Last Straw with Ebay???

[Tallone]

Last Straw with Ebay NOT YET!

This is a really crappy situation. Read on because there is a cautionary tale here for everyone doing business on ebay. I will try to make this a brief and concise as possible...

I listed a fairly large number of quartz crystals on ebay a few weeks ago. They were all Buy It Now items for $5 or $10. One guy buys all of them but before making payment, he sends me a message saying he can't afford the full price and would I consider giving him a discount. After a lot of back-and-forth we agreed on terms which included me discounting the price by $35, charging nothing for shipping, AND throwing in 5 additional crystals at no additional cost. I then tried to send him an invoice which included the discount. Take a close look at the image below:



This is where ebay's quirkiness comes in. On the invoice form there is a line that says, "Seller discounts (-) or charges (+)". I should be able to put the -$35 discount on this line, right? Nope... if you put a negative number on that line, you get an error message that reads, "Invalid discount amount. You may only provide a discount on shipping, insurance, and/or tax." WTF!

So, stymied by ebay's faulty system, I send the buyer the message shown in the picture above. Long story short, he agrees but says he needs a few days to come up with the extra money. I give him 10 days and warn him that if he doesn't complete the transaction by then, I will open Unpaid Item cases. The day before deadline he says he has most, but not all, the money and wants to back out of the entire deal. By this time, I am getting fed up with this guy's endless efforts to twist this deal up in knots. But, now that these things are no longer listed (remember... he hit the Buy It Now button to start this whole saga), I want to get this deal done somehow. So, I ask if he would like to just buy some of the items but without discount. Note the word "ask". He fires back with this:

"Hi, I can not afford them for no discount. It seems from the very start you have no intention of selling them for a discount price now that I have 162$. Sorry, you've mentioned there's another buyer who'll buy it so I ask that you cancel the items.
I tried my best, who'd knew when the invoice of 140$ isn't an option.
As of now, I have no interest in buying them any longer."

Now I'm pissed off. Ebay only gives you 2 options to resolve Unpaid Items: 1) Open an Unpaid item case; or 2) Offer to cancel the transaction. Option 2 requires the buyer's approval. This guy has jerked me around so long, I am not interested in turning control of this transaction over to him. Besides, I told him a long time ago that if he didn't get this done by the deadline, I was going to open an Unpaid Item case. So this is exactly what I do. Because there are 21 crystals involved, I have to open 21 cases. I figure I will just need to wait a few days for ebay to clear these items and I will relist them.

But no, it isn't that simple... FREAKIN' EBAY ALLOWS A BUYER WHO HAS NOT PAID FOR ITEMS TO LEAVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ON THE SELLER!!! UN-F***IN' BELIEVABLE!!! And that is exactly what this SOB does for 14 of the 21 items - sinking my feedback rating from 100% to just over 98%.

If you haven't guessed, I am steaming mad at both this bum buyer and ebay. I have now blocked this buyer from bidding on any more of my items and I have contacted ebay through their "Report a Buyer" function. In that report, I asked ebay to remove all those negative feedbacks. They had better do so and right quick or I will seriously think about taking all my business to Amazon.

Sorry for the long post but I had to get this off my chest. The lesson to me (and maybe to somebody else reading this) is, don't try to make special arrangements with a buyer after they have removed your items from the listings by doing the Buy It Now thing (or winning an auction). The terms of the deal are spelled out in the listing and that is how it will be handled. No after-purchase special arrangements - EVER!

 

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[jerseyben]

I am really sorry you had to go through this. Hopefully it will be resolved in your favor.

That being said, please do not take this the wrong way but...

I have been trying to drive this point across for some time now: Ebay has protections in place and has systems that allows for situations like these to be resolved. In most cases where I see people posting "ebay horror stories" I have noticed that the issue typically occurs because people are attempting (intentionally or unintentionally) to deviate from ebay's methods and policies that are already in place.

