Yet another ebay rant, not sure what to do now.

[Baltimore]

Hey all, seems like its another day, another seller to disregard over at ebay. I sold a jacket recently, $14.99, nothing too crazy, and shipped it off to the buyer. A week later I received a message saying this: "The bottom on sleeve is missing, it doesn't state that on eBay." It took me a sec, but I eventually figured out that they meant a button was missing. I sent a message to apologize, saying that they could either return the item for a full refund, or keep the item and receive a half refund. They responded, saying that they would like the partial refund, and I promptly refunded the money. Thinking that was the end of it, I proceeded to continue on with my life.

Fast forward to today, when I open ebay to find my first ever negative feedback from this person, saying "I contact seller nothing was done, item damaged". I am obviously upset because now I am no longer a top rated seller, as well as the fact that the negative feedback is complete bull**** because I refunded their money. I called ebay, expecting them to see that the feedback was not deserved and to hopefully remove it. Not only did I wait on the phone for half an hour, but the ebay customer service rep said that "there was not enough proof" to remove the feedback, and that the only way to have it removed would be to call the buyer, convince them that they were wrong and remind them that I did in fact refund their money, and then request that they call ebay and tell the customer service reps that they can remove the feedback. Only then can the feedback be removed. When I asked what I should do if the buyer didn't answer, there was some silence and then they advised me to "call again". Thanks ebay, brilliant advice.

But really though, what? How on earth do they expect that to happen? Clearly the buyer doesn't care whatsoever about me or any other seller, why on earth would they take a half an hour out of their day to call up ebay to prove my innocence? I checked their "feedback left" history, and as I suspected they are a serial negative reviewer. They had several negatives left and a handful of neutrals, one of the negatives said "the shoes are too squeaky, they make noise when I walk and it is embarrassing" CLEARLY this person drops negs left and right for no reason, why can't ebay reps see that? Also, is there no way for them to confirm that I sent a refund via paypal?

Sorry about the rant, its frustrating as a small time seller to get a neg and lose top rated all because of one buyer who can keep me under their thumb all they want, and apparently I have to jump through all of the hoops just to try and fix it. Thanks for reading, Its good to have a place full of people who know what I'm going through. Hope all of you all had a better day than I did.

 

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[GibH]

One of the reasons negative feedback can be removed is if the buyer is one that leaves a lot of negatives.

A buyer has shown a pattern of leaving disproportionately high rates of low Feedback or low detailed seller ratings.

 

[randazzo1]

You are right to be annoyed. It's the system as a whole though. Ebay is competing with ecommerce sites that have much more control merchandise. The goal of eBay policies is to force merchants to provide Amazon level customer service. It's not hard if you're a large merchant and this is your full time business. If you clear a few thousand transactions per month, the occasional undeserved negative from a 'touched' person has little impact on your overall account status. However, if your selling 50 items per month and you have the unlucky experience of encountering one of these darlings, your entire account is put in jeopardy. It's basic dynamics - not enough transactions to get a good picture so eBay errors on the side of caution and sticks it to the small seller. The more equitable approach would be to discount negatives until enough data was available to properly evaluate the accpunt. By way of example - imagine I sell 2 things the first month and receive no feedback on one and a truly undeserved negative on the other - I look like a very bad merchant statistically , but the statistics are worthless because there isn't enough data in the set to draw any rational conclusions.

 

[cyberdan]

ebay owns paypal, they know how to check if you paid a refund on the item. call again and hopefully you will get a different stuffed shirt.

I am also willing to bet that there were NO missing buttons. The guy is a scammer. with a little digging you might be able to get in touch with one of his customers to see if he pulled the same krap on them.

 

[Iron Patch]

First off you don't have to call the buyer, and the buyer doesn't have to jump through hoops to remove the negative. The rep you were talking to obviously doesn't have a clue, although I would agree this is most likely a case that has to be resolved by both parties involved.

To remove negative feedback the seller has to send a revision request. But you don't want to do this right away, and with no conversation happening because he'll just click not to make a change. What you have to do is message him and keep your cool and try to work your way to getting him to agree to remove it. In a way it sort of makes you feel like a punk, but I get past that thinking ..... you stupid F, I'm going to manipulate you into changing your feedback, and then I'm going to block you. (I'm guessing he's already blocked though) Anyway, you can call another rep, but I think your best shot will likely be what I just told you.

 

[deserdog]

Did you do all you communication with the buyer through Ebay's messaging system/ If so, you should be able to get the neg removed.

 

[Iron Patch]

Did you do all you communication with the buyer through Ebay's messaging system/ If so, you should be able to get the neg removed.

Why should they remove a justified negative? At the end of the day the seller dropped the ball, it's just unfortunate for him he was dealing with someone who is probably an idiot.


