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Anyone had similar ebay experience?

Vidd

Vidd

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2006
1,001
108
I guess I should have anticipated this but oh well.
On ebay I noticed a person selling an item that I wanted. Looking through his feedback I noticed he had a some negative feedback regarding long shipping time and high costs. Despite this, he had hundreds of positive entries and so I e-mailed him asking if I could be assured of decent delivery, which he confirmed.

Now, that was just over a week ago. He sent me an e-mail saying that it was shipped on Monday. It's now Saturday and the only thing I've received from him is an e-mail asking for feedback.
I'm sure this sounds terribly impatient but I paid £4.95 first class shipping for what is essentially a small box. Looking through his feedback again there have been a number of people having to raise disputes and getting refunds for lost items (since I ordered).

I've e-mailed him suggesting that it might be lost and that I'd appreciate a refund rather than getting another sent out (as I can purchase one tomorrow).

What is considered appropriate in such a situation?
 
Vidd said:
I guess I should have anticipated this but oh well.
On ebay I noticed a person selling an item that I wanted. Looking through his feedback I noticed he had a some negative feedback regarding long shipping time and high costs. Despite this, he had hundreds of positive entries and so I e-mailed him asking if I could be assured of decent delivery, which he confirmed.

Now, that was just over a week ago. He sent me an e-mail saying that it was shipped on Monday. It's now Saturday and the only thing I've received from him is an e-mail asking for feedback.
I'm sure this sounds terribly impatient but I paid £4.95 first class shipping for what is essentially a small box. Looking through his feedback again there have been a number of people having to raise disputes and getting refunds for lost items (since I ordered).

I've e-mailed him suggesting that it might be lost and that I'd appreciate a refund rather than getting another sent out (as I can purchase one tomorrow).

What is considered appropriate in such a situation?
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It is my opinion that an item shipped first class on Monday not arriving by Saturday is odd but not unheard of. It is also not "dispute" territory in my book. I would give it at least two weeks for the item to show. I am not sure how your post works, but around here if I buy something I expect it to be shipped within 3 postal days unless pre-defined by both the seller and purchaser. At that time I would hope to see it in 5-6 post days (those are days the post comes) and if not I will e-mail and ask for reassurance that the item shipped. If at that time another 5-6 days passes I will then open the lines of communication and see what story I am fed. It is after that time that I would consider myself in "dispute" territory and would not feel bad for rocking that boat.

Unfortunately for you, you wanted something on ebay from a seller who has a history of shoddy shipping. His/her propensity for not delivering appears high on its face and would make me weary. If you could have simply bought off ebay then why wouldn't you have? Sometimes the discount you receive from ebay does not outweigh the risk. In other words, when shopping on ebay factor item price, risk of no return, and of course shipping.

I hope it works out for you.
And to answer your question, yes. I've purchased an item that was coming to me from a seller with a history of shoddy shipping practices. The discount received from ebay was 40% off retail price including shipping. It was under $100 and worth my risk. It took three weeks to receive but the lines of communication were always open between both the seller and myself.
 
I hate to sound like someone who says "I told you so" (to be fair, I didn't!) but I'm afraid that's what the feedback history is for. eBayers can be quite easy to please (I once bought a fake memory stick off someone who had a score of 99% from selling the damn things) , true education comes from looking through the past comments.

It's one of life's lessons.

If you don't get it for a while (14 days I think) you can raise a dispute with eBay so long as you've attempted to contact him. In most cases people are just a little slow posting things. When you order online a lot, it's easy to get used to next day delivery and expect the same thing from an individual.
 
I have to clarify a few things here.

  • His seller rating was over 98% positive.
  • I was saving about 20%.
  • The postage method was First Class "1 working day"
  • I have e-mailed him early today with no reply so I've sent a more direct e-mail tonight.

Here's the bit that gets me:
Delivery is by a PREMIUM NEXT WORKING DAY COURIER SERVICE - Please note this is next working day after despatch. We aim to send all goods within 5 working days of cleared payment being received, the majority of shipments are send within less than 24 hours.
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It was sent on the Monday.
 
I have never had that happen, but I'm sure it does.


My biggest peeve is not getting feedback. I'm great with communication, and I'm quite quick to pay for an item I won, and quick to post an item I'm selling. Then, I leave positive feedback to the buyer because they paid quickly, and I have already shipped the item. However, I wish I could take it back sometimes. The feedback is really important to me, because my rating isn't very high. I've had 13 or 14 transactions, where all of them have received a positive response, but my rating is only 11 positives. :mad:

If I knew they were not going to give me feedback, I wouldn't have given them a positive rating.
 
What I did was I used the ebay feature where you can request contact details (and yours are sent as well) and talked to him on the phone.
Apparently he had shipped another one on the Friday because he thought himself that it might be lost (although this is strange as I didn't say anything to him about it). He said that I could now expect it on the Monday or Tuesday and agreed to refund it if it goes missing again.

I'm not sure that anyone cares but maybe someone does. :)
 
Biggest problem with ebay is the feed back system. It allows for retalitor feed back. I know a lot of sellers that refused to leave feed back until the buyer levels it (and if the buyer leave neg of course they are going to leave neg as well) Personally I think the seller should leave feed back first. I refuse to leave any feed back until the item is in hand.

This is where ebay needs to change. The feed back should not be posted until both sides have posted their feed back
 
Rodimus Prime said:
Biggest problem with ebay is the feed back system. It allows for retalitor feed back. I know a lot of sellers that refused to leave feed back until the buyer levels it (and if the buyer leave neg of course they are going to leave neg as well) Personally I think the seller should leave feed back first. I refuse to leave any feed back until the item is in hand.

