Ebay SC

[Trishlovesdolphins]

Its been a long time since I've posted in SC, but I wanted to share this.

I graduated in May, and since I'm, not working, I have been selling books on Amazon, and stuff on Ebay. Its fun for me, and it gets me out of the house and allows me to make a little bit of money. Since I am only doing it as an "extra" kind of thing I only ship to the US, and I make sure that I only put US in all my shipping options.

Yesterday, I sold a comic on Ebay. I sent the invoice, and was paid almost immediately. That's when I realized that the buyer was in Canada. I went ahead and shipped the item because I was paid so quickly, and sent a message that because she was in Canada, and the auction says I ship to US only, I did not ship it priority mail because it was $9 and I sold it for $6.

I then left NEUTRAL feedback, I did this because she should have been responsible to read the shipping information BEFORE buying the comic, and while I should have double checked as well, it does say CLEARLY that I ship to the US. In the feedback line I put that the bidder bid on a US only shipping, but I sent it anyway BECAUSE of the fast payment.

What happened next I can only describe as a SC gone crazy. I received an email, the opening line was "What is wrong with you!!!??" She e-screamed for about 2 paragraphs about how how dare I give her negative feedback and it was MY fault she bid on an auction she didn't have an address to bid on, and that I should have blocked other countries, and then tried to "school" the newb about Ebay. (I should mention, that I have been a member longer than her, though she does have many more transactions.) She kept throwing her transaction number in for good measure.

She then left me negative feedback saying the item wasn't as described. Funny, since it was sent less than 12 hours before from KANSAS going to CANADA. She hasn't seen the item.

I go in, reply to the feedback she left me, that she hadn't seen the item to make a decision. Then, went to the feedback I left her, said I would change to negative now if possible, and said why. She left on my feedback that I was the one being retaliatory.

So, 2 more messages of increasing hostility later, I send her a long email giving her the links of Ebay help where it says the bidder is responsible for the shipping info before bidding, and reiterate that having over 100 transactions doesn't mean she's better at Ebay, just does it more frequently.

At this point I contact Ebay and email them that I want to try and have the feedback removed and why. I also did a little more research on her feedback, this isn't the first time she's gotten pissed off about neutral feedback. Or said someone didn't know how to Ebay for using it.

This morning I have 3 more messages all in less than a 5 minute span about how she's a student and this is her livelihood, and how I'm a noob and she's an English honors student (cause I kept spelling the words that she spelled incorrectly in my replies when I used them in caps... I know, but I was pissed) I am again berated and told I'm a noob and know nothing about the real world, I'm hopeless, blah blah blah.

So after I email a reply that I wasn't going to speak to her about it anymore, I got into a live chat on Ebay, told the rep what was going on, and about the messages. He then told me how to go about getting her feedback off my profile (great since I had a 100% before her) I also ask about the original problem about shipping, he agreed it was her fault I also tell him that I wasn't going to attempt to mutually withdraw the feedback because of her attitude, and I didn't think she'd agree since neutral is that, it doesn't hurt or help your feedback, while negative does.

So, now I'm just waiting for Ebay to get back to me.. or more messages. God I hate people.

I might be around a lot more now, husband just started his own t-shirt business (www.threadsters.com) so I'm sure that SC will be plentiful!

[MrSunshineState]

Good story, it seems she is getting what she deserves. I have been on Ebay a long time and have 100% positive feedback as well. Although one jackass left me neutral because he bought an item from me and I advised him as a seller I leave feedback after I receive feedback. He then said I was trying to blackmail him. Funny because several people including myself who left this tard feedback stated "accused me of blackmail" lol

[Mr. Rude]

Firstly, nice to see you again Trish.

Second, buyer did not read full item description. Nuff said.

If needed point that out to the e-bay staff.

I live in Canada & ALWAYS read the full shipping description where/too deal thingy...If I'm unsure I e-mail the seller. No response...No buy

This person is just a git

[aqutalion]

Yet another reason I'm glad I got off Ebay.

I wouldn't bother having the feedback removed if it were me. She deserves the feedback she got, and anyone with a brain would be able to see that the one she left was retaliatory.

[Trishlovesdolphins]

I just got another message, saying she talked to ebay, and she was right that I could have cancled the bid, and its all my fault... uh DUH, but I was trying to be nice. Its it wrong that I hope its all tore up by the time it gets there? Of course, I bet she didn't read the "seller is not responsible for damages in the mail" blurb.

[wagegoth]

eBay used to be really cool, but there are way too many immature whiners on there now.