For general comments about the situation... As for the refund, what does that have to do with it? You can't buy feedback, it's a personal opinion from the buyer based on the over all transaction. Should there have been negative given after giving him some money back, probably not, but I don't think that's one ebay should or will remove. I'm both a buyer and seller and I can tell you it does tick me off bigtime if I buy something and there's a stupid problem. What I do however is return it at 100% their expense for a full refund including what I paid for shipping. If they do that we're cool, if not, we will have a problem. It really does suck when you make an attempt and then get back stabbed, but that's not ebay's job to clean the mess up.



PS: After a negative most sellers post in a tone that seems like there's steam coming out their ears, and if you want to keep the negative that's the best way to do it, because most times the person who left it is just looking for a fight. There's much better chance of a good outcome if you just laugh and think what a piece of trash, and then do what you can to resolve it. I actually have a serious hate for the whole feedback thing, and never even pay attention to it unless I have to.... and for those times I do, I just do what I can and then move on. The big blow is if you lose top rated over it, but since I think mine is gone for good I care even less now. My ebay is simply about pushing as many items through as I can and I'm pretty sure my positives will always take care of any negatives for %, and knowing that I just focus on the $$$.

 

[diggummup]

The first thing i'd do is look through my photos and see if I can find a photo of the jacket with the button on it. If you can't then call ebay again for the hell of it (maybe you won't get Bob or Betty from India), message the customer, suck up to the ahole and play nice. If all else fails, just reply to his feedback with "Missing button, Received 50% money back, Leave Neg. FB? BEWARE!!!" If you haven't already left fb for them, make sure you do in the form of a false positive, cleverly worded.
In the future, if you aren't 100% sure that this thing was missing a button or not, make sure you go over your items with a fine toothed comb, because the customer will. Here's a prime example.

Also, ebay does not care about how many negative feedbacks buyers leave. I don't give a crap what their policy states. I've seen it time anf time again. Customers who leave repetitive BS negs. and no action taken.

 

[Tallone]

I'm going to take Baltimore's side on this one. He acknowledged to the buyer his mistake by not mentioning the missing button in his listing. He then offered the buyer an option: return for full refund or keep for half refund. If the buyer didn't like these options, he could have responded with another offer. But he didn't. He took the half refund option. I think Baltimore has done everything he could to correct his mistake and make the buyer happy. Therefore, the negative feedback is undeserved.

Baltimore, were I you, I would use ebay's Report This Buyer function. When you do that, you are given space to make your case. I would do so in as clear and concise a manner as possible and request that the negative feedback be removed. If ebay refuses, so what? Although I value my Top Rated status, I am beginning to believe the feedback thing is over-rated because anybody that sells any significant quantity of items will, sooner or later, run into a problem seller. I don't hold this against sellers when I look to buy on ebay. A large number of negatives would be a problem but one or two out of dozens or hundreds of items sold I don't see as an issue.

The only thing I would have done differently in this situation is I would NOT have called the buyer. I prefer all communication to be via ebay's message system. That way ebay has access to the entire record of the transaction (including the PayPal refund). That puts you in the best position to make your case and them in the best position to review the case. I know ebay suggests calling a buyer to try to resolve differences but I never do that and never will.

 

[Baltimore]

Thanks for the responses everyone, I have some good ideas to go on now. At this point I have not taken any other actions besides sending a very calm message to the buyer. I asked them if they had noticed that I had sent a refund on December 13th, and I sent them the transaction ID# as well as a screen shot of the paypal transaction, just to double confirm that I had sent it. I figured that this way I could get them to confirm that they had the money, and then I could call ebay again with those items as proof. However, the buyer replied with this cryptic message: "I verified my account , resend the review and I will change my view/".

Any idea what this means? I think they are asking me to re send the refund, which is sounding pretty scammy. The paypal transaction is completed, so there is no way to "re send" it, but I don't know how to tell the buyer that without sounding pissed off/calling them an idiot. I'm thinking I might just call ebay again, my inbox might be armed with enough proof of refund now to get it removed.

In response to some people, I am not necessarily upset with the negative, I did accidentally send the buyer a defective product, or so they say. I'm just upset because I did everything in my power to fix the situation, and I got a negative feedback that says that I did nothing. It literally says, "I contact seller nothing was done, item damaged". When I receive broken things I contact the seller, they give me options, I accept one, we work it out, and I am ultimately happy and give the seller good feedback. This buyer gave me no warning whatsoever, which is not very courteous to say the least.

 

[Baltimore]

The only thing I would have done differently in this situation is I would NOT have called the buyer. I prefer all communication to be via ebay's message system. That way ebay has access to the entire record of the transaction (including the PayPal refund). That puts you in the best position to make your case and them in the best position to review the case. I know ebay suggests calling a buyer to try to resolve differences but I never do that and never will.

Absolutely agreed, I have not called the buyer and I will not. First of all, if this person doesn't care enough to correct their autocorrect mistakes in one sentence messages, I really don't want to try to carry on a conversation with them. Secondly, if I call there is no record of what happened or what was said. The buyer could say "yea, I got the money, but I'm going to tell ebay that I didn't" and there would be no physical proof. I don't feel comfortable with that at all, especially with this buyer.

