negative feedback if I sent him the item (which I would have had he asked me too).  Unfortunately sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers anymore.

In situations like this I just refund the PayPal payment so he cannot make any further claims etc. and added him to my blocked bidders list
Greg Sargeant
Providence, RI
TCI /ATCA #4409

WesternElectricBen

That's too bad, I always worry about bad buyers like that. I hope you can resolve the problem.

Ben

19and41

When buying on Ebay, I usually check the feedback ratings and comments and it has become relatively easy to tell if a neutral or negative feedback is a indicator of what to expect from a seller.  The complaints are usually arbitrary in nature and appear in the context of otherwise satisfactory comments from other buyers.  It is a mystery to me why they will leave such a response.  Most sellers are considerate and helpful if one treats them as though they were so.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

Doug Rose

It's always tough on eBay when you get a buyer who is wrong, but thinks he/she is right. The old adage "the customer is always right" is wrong. eBay is full of good sellers and good buyers, it only takes one bad apple (cliche #2).

I agree with the statement ..."Most sellers are considerate and helpful if one treats them as though they were so." I want my buyers as happy as I want myself to be when I buy. The bonus with happy buyers is as many of them become repeat customers. It is very tough to swallow to receive bad feedback when a buyer doesn't answer your prompt responses.

It always bruises the ego just a bit when you get bad press for doing the right thing. ......Doug
Kidphone

Greg G.

Quote from: Sargeguy on January 31, 2015, 01:12:44 PM
Exactly.

I replied:

Quote

Dear XXXXXXXXXXX,
The only correspondence I received from you prior to this was a message asking when I shipped the items, to which I responded. If the shipment has not arrived you should have notified me. If you wanted me to send replacement capacitors you should have asked and I would have sent the replacements. I have 1300 positive feedbacks and I have always been able to work out any problems. I have never had a negative feedback or needed to leave one until now.
Thanks,
Greg


I then reported him to eBay for inappropriate feedback and misuse of the feedback system, claiming he "might" remove the negative feedback if I sent him the item (which I would have had he asked me too).  Unfortunately sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers anymore.

In situations like this I just refund the PayPal payment so he cannot make any further claims etc. and added him to my blocked bidders list


Thank God for being able to block jerks!  I don't sell on ebay, but I LOVE the block feature on Facebook, Youtube, other places.
The idea that a four-year degree is the only path to worthwhile knowledge is insane.
- Mike Row
e

wds

It's time to refresh this thread.  I sold an item to a Buyer pacificwhite ( 129 ), who has turned into a real pain.  He bought the item a couple weeks ago and just now paid for it.  He got my phone number and called me to talk about the phone a week after the purchase, and tried to renegotiate the price, and got some extra stuff out of me just to make him happy.  Still didn't pay until a another week later after I opened an unpaid case against him.  Now of course he is mad at me.  Just a warning to all of you - he is now blocked from buying from me. 

I don't sell phones for a living so I don't need these kinds of buyers.
Dave

twocvbloke

Just remind buyers like them that when they win an item or hit "Buy it now" that they've entered into a legal contract and breaking it will have severe consequences (you are in the US after all, where with the right lawyer you can sue a stone for all the money it has!!)... :)

Fabius

Quote from: twocvbloke on February 06, 2017, 11:56:46 PM
(you are in the US after all, where with the right lawyer you can sue a stone for all the money it has!!)... :)

Yes, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are loaded.
Tom Vaughn
La Porte, Indiana
ATCA Past President
ATCA #765
C*NET 1+ 821-9905

mariepr

#26
Recently I came upon an eBay seller who wrote a lengthy Terms of Sale in his listings.  He will no longer give partial refunds.  If the buyer is unhappy the item can be returned for full refund but he won't make any "adjustments".  According to him he is seeing more and more buyers make a claim of some minor defect.  No matter how many images, or how detailed the description, there is some claim of a defect that wasn't shown.  What these buyers are doing is re-negotiating the price after the sale. 

My own peeve is the after-listing inquiry which has included a handful of collectors.  I think it best not to respond AT ALL to post-listing “Is it still available?” or “Do you plan to re-list it?” inquiries.  No good can come of it.  Here’s how I see from the seller viewpoint.