I would have just told the guy to pay for the items as bid. If you really wanted to work out a deal, you should have cancelled the transactions and relisted them as a lot at your agreed upon price so he could bid on it as a lot. Then, if he didnt pay, you could and should have opened an unpaid item dispute.

I hate to take ebay's side, but their systems typically do work if you are willing to "go with the flow". A lesson learned.

 

[Tallone]

No offense taken and I agree with you, jb, to a point. My takeaway from this experience, as stated in my post, is: "No after-purchase special arrangements - EVER!" Had I not tried to accommodate this buyer and allow alterations to the terms of the deal AFTER he hit Buy It Now, I wouldn't be in this fix. Of course, I could have taken the path you suggest and things might have worked out better. I didn't think of it but, even if I had, I might not have chosen that path because it would have been a lot more work on my end and may have been confusing for the buyer. I haven't posted all his correspondence but it became clear early on that he is not a native English speaker and he was obviously misunderstanding some elements of our negotiation.

However... I disagree with you on a few points:

1. This buyer should have been prepared to pay the full amount when he clicked Buy It Now. He had no right to take my things off the market without being willing and able to pay for them. If he wanted different terms that what was listed, he should have worked those out with me BEFORE clicking the BIN button.

2. Ebay's invoice form has a field for the Seller to subtract or add an amount. It doesn't work. If it did, I could have invoiced the buyer for the agreed upon amount and there would have been no confusion.

3. It is absolutely appalling to me that ebay allows buyers to leave negative feedback BEFORE the buyer completes his end of the transaction. If I wanted to cause massive damage to a multitude of sellers (and cause ebay a huge amount of trouble), I could just run all around ebay clicking on Buy It Now listings and then immediately go leave negative feedback for those sellers. It seems to me ebay needs to program their web site so the buyer is required to have some "skin in the game" (so to speak) before they can damage a seller's reputation like this guy did to me. As it is, this buyer has broken his promise to me and yet I am the one who gets harmed (twice) - at least for now.

 

[Ammonhotep]

You said it was 21 separate auctions?

Why not cancel a couple of the auctions so it's down to ~$140 and then ship the 21 crystals?

Or just have him PayPal you the $140 and mark all the items as paid? Then ship the items as normal.

Or perhaps I misunderstood. I'm no eBay pro.

 

[Tallone]

These were not auctions. All these items were listed as Buy It Now. I, in effect, I offered to do what you suggest. I gave the buyer the option to just pay for however many items he wanted and had money to pay for. When I made that suggestion, I stated that whichever items he wanted to buy would be at full price because I didn't want to get back into this crazy, after-the-fact discount situation.

Context is important here and I haven't gone to the trouble to post every message I had exchanged with this buyer over the span of a couple of weeks. It had become clear to me that this guy was intent on driving the price of this deal lower and lower. Every time I thought we had terms worked out, he would come back with a new message changing the terms of the deal. First it was the number of crystals (he didn't buy them all at first - he did that later), then we haggled over price, then he wanted the shipping reduced, on and on and on.

When we finally agreed on terms of the deal, then he started jerking me around on when he would pay. He led me to believe he could pay the $140 right away, then he said he wouldn't be able to pay until Saturday, then it was Tuesday. Then he said he had to move money from a credit account to PayPal, then he said he had to wait for a paycheck, on and on and on. I finally got tried of it all, gave him a firm deadline with plenty of time to work things out. He was very grateful and agreed to do it. Then, the day before deadline, he comes back at me with ANOTHER twist to the story. I tried one more time to work things out with him and then he accuses me of never wanting to give him any discount.

It seems like it would be a simple thing to just cancel the deal. The problem is, once an item has been invoiced, ebay requires the BUYER to agree to the cancellation. Given this guy's long history of delaying and twisting up this transaction, I am not going to put control of the transaction in his hands. When I established the final deadline, I made it clear that if he failed to pay as he agreed to do, I would file Unpaid Item claims with ebay. When that happened, he posted the negative feedback which included an outright lie that he was never invoiced.