This is where ebay needs to change. The feed back should not be posted until both sides have posted their feed back
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I agree. That happened to me years back. I bought something, mailed the guy a check (this was in the days before Paypal). I knew it wouldn't ship until the check cleared. And about a week later, it did clear. 2 weeks later? No item. I tried contacting the guy to no avail. All of my e-mails were ignored. After about 3 weeks of waiting, I left the guy negative feedback. A few days after leaving that, guess what shows up at my door? Then the guy left me negative feedback when I did everything right. That's my one and only non-positive FB, and what's keeping me from 100% positive.
 
Yeah it's a bit of a crap system that way.

As a seller I would hold back the feedback until the buyer is satisfied with the item, just in case they're going to be awkward over something that's already described in the article or leave a negative straight off or something like that. It'd take properly bad service (as in illegal proportions) to get me to leave a negative, but I'd rather not waste a positive on someone who's going to leave me a negative or otherwise be uber awkward :)

As a buyer, it doesn't bother me either way.... no eBayer in their right mind would post an item before payment is cleared/received, so whatever. When it arrives, they get positive feedback. If it's faulty and they accept a return in a fairly decent way, they get positive feedback.

Guess I'm fairly defensive that way.

Never given a negative yet... I did come close, but the fraudster in question was banned before I got the chance!
 
Feedback means nothing. My ex-Gf, a scamartist used to have amazing ebay feedback.

Now I'd wait another week at least. Keep in mind that you can file a dispute up to 30 days after the sale. good luck.

Vidd said:
I have to clarify a few things here.

  • His seller rating was over 98% positive.
  • I was saving about 20%.
  • The postage method was First Class "1 working day"
  • I have e-mailed him early today with no reply so I've sent a more direct e-mail tonight.

Here's the bit that gets me:

It was sent on the Monday.
Click to expand...
 
yg17 said:
I agree. That happened to me years back. I bought something, mailed the guy a check (this was in the days before Paypal). I knew it wouldn't ship until the check cleared. And about a week later, it did clear. 2 weeks later? No item. I tried contacting the guy to no avail. All of my e-mails were ignored. After about 3 weeks of waiting, I left the guy negative feedback. A few days after leaving that, guess what shows up at my door? Then the guy left me negative feedback when I did everything right. That's my one and only non-positive FB, and what's keeping me from 100% positive.
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see this is why if I am going to leave a negitive I would wait until time is just about up to do it so I do not get them just so they do not turn around and give me one. It is a crap system that been needing to be fix for a long time
 
Rodimus Prime said:
see this is why if I am going to leave a negitive I would wait until time is just about up to do it so I do not get them just so they do not turn around and give me one. It is a crap system that been needing to be fix for a long time
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If you leave the feedback then you have no leverage. Use the feedback to your advantage. Did you pay with credit card?
 
I didn't leave negative feedback until I was sold a bogus russian part-clone on ebay. (while it was advertised as an OEM piece) The guy had solid feedback, with very few disputes.

I told him I was not happy with the misleading wording / pictures and inaccurate information given on his sale. He said he'd refund the money, but I had to pay to have the parts shipped back to him.

So - with the parts costing less than $20 USD - it wasn't worth my time, and I gave him a "neutral" feedback - considering I could have done more to resolve this, but so couldn't have he.

First time I didn't leave good feedback, and ebay dragged me through a ton of pages. Only after, I realized that neutral feedback was a mere inch above negative apparently.

?

This is why I've always been gun shy with ebay, though.
 
Another useful tool would be to use ebay to get his contact info, (go into the help section its easy). Then you can call him and straighten everything out.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
see this is why if I am going to leave a negitive I would wait until time is just about up to do it so I do not get them just so they do not turn around and give me one. It is a crap system that been needing to be fix for a long time
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This was the second time I bought anything off eBay, so I was still a n00b who didn't know anything back then ;)
 
I'm not sure if anyone is interested but just to give an update:

CRAZYBUBBA said:
Another useful tool would be to use ebay to get his contact info, (go into the help section its easy). Then you can call him and straighten everything out.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry that I didn't check this thread after you had posted but I assumed it had been forgotten about. I tried what you suggested there (as I said earlier in the thread) and I got it resolved this way. He offered me a refund and I gladly accepted. :)

Funny then when weeks after a parcel arrives postdated after the refund was issued. I've since e-mailed him and after checking ebay I've found out that he's no longer a registered user (if only I could find out why!).
Luckily enough, I know someone else who would like the item and so I've asked him to set a price or provide some way for me to resend it.

Here's another question. I originally paid £33 which included the extortionate postage. He normally charges over 5 times what it costs him (£1.25 versus £6.95) and he has sold the item including postage for £21 before so I don't plan to accept an offer over £20-24 for my friend. If he doesn't agree he can have it back but I plan to ask for postage costs.
Am I doing the right thing here? I'm not trying to put him out but at the same time it's his own mistake/bad service and I didn't even have to tell him.

Sorry to treat Macrumors like a support forum but I find the pool of experience here quite impressive. :)
 
CRAZYBUBBA said:
Be honest, honesty is the best policy. Always do what's right.

You can pay him the amount that you had originally paid. Isn't that fair?
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I am being honest. :) I haven't mislead him.
I could understand why I could pay him the original price but I had to go out and buy the item myself one evening which caused a lot of inconvenience and meant I had to purchase it at full price anyway.

Since most of the time it sells for £25 and it's already sent and would avoid the hassle on both sides for sending it back, I think around £20-24 is fair. £33 was relatively high and the highest he had sold it at but I hadn't expected the shipping to inflate the cost so much.
He would be out the cost of getting it returned, although I wouldn't be dishonest about the shipping costs!

Do you not agree with me on those terms?
 
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