I make it very clear in my sales that I am NOT a retailer; I'm selling personally owned items, some collectible, some not. I will ship within three days; I will ship internationally, but only if paid by PayPal; I will only ship to verified addresses. I describe the condition of every item honestly and completely, to my best knowledge.

I've noticed that the biggest PITAs buy the smallest items. They get hyper over $5 earrings or $4 sewing patterns. The $50 collectible buyers are always happy. WTH?

Which is why I no longer sell on a regular basis. Too many hassles.

One buyer complained because media mail took a whole week to deliver to her. I pointed out in my reply feedback that that was actually pretty quick for media mail to the other side of the country. If she wants it next day, then pony up for priority shipping.

[Sandman]

eBay ticked me off when they said that I sent spam from my account. Um... if you took a look at my sent messages history, you will notice that nothing was there! You could also see that it was all from the German e-bay site, and alas, I'm in America!

I proved it to them that I was away from my computer, and told them that I didn't even log in to my account. They immediately reactivated my account, with their apologies.

[bigjimaz]

Some advice from a 10 year (3000+ feedback) eBay seller/buyer. I'm not trying to rain on your parade, just letting you know eBay policy. This is not an attack, just a friendly attempt to help you avoid this in the future.

Yesterday, I sold a comic on Ebay. I sent the invoice, and was paid almost immediately. That's when I realized that the buyer was in Canada.

Set your preferences to exclude bidders who are in countries that you don't ship to. Had you done this, your entire post here would not have been necessary. According to ebay policy, if you don't exclude these bidders, you must ship the items to wherever the bidder lives, no matter what you have printed in your policies because these policies can be physically changed during the term of the listing up until you get a bid.

I did not ship it priority mail because it was $9 and I sold it for $6.

If you stated Priority mail and sent it any other way, (say USPS First Class International) the buyer can start a Seller-nonperformance report against you. (Yeah, I know, but this is eBay policy)

I then left NEUTRAL feedback

Second mistake. Never leave feedback until the transaction is over. This means you should wait until you have shipped the item, it is received by the buyer and they have left feedback for you. Your NEG was a direct result of this.

What happened next I can only describe as a SC gone crazy. I received an email, the opening line was "What is wrong with you!!!??" She e-screamed for about 2 paragraphs about how how dare I give her negative feedback and it was MY fault

If they were stupid enough to send this, or any of the emails, through the eBay email system, send them with full headers to eBay. Policy states they aren't allowed to do this. If they sent them directly from their email client to yours, well basically, you're SOL.

At this point I contact Ebay and email them that I want to try and have the feedback removed

The feedback will not be removed unless they put personal info in it, they cursed or mentioned anything about legal proceedings. eBay doesn't remove feedback for any other reason unless you both agree to have it removed.

Live Help (or dead help as it is known on the discussion boards that I frequent) is notorious for giving false or bad information.

One thing I have to tell you about. With eBay's new feedback system where your buyer rates you, if you fall into the bottom 5% of sellers as rated by the people who buy off you, eBay will suspend your selling priveleges for a week up to a month and the worst rated of those go permanently.

Bottom line, yes your buyer should have seen that you do not ship to Canada, but ultimately you are responsible for the content and preferences you present in your listings.

That being said, your buyer was sucky. Put them on your blocked bidder list and if you're not going to try to have the buyer and you mutually agree to remove the feedback, move on. Lesson learned.

***EDIT***

I bet she didn't read the "seller is not responsible for damages in the mail" blurb.

According to eBay policy, the seller is responsible for getting the item to the buyer in the condition described in the listing. If the USPS or Canadian mail system screws up the item, the seller is still libel for the damage. Shipping insurance is for the protection of the seller, not just the buyer. If your buyer paid with Paypal, they will get a total refund of the money they paid if they prove that it was damaged in transit. Then, if you didn't insure the package you have to pay to replace it or to refund their money in full, shipping and handling charges included.

They can also get a full refund if you sent the item without any kind of delivery confirmation.

I'm sorry it sounds like I'm being tough on you and I'm not. I'm just trying to help you have less headaches in the future.