 

[jerseyben]

These were not auctions. All these items were listed as Buy It Now. I, in effect, I offered to do what you suggest. I gave the buyer the option to just pay for however many items he wanted and had money to pay for. When I made that suggestion, I stated that whichever items he wanted to buy would be at full price because I didn't want to get back into this crazy, after-the-fact discount situation.

Context is important here and I haven't gone to the trouble to post every message I had exchanged with this buyer over the span of a couple of weeks. It had become clear to me that this guy was intent on driving the price of this deal lower and lower. Every time I thought we had terms worked out, he would come back with a new message changing the terms of the deal. First it was the number of crystals (he didn't buy them all at first - he did that later), then we haggled over price, then he wanted the shipping reduced, on and on and on.

When we finally agreed on terms of the deal, then he started jerking me around on when he would pay. He led me to believe he could pay the $140 right away, then he said he wouldn't be able to pay until Saturday, then it was Tuesday. Then he said he had to move money from a credit account to PayPal, then he said he had to wait for a paycheck, on and on and on. I finally got tried of it all, gave him a firm deadline with plenty of time to work things out. He was very grateful and agreed to do it. Then, the day before deadline, he comes back at me with ANOTHER twist to the story. I tried one more time to work things out with him and then he accuses me of never wanting to give him any discount.

It seems like it would be a simple thing to just cancel the deal. The problem is, once an item has been invoiced, ebay requires the BUYER to agree to the cancellation. Given this guy's long history of delaying and twisting up this transaction, I am not going to put control of the transaction in his hands. When I established the final deadline, I made it clear that if he failed to pay as he agreed to do, I would file Unpaid Item claims with ebay. When that happened, he posted the negative feedback which included an outright lie that he was never invoiced.

IMO, unpaid item dispute is the way to go to get this cleared up. Then work to get the feedback lifted.

Simplest lesson learned, dont treat ebay like a flea market. Understand ebay's policies and rules and follow them to a T. Nonsense like this will still happen but if you follow their protocols already put in place, a speedy and fair conclusion should typically occur.

 

[jerseyben]

Im very sorry to hear about this kind of crap.

I am dealing with 2 issues right now myself.

1: I have a buyer trying to return something due to clear "buyer's remorse". I will fight that one and probably win.
2: I bought something yesterday based on the description. I admit, it was a "snap buy" on a recently listed item. After carefully studying the 2 unclear pictures, I determined that the items described and in the title is not AT ALL what is pictured. I emailed the seller immediately and asked for him to cancel the sale. Hopefully he will comply before he ships it to me. At that point, I am going to file a "not as described" dispute. Yes, I know I willingly clicked BIN, but the item is clearly being mislabeled as something else. I gave the seller an easy opportunity to cancel the sale and he wouldnt even be out any money or fees.

 

[clovis97]

If it makes you feel any better, I once had a buyer who bought some Polaroid film from me, but I didn't have it in stock. I sent a nice email, cancelled the transaction, and refunded his money.

Two weeks later, the buyer left a neg stating that I had sent "bad film". Of course, I emailed the buyer, and it turns out that that he mistakenly left me the neg. The neg was meant for another seller.

I called ebay, politely explained the situation, and they removed the neg.

 

[Iron Patch]

I'm not saying any of this is your fault, but what I will say is it was a huge mistake to negotiate after the sale and these people that cry poor, or disabled, or whatever looking for deals are bad news. You have to run it like a business and if they don't have the money to pay, you deal with it. If he didn't pay and you filed claims, ebay should look at removing the negatives... but now you might have to get into all these extra negotiations you made after the sale. People like that I stop dead in their tracks because you see what happens when you give an inch.

 

[Tallone]

Agreed. I have filed the Unpaid Item claims and reported the buyer with a request that ebay remove the negative feedback. We shall see what action they take.