 

[Baltimore]

Why should they remove a justified negative? At the end of the day the seller dropped the ball, it's just unfortunate for him he was dealing with someone who is probably an idiot.

I think leaving a negative due to the fact that I sent a defective product could certainly be considered justified, I mostly want it removed because the feedback is false and misrepresents me as a seller. It tells everyone that the buyer contacted me and i did nothing, which is the opposite of the truth. If they had said "item defective, not satisfied with purchase" or something I would maybe be a little more ok with it, but the fact that they blatantly lied in their feedback is what makes me believe that it should be removed.

 

[Iron Patch]

I think leaving a negative due to the fact that I sent a defective product could certainly be considered justified, I mostly want it removed because the feedback is false and misrepresents me as a seller. It tells everyone that the buyer contacted me and i did nothing, which is the opposite of the truth. If they had said "item defective, not satisfied with purchase" or something I would maybe be a little more ok with it, but the fact that they blatantly lied in their feedback is what makes me believe that it should be removed.

If you posted what they said I missed it, all I read was just a negative. Anyway, I agree with you, and the worst you should have got is neutral, but even that is rotten since it was an honest mistake and you did what you could. Under Feedback ebay says "fair" ... only problem is that's up to one's interpretation.


I just had a frustrating transaction with a guy from Brazil. Said he didn't get the package, so fine, ended up resolving it by giving him a refund as it wasn't very much money. I made the mistake of doing it through Paypal which for some stupid reason does not cancel an ebay claim! I don't know why they don't make these one in the same, and it seems there's even different guidelines for both.... and until someone can explain to me why, it sounds pretty stupid. Anyway, so I refund and he doesn't cancel the claims. I message, email with a screen shot of the refund and what he does next ( week later or more) is sends it to be decided on by Ebay. WTF. So finally I said screw it, I already refunded so there's nothing for him to get, I'm not going to waste anymore time with this guy.... and of course the reason I'm going through most of this after the refund is to prevent the negative, or possibly a strike against me... something I don't very well understand either. Finally after about a month total the claims are closed. Oh yeah, the guy was in Brazil but registered to Ebay Germany so I had to write all my messages in German. Don't you wish you could block buyers like this before they start making your a$$ pain!

 

[cyberdan]

the guy was in Brazil but registered to Ebay Germany so I had to write all my messages in German. Don't you wish you could block buyers like this before they start making your a$$ pain!

That is why I will not ship to most countries around the world. Sure I could probably sell a few more items but it is not worth the wait and hassle and besides he probably did get the item, no way to prove he didn't.

 

[cyberdan]

the buyer replied with this cryptic message: "I verified my account , resend the review and I will change my view/"

like I said above sounds like a scammer and one who does not speak English as a first language. You can probably tell by his name. If it is a unique sounding name google it. see what turns up.

Do all correspondence through ebay messaging. see if he slips up and says something ebay can get him on.

 

[dumpsterdiver]

I read a much more absurd one on another forum I will attempt to summarize. This guy sold these high end japanese action figures. I know nothing about this sort of thing. This one he sold was around $200. The guy who got it emailed him and said it was a fake. Ebay got involved and had him return it to him. He had a video of him boxing the one he sent and unboxing the return. Well the guy actually returned a fake but had received the real one. He actually won the case only because of an entire video of him boxing his item up. I might consider doing this myself for more expensive items. You know why he had the video because the exact same thing had happened to him before. I think all major retailers except be scammed every now and then but it does a real disservice to the community as a whole to let things like non paying bidders get away with it.

 

[Iron Patch]

That is why I will not ship to most countries around the world. Sure I could probably sell a few more items but it is not worth the wait and hassle and besides he probably did get the item, no way to prove he didn't.

It's well worth it for me and and the problems are few and far between, and when they're under $20 it's not a big deal. When I started ebay I probably shipped high 90s %-wise to the US, but now it's much more of a worldwide thing. That has a bit to do with expanding my type of items, but also buyers cross ebay internet borders way more often to shop for collectibles. In fact, today my day will be made by European bidders and not US... well it will be a mix of both really, but when I have that my numbers tend to be a whole lot better.

 

[randazzo1]

Got to agree with Iron on this. A full third of the product goes overseas. Mostly uk Australia Canada Japan and germany. Miidleeastern orders havd dropped completely and i stopped shipping to China in June. We ship free in the U.S. and discount on first class international. Too many complaints with the global ship program. Works for us because the average sales price is only $38.00. I do not ship internationally on Etsy or our standalone because the items tend to be priced higher and are less sought after.

 

[diggummup]

Too many complaints with the global ship program.

What kind of complaints have you encountered? The only way any of my items get shipped overseas is via the global shipping program. I've only had a few dozen items that have been sold that way this past year since it started, but I haven't had any problems or complaints yet on my end.

 

[randazzo1]

Mostly customers who leave low DSR's for shipping cost. Our items are cheap $30-$40 for the most part an custies don't want to pay prioritymail