1) It allows your opponent to pick the battlefield.
OK, “battlefield” is a strong analogy to use for a phone auction but you get the idea.  I had set the auction or sale terms and the duration.  Now I’m letting somebody else extend the sale.  It puts me in a position where I deliberately chose not to be: in a one on one negotiation.

2) The seller cannot possibly do well.
I already know that the eBay member isn’t going to pay my reserve (he didn’t bid up to it) or my threshold buy it now price (he didn’t make an offer above the auto-reject range).  Or didn’t bid/offer at all.  It’s now about me lowering my floor.  Of course, I can just politely end the negotiations because we’re too far apart.  I’ve then given one person exclusive information on the parameters of my pricing which no one else has – valuable information to have when the phone is re-listed.  Then there’s a small group of collectors feel that they are entitled to buy a phone and their price and a seller is morally obligated to accommodate them.  In their mind sellers have no right to a financial return for their time, materials, and labor.  (Like the ATCA member who told me, “Look, do you want to debate?  Or do you want to sell stuff?”)  I don't make a living on phone restoration but I'm not in this to lose money either.

3) It does nothing for your Seller rating.
An off-eBay sale does nothing for my seller rating.  Somebody who might think of buying a higher value phone won’t be encouraged if he sees sales all at less than $100. (And, the off-ebay buyer now has my PayPal email address.  After having had a major identity theft problem last year I'm not about to give it out under non-secure circumstances like this.) 

I must admit to an experience of Schadenfreude when the "Is it still available?" emails land in my inbox.  They want the phone, know that I’ve still got it, but won’t let them have it.  They had their chance.  And they will again but when I’m ready.

twocvbloke

In the past I've been one of those people who have missed the end of an auction and sent a "would you take the opening price for it?" message, but, I also ask them to relist it as a buy-it-now at that price, so it's all official and above board, and as soon as it's up I hit the buy button... :)

I do this as in the past I've been screwed over by someone who I asked to buy something off-ebay, they received payment and disappeared, and as it was off-ebay I lost the money and what was offered, so, it's not always buyers who are screwing over, some sellers do it too...

mariepr

#28
Quote from: twocvbloke on February 11, 2017, 07:20:09 AM
In the past I've been one of those people who have missed the end of an auction and sent a "would you take the opening price for it?" message, but, I also ask them to relist it as a buy-it-now at that price, so it's all official and above board, and as soon as it's up I hit the buy button... :)

I do this as in the past I've been screwed over by someone who I asked to buy something off-ebay, they received payment and disappeared, and as it was off-ebay I lost the money and what was offered, so, it's not always buyers who are screwing over, some sellers do it too...

This might work for sellers who are eager to convert the phone into cash.  But then I wonder why they bothered with the expense of a Reserve auction if they were willing to take the opening price?  Nothing personal, but I would not do this as I've been low-balled.  Badly.  Usually it's somebody who doesn't bid but just watches.  Action ends with the reserve not met and then the "Is it still available?" email comes in.  Recently I put up a pretty highly collectable phone which didn't fit in with what I wanted to keep.  Mr. No-bid emails that he was going to snipe it at....... $200..... because he's "concerned about the finish".  (You can also extrapolate that - if he's "concerned about the finish" now what other "adjustment" will be demanded once it's unpacked?) Reserve auctions are a necessary evil to protect investments from collusion and low-balling.

As for losing money in an off-ebay sale, well, I'm afraid all of us set ourselves up for this under those circumstances.

twocvbloke

Well, the sellers I've sent messages to never had reserves on their items (I tend to avoid auctions with reserves, as on ebay UK, the minimum reserve a seller can place on an item is £50, which is usually out of my ballpark to begin with!), if they got no bids and had little to no interest then I'll have a cheeky punt and see where it goes, doesn't always work, but they do end up relisting anyway and I win regardless with one bid...

But being stung by a seller in the past, well, by the past I mean over 12 years ago, after I'd I bought my Kirby Tradition I found the tools to match on ebay, didn't have the money at the time, they went unsold and weren't relisted, so when I had enough money, I asked them if they still had them and were willing to sell them, they were, so I sent them what they asked for the set, never saw the tools or the money and they had disappeared off ebay completely, so I got burned with that one, hence why I now ask to relist as a BIN listing so if anything goes wrong, I have a safety net to fall back onto... :)