What really annoys me about this is that I didn't go with my gut instinct in the beginning. When this guy first messaged me asking for a discount, he included a sob story about the typhoon and how he had friends and family suffering greatly in the Phillipines as a result. He said he want to build a "crystal grid" to focus positive energy and help alleviate the suffering. I have extensive experience with internet scams and this is exactly the kind of situation and techniques a classic Advance Fee Fraud scammer would use. It happens every time there is a natural disaster. Anyway, his story made my scam antennae started twitching but in my eagerness to make a fairly large sale, I started playing his game. Big mistake.

So, is this guy a scammer? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he is just a poor troubled soul who has difficulty getting his act together. Or maybe he was hoping to get something of value for little or nothing. No way to know for sure one way or the other. I do know that the guy made me uncomfortable from the very start and I should have been smart enough to stay away from the craziness.

All that being said, this would be a much more clear-cut case had ebay's invoice form worked the way it is supposed to. After all these years, you would think they would have all these little bugs worked out of the system.

 

[Iron Patch]

Agreed. I have filed the Unpaid Item claims and reported the buyer with a request that ebay remove the negative feedback. We shall see what action they take.

What really annoys me about this is that I didn't go with my gut instinct in the beginning. When this guy first messaged me asking for a discount, he included a sob story about the typhoon and how he had friends and family suffering greatly in the Phillipines as a result. He said he want to build a "crystal grid" to focus positive energy and help alleviate the suffering. I have extensive experience with internet scams and this is exactly the kind of situation and techniques a classic Advance Fee Fraud scammer would use. It happens every time there is a natural disaster. Anyway, his story made my scam antennae started twitching but in my eagerness to make a fairly large sale, I started playing his game. Big mistake.

So, is this guy a scammer? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he is just a poor troubled soul who has difficulty getting his act together. Or maybe he was hoping to get something of value for little or nothing. No way to know for sure one way or the other. I do know that the guy made me uncomfortable from the very start and I should have been smart enough to stay away from the craziness.

All that being said, this would be a much more clear-cut case had ebay's invoice form worked the way it is supposed to. After all these years, you would think they would have all these little bugs worked out of the system.

Yeah your gut should have been hitting you over the head with a frying pan. What sucks is you have no choice about these guys bringing you into a transaction, but once you're in you have to make the right choices. It shouldn't end up this way, but if the system works at all ebay should remove the negatives.

 

[billn1956]

I had a e-mail account tied to an e-bay accout years ago, and was not used in so long they cancilled the e-mail.Well just in the last few days when e-bay changed there fomat again some how e-bay changed my e-mail on there owen and put the old back up for me to recieve my money at on an account I had already cancelled with pay-pal years ago.So since they changed my e-mail you would think All I would have to do is call them and have tham change it back to the good one..NO,NO,NO I had to cancieal all of the listings and cancel sell and relist.And there is NO way to know if it will happen again because they refuse to take the old one off there system..So know I will not know if things are right until I get payed.Could not belife this is some thing that could happen.

 

[Frank D.]

Sorry to hear this. I know how frusterating this is for you since I've gone through similiar problems with ebay in the last few years, and I've been a member since 2003. Call them and they most likely will take down that negative feedback. They will go through your messages to that jerk while they are on the phone with you. Unfortunately, their policies seem to lean towards the buyer's favor. What you can do in the future is put a certain pay deadline in your item description area. I put 24 hours from auction's end, or the item gets re-listed. Also for situations when you are working a deal out with a potential buyer, if they use the bulls#%t line of, " I need a few days to come up with the money" then I let them know that I will not take my listing down until they pay in full, and also let them know that if for some reason, another person buys the item, they get it. If two payments are made, you have e-mails as documentation, and just refund the one of whom you have explained this to. The quality of people that use ebay has declined over the last decade in my opinion. It is selfish to hit the buy it now button and then try to negotiate price by using excuses, and thats a tactic that is happening alot more on there. You can also put in your listing that if someone hits the buy it now price, then they have agreed to pay that price, and are obligated to the item for that price. Unfortunately, it takes more time to type all that stuff in your listing, but on the up side, you have the upper hand since your terms are listed in your item description, and it's not your problem if someone doesn't take an extra minute to do what they are supposed to do anyhow by actually READING your item description. Have you tried that other site Etsy? I have never had any problems on there with promt payments, and the listing fees are way less. Plus the quality of people I have dealt with on there is that of what ebay used to be. I hope it works out for you

 

[Iron Patch]

. I put 24 hours from auction's end, or the item gets re-listed.