[air914]

I had one really bad experience w/ ebay. I was trying to purchase what I thought was a craft kit. I wasn't sure from the description, so I tried contacting the seller to ask a question. Afraid that I might not get a response back soon enough, I went ahead and bid on it, sent an e-mail and asked if the item I had bid on was what I thought it was. If it wasn't, I asked that they cancel my bid. I kept e-mailing them through e-bay and finally got a response back - it wasn't what I wanted. I e-mailed again to ask them to cancel the bid then. They didn't and all of a sudden I won. I contacted them again and reiterated how I had asked that they cancel my bid b/c they hadn't clearly described the item and it wasn't what I wanted. They turned all nuts on me and told me I had to pay for the item and all sorts of crap and left me nasty feedback...... it was all so ridiculous. It's not like they didn't have notice that I didn't want the item.... I had sent them several e-mails. True, it was probably some of my fault for not waiting to get a reply from them before bidding - I just didn't want to miss out on the item if it WAS what I wanted..... and they didn't get back to me until the auction was almost over. I asked people on Ebay, looked up the rules and junk - I think the seller finally gave up trying to get the money from me. I don't know if they re-listed or not, but I certainly knew I wouldn't work with them again.

I had another problem with a bookseller on amazon.com or something like that - u know the ones you can buy used books - or sometimes new books from? They didn't ship my books for some time so I contacted them to find out what was up.... and I can't remember all the details but somewhere they canceled my order w/out my permission and then they were just really stupid about it all. Oh well. I don't go on ebay much anymore and I usually buy directly from the company and not independent parties.

[Gawdzillers]

I checked out the T-shirt website.
I must say, even though the graphics don't look all that high-quality, I got a chuckle.
I liked In Before The Lock.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Set your preferences to exclude bidders who are in countries that you don't ship to. Had you done this, your entire post here would not have been necessary. According to ebay policy, if you don't exclude these bidders, you must ship the items to wherever the bidder lives, no matter what you have printed in your policies because these policies can be physically changed during the term of the listing up until you get a bid.

Not true, at least according to the people in ebay's answer center who have lots more experience than I do.

In that case the buyer would be an unwelcome bidder and the seller can report him/her to ebay and the buyer gets punished.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/...me-buying.html

Ebay allows sellers to set the terms of their own listings and buyers have to conform to them. So if I say I ship only domestically, and my buyer is registered in France, for example, I can report the buyer as an unwelcome bidder because he doesn't meet my terms. It is my right to decide whether or not to ship internationally.

Of course the easiest way to prevent this is to go to your seller preferences and block bidders registered in countries you do not ship to.

[Trishlovesdolphins]

Not true, at least according to the people in ebay's answer center who have lots more experience than I do.

In that case the buyer would be an unwelcome bidder and the seller can report him/her to ebay and the buyer gets punished.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/...me-buying.html

Ebay allows sellers to set the terms of their own listings and buyers have to conform to them. So if I say I ship only domestically, and my buyer is registered in France, for example, I can report the buyer as an unwelcome bidder because he doesn't meet my terms. It is my right to decide whether or not to ship internationally.

Of course the easiest way to prevent this is to go to your seller preferences and block bidders registered in countries you do not ship to.

I have to go with Irving on this, when I talked to the Ebay rep today, he said that you are only bound to the shipping you list on your auction. I have the option to change my mind if someone bids, but I am not bound to the original shipping information at that point.

The comic I sent SHOULD get there just fine, I put it in the same type of envelope that priority mail goes in, I just didn't pay for the expedited service.. if that makes sense, it was a hard envelope...

[Trishlovesdolphins]

I checked out the T-shirt website.
I must say, even though the graphics don't look all that high-quality, I got a chuckle.
I liked In Before The Lock.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOT HIGH-QUALITY!!!!!???
j/k

Husband is doing them on his computer, he hopes to have better graphics software once it takes off, he didn't want to plunk a huge chunk of cash into something till he knew it would work.

[bigjimaz]

Not true, at least according to the people in ebay's answer center who have lots more experience than I do.

I stand corrected, kind of.

I had forgotten about this updated rule. I should have said that if you do not cancel the bid while the listing is active and decide not to file an unwelcome bid complaint once it has ended, you must ship the item within your TOS and in the shipping method indicated on your listing.

Thank you for correcting my error, IPF.

[Nekojin]

I've had a few eBay woes over the years. I'm a very-small-volume eBayer - 124 Rating (with over 300 transactions, mind you) since 1998 - but I've had a lot of experience, and hung out on the Feedback Forum for a while. I know what's what, and how to protect myself.

Almost all of my eBay problems have been sucky sellers - I've had three instances of people trying to rip me off (two sent nothing, one sent a bootleg game on an auction where it stated that it was an, "import"). All of them are NARU now. I've also issued a few Neutrals and a few "faint positives" for people whose professionalism was lacking.

As a seller, I can only remember one problem, and that was a Canadian trying to get me to mark the package as a Gift. I understand the reasoning, but I don't agree with it, and I refused. Never heard from him again. *shrug*