Ebay problem seller... what would you do?

[cheese]

This is a petty matter, but it's a matter of principle and respect to me.

I bought a fluke volt meter on ebay. The guy had $15 shipping on it. When I purchased it, I asked him to put it in a medium flat rate box for $10.50 and send it to me that way so that I would save a little on shipping (figuring he must have been trying to ups or first class it to me). He agreed and revised his invoice. I paid, and got the meter in the mail. It was crammed into a small flat rate box for $5.35. The box was puffed out and the lid wasn't on good because it didn't really fit. Luckily, it wasn't damaged. I paid him for a medium flat rate box for safer shipping, knowing a small was too small. He charged me for the medium and sent the small, milking me for another $5. I sent him a message telling him I was surprised when it arrived crammed in a small box and asked if it was his intent to make money off of me on shipping. He said I got a good deal on it, and I got it for less than they usually sell for on ebay, and he doesn't like my attitude.

I told him It was like going to a restaurant and asking for a 12 oz steak, paying for it, and being served an 8 oz steak and then being told I have a bad attitude when I complain. He said I got a 12 ounce steak for 8 ounce price, so I should be happy. I then told him he was violating ebay policy and sent him a link showing him so, and told him if his reputation was worth $5, it was fine by me. I also mentioned I was a top rated power seller during the conversation and he sends me a message back that if I am a power seller, I should know that flat rate medium is $10.85 and then requests that I send the meter back. I told him he could have it back if he pays me $10.50 to ship it to him so I can make $5 off of shipping like he does. He refused, said to send it back for $5 and that he is not violating policy. I copied and pasted ebay policy and told him he stole from me by charging for a service that he did not provide.

The guy has 38 feedbacks, all but 4 or 5 as a buyer, not a seller, and I hate to give a bad feedback, but this guy ripped me off. The meter could have arrived broken because it was in an insufficient box, and the only reason it was in a poor box was because he was trying to milk me. Would you leave negative feedback at this point. I might even report him. Do you guys try to make money off of shipping against ebay policy?

 

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[choppadude]

Well.................. the meter did arrive safely. He did make money off you on shipping.
I have been there myself as both a seller and a buyer. My policy is if it is $5 or under overcharge I don't sweat it and do not leave ANY feedback for the seller. If it more than $5 I email them and give them the chance to correct it, if they do not then I leave them a neutral feedback saying questionable shipping practices. If they rip me off by more than $15 on the shipping and then give me attitude about it they get the big red dot!
I have myself overcharged for shipping and if I catch it I will refund anything over a $5 overcharge. If I don't catch it and the buyer does, I apologize and offer to immediately correct it.
My advice, Give him a neutral and forget about it.

 

[GibH]

I usually underestimate shipping cost. That is ok because I add it to help offset the cost, not necessarily cover all of it.

Just curious, but if the shipping cost was visible and you didn't like it, why bid in the first place?

 

[French Creek hunter]

I was selling on eBay untill Paypal kicked me off because I was too young. I sold a 1940's-50's picture record that I researched and found that it was a very rare record. It was worth about $100. I put it up on eBay at a auction price of $15. I sold it for $25. I was mad but I knew I couldn't just keep it and deny a customer. So I sent it out and I lost so much money! This year when I get back on eBay I making some changes! Point is that you may have lost $5 but sooner or later buy from someone that miss prices their items that they sell and get back your money!

 

[cheese]

Choppadude... the only thing was that I requested that shipping and he agreed, then denied me it to save money. It wasn't a shipping mistake, he scammed me out of it.

GibH, I bid on it knowing the shipping price and I asked if he would change his method of shipping after I bid, but I also told him I would pay, either way. He agreed to it. I thought he was trying to ship it a non-economical way (being a new seller and all). In my mind, why wouldn't you want to ship it the most economical way, or whatever way the buyer requests. After all, you aren't making or losing anything on the shipping... you just get the buyer to pay it, whatever it comes out to be. I wasn't aware that he was trying to make money off of shipping. Ebay policy clearly says that is against the rules. Here is the quote from their site: [TABLE="width: 0"]
[TR]
[TD="class: tCell"][/TD]
[TD="class: tCell"]What you can charge[/TD]
[TD="class: tCell"]Actual shipping cost: This is the amount for shipping the item. It should be what you paid the carrier.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

I know it's only 5 bucks, and I would have paid the 5 bucks more if I got what I asked for, but the point here is that he is stealing from me. I'll give you $20 if you ask and need it, but try to steal a dime from me and I will fight.