That's definitely not enough time, and I am the type that very rarely leaves negative, even in times I know almost anyone would.... but if I lost an item I won because I didn't pay in 24 hours I would definitely be sour enough to leave negative. Also, I believe that is against ebay policy because I think it states something like 3 days, at least it did at one time. A few months back I had someone chasing me the 2nd day for the money and threats to end the sale and relist, and I was actually in shock this was happening so soon. I have bought a lot over a very long time and have never had someone relist because I didn't pay in 24 hours.

 

[Frank D.]

I understand your point. But what I am saying, is if you have certain terms in your listing, the person who is supposed to be reading it, should see that, and then decide for themselves if they agree and buy, or disagree, and move along.

 

[Frank D.]

24 hours is very fair for "buy it now". If I hit the buy it now button, I only do so knowing I can make that instant payment. Doing an auction type listing could have a longer deadline for the payment if someone chooses to do so

 

[Iron Patch]

24 hours is very fair for "buy it now". If I hit the buy it now button, I only do so knowing I can make that instant payment. Doing an auction type listing could have a longer deadline for the payment if someone chooses to do so

When it's buy it now you can set up your page so they have to pay when making the purchase. That is different, and not what I'm talking about. My point is you're probably going to find trouble if you start relisting after 24 hours.

 

[Frank D.]

Maybe so Iron Patch. But if someone reads your listing, and agrees to your specific requests mentioned in your listing, then there should be no problem.They can buy it agreeing, or not buy it, and look elswhere. I don't believe a buyer can leave negative feedback to a seller unless they actually pay for the item first, which they are supposed to do in the first place. And if they can, it will be removed if you are not the guilty party. I've seen plenty of sellers who post specific requests in their listings. There is nothing wrong with it. I have done it. I have had the same thing happen to me as Tallone. There are way too many fees, ect. that ebay has no problem taking promptly. Ebay seller fees, Ebay final sale percentages, Paypal fees (owned by ebay). So when you have someone click the buy it now button and then try to negotiate the price? Or buy an item, and then lead you on for weeks saying "this week" yet never make the payment? or someone buy an item your selling and try to return one they already had that was damaged saying you sent it to them that way? And the list goes on. Buyers with the wrong intentions (and they are out there) believe they can manipulate sellers into getting what they want on their terms because of the fear of the thought of getting bad feedback. Those are the people you don't want to deal with in the first place, and putting specific requests in your listing should weed most if not all of them out. They are always looking for the seller who leaves some kind of loophole in their listing that could end up biting them in the ass. The more thorough your listing is as a seller, the better off you are for your own protection

 

[cyberdan]

I didn't read all the posts but this guy sounds like his barganing was well planned to fleece you as much as he could. Would these have shipped to an american address? when you put "162$" in your first post I automatically thought non-american because of where he put the $$ sign.

don't give up on ebay because of this but fight back. have ebay look at all the messages you two did over the last few weeks. I wonder how many others he has done this to. ebay will know if they really care to investigate. good luck

 

[jerseyben]

Jayrock, you are giving people bad advice.

It is not up to sellers to create their own personal policies.

I don't understand why people waste their time doing this, as a seller's own policies mean absolutely nothing.

Ebay already has a process in place for unpaid buyer disputes. I would suggest that you and anyone else wishing to sell on ebay read up on their policy and process and follow it to a T.