 

[famous turtle treasures]

Anytime you alter course of the original auction parameters things like this can happen. I would tell him to refund the shipping. If he didn't I would leave him a neutral and low DSRs. A low DSR can equal up to 8 negative feedbacks. It takes a year for a low DSR to drop off your record. Whether you got a deal or not that is just bad business as well as poor customer service.

 

[biggmike]

I usually search out an item and find what it sells for. I then find a good seller that is charging a price that seems fair. If I'm figuring on paying $20 for an item I don't care if he charges $20 and free shipping or one cent with $19.99 shipping as long as I get it for what I thought was fair. Your situation is a little different. He dropped the shipping down $5 for you so I don't think he's all bad but he also agreed to ship it an a medium box and didn't so this one is tough. I would just let it go and not buy from him again. Some people don't understand how important feedback is and this type behavior will definitely catch up to him sooner or later but if you said you hit him with a negative I wouldn't blame you either. If I were the seller I would have refunded the $5 in a heartbeat.

 

[cyberdan]

I always try to make money off shipping. I have to pay for the carton, the filler, the ebay fee for shipping and my drive to the post office. It is called a handling charge. (I add $1 to $1.50) I doubt that it is an ebay rule (yet) that we must charge exactly what the postage cost is.

 

[cheese]

Cyberdan... that quote from me is from Ebay's policy site right here: Selling practices policy Scroll down and click shipping and handling costs. You will see that the exact amount paid to the carrier is what is to be charged to the buyer. A handling fee is fine, but it must be listed in the place specified for handling. That's why it's there. The box was free.. it was a flat rate box. There was no packing int he box either. He had no expenses to pack and ship it other than the $5.35 for the actual postage.

 

[InsearchOfGold]

I've had that happen also. If you would have paid the $15 shipping it is almost guaranteed it would have been shipped for less than that.

 

[cheese]

Well, as rude as he was to me in the last messages, I decided to "let him have it". I called ebay and there is now a report on him like you would normally give but then the guy also said he was filing an internal report on his as well that will get reviewed by some board because he saw the rudeness and unprofessional behavior of this person when he read through the exchanges of messages. I left him negative feedback and the lowest DSR. The ebay rep said it is against policy to make money on shipping, so you might want to review your practices Dan, in case someone says something about it. If you tack on however many dollars as a handling fee, there is no problem with that. The ebay rep said that the seller did not hold up his end of the contract (he did use the word contract) as evidenced by our conversations. I hate to leave negative feedback, never have before, but this guy needs it.

 

[jerseyben]

Seems pretty clear cut to me. You made a contract in writing and he broke that contract and basically acted like a total d***.

It will be too much hassle and effort to do anything beyond asking him for a refund of the difference between a small flat rate box and a medium flat rate box (for such a small amount of money).

Leave him negative feedback and be done with it.

 

[jerseyben]

I always try to make money off shipping. I have to pay for the carton, the filler, the ebay fee for shipping and my drive to the post office. It is called a handling charge. (I add $1 to $1.50) I doubt that it is an ebay rule (yet) that we must charge exactly what the postage cost is.

There is a really important "fine line" in this case. Charging a handling fee is 100% allowable under ebay policy and many sellers do it all the time.

What happened in this case is the buyer requested to pay for a medium flat rate box without paying an additional handling fee. The seller, either being ignorant or thinking he was gonna be "slick" agreed to this but then decided to ship the item in a small flat rate box. I am going to assume that the seller just figured the difference in price would be his "handling fee". Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. If the buyer had paid the advertised shipping price of $15 but he shipped it in a small flat rate box, there would be no issue here and the seller would have made a $10 handling fee.

Be careful out there guys!

 

[dejapooh]

My issue would be the rudeness of the guy. I would hit him with a stick for that alone...

 

[cheese]

Here's where it gets interesting.

I left him pretty bad feedback. A few hours later, I get a sale on ebay. I think nothing of it. Today, my wife printed the shipping label and I noticed it was to new york, where this guy is from. She also tells me that as soon as he paid, he left an odd message, rushing us to give him positive feedback. So, although the user names were different, we checked the address. Sure enough, this is the same guy. He's out for revenge. He went to the trouble of creating a new account because his other one is blocked. I called ebay and they said I have to continue the transaction, but they will remove the bad feedback when it gets left.

I sent the buyer a new message, addressing him by his old name. I said "Hello xxxxxxxxxx", nice new account you have here. Your xxxx is shipping out today. Thanks for the cash. Ebay is aware of your activity and my feedback won't suffer, so if you'd like to end this now, I'll send you a refund. If you'd like to continue, be my guest. Awaiting your reply."

He sent a message back saying that there is no way he will end the transaction, and after the feedback I left, he will continue every day no matter how much resources it takes, to get revenge and leave me lasting negative feedback. This, he does through ebay's messaging service, which of course, they can read. We are dealing with ebay now to stop this maniac. What a loser. Ebay is now tagging their accounts, paypal is blocking them from my account, my account has a lot of new ebay securities attached, and paypal has them listed as a suspicious buyer/seller and so-on. Fun, fun.

 

[theonlinefisherman]

I buy and sell artifacts there. I charge 3 or 4 extra for the time and efforts but always throw in extra points or a scraper or something very nice. I have been collecting for many years and am not likely to run out of extras. That said, I really cherish every customer whether they spent $12 to win a bid that at another time could have very well have drawn ten times that much with a different buyer who noticed it. Selling there is like playing blackjack, and I have begun to use reserves. Fair ones, but I do not care if I have to relist it. But the customer is the one who has to win. I offer to pay kill costs and all the costs associated with shipping it back to me. I have never had anybody have one killed, but I did sell what I thought was an atLatl weight that papered as a charm stone. I was totally willing to pay the shipping and the paper charges. I do not want to win money, I want to win faith and trust. But that is me and I am a member of the aaca and that means someone to me too. Guys like Bennett have done a lot to build faith in the dealer network there, and I am not about to have a customer or a vendor say bad stuff. What happened to you is a nutcase. There are dark people there for sure.

But you will win. You are right and you are honest, and in the end that counts.

 

[dejapooh]

You know, you could let him get his neg in. Wait a month or two (letting ebay KNOW you are waiting), then have it removed. He will probably not check for THAT long... Once he THINKS he has won, he will stop. Otherwise, this can be a real time hole...

 

[Iron Patch]

That's quite a battle for $5.00. Sort of sounds like the old me who used to waste time fighting, and losing many times what I was fighting about because it was such a distraction. I've paid people quite a bit more than $5 to get lost.

My first reaction what to reply was... never tell someone who you are arguing with you are a seller, but maybe there was no choice as it sounds like you are using the same account for both buying and selling, and that is a bad idea as you have just found out.

 

[dejapooh]

Additionally, I would not communicate with him any more. No point in it. Just keep selling to him and reporting him to Ebay. Make sure all of your t's are crossed and I's are dotted (unless they are capital I's).

 

[cheese]

I agree, it's a lot of trouble for $5, but the way I see it, I am learning and that is worth something. I also enjoy the challenge, the battle of wits. It's part of my nature I guess, that I get hung up on principle and defend it no matter the cost or gain, and don't mind it at all. He will not win this.

Something else that I have not considered before, is the fact that buying and selling under the same user name is not a good idea as you said IP. Thanks for bringing that up! Another thing learned out of this... so there is value in this conflict. I never even considered that a person would be this irrational and try to purchase an item at their expense to cause me trouble. Deranged. I also have more restrictions and securities on my ebay account than I had before. It used to be very lax. Another benefit. This guy thinks he's messing me up, but he's actually doing me a favor.