eBay is Serious Business

[Rapscallion]

There are a few signs that this thread is becoming heated, folks. Keep an eye on the issues, and not each other, please.

Rapscallion

[Seshat]

I am confused. Why is the buyer's obligation not finished after payment, or the seller's not finished when they ship? If the item is received in good time and in good condition, is the transaction not finished at that point?

Assuming that the item is received as advertised, in good time, and that neither party is sucky or a scammer - the transaction is then finished. You're absolutely right.

It is nice - and strongly recommended - for both parties to then leave feedback. Something like 'item was received promptly and is exactly as advertised, communication was good' is good for the buyer to leave, and 'payment was prompt, communication was good' is good for the seller to leave. That covers the most critical aspects of a non-sucky transaction with no problems.

Does that clear the confusion?

If there were problems, then both parties have an obligation to communicate, and to come up with a mutually reasonable solution. Again, I'm pretty sure that's what you'd assume (and would do) - you've come across as a sensible sort of person on these boards.

Anyway: add sucky unreasonableness and intentional scamming, and you end up with sellers who are just as worried about buyers, as you have buyers worried about sellers.

[wagegoth]

There are buyers who don't want to follow the rules, who want you to ship to a different address than the registered one, who don't understand that even though Canada is our friendly neighbor to the North, I now have to fill out a five-part form to ship anything there, and if it takes more time I'm going to charge a little extra for shipping and handling to Canada.

Some buyers seem to assume that when they buy on eBay it's like buying from a Sears catalog, and they can simply return the item if it isn't quite what they wanted or it didn't arrive within three days after they "ordered" it.

Some buyers absolutely do not read any of the information you post in the description. I'm always very clear about the condition of items, including the packaging, even if it's not a collectible, even when I don't think it will matter (like the cover of a sewing pattern), because people will whine that the corner of the pattern was slightly separated.

As a buyer, I don't order from the mass sellers in Asia. I have ordered from indy sellers in Japan and Europe for collectibles. I've also sold to them. This is why I'm very honest in my listings and I expect complete honesty in my sellers. I ask lots of questions before I bid.

And I thoroughly check feedback, and if it's not high and 100%, I check why it's not. I read the comments for patterns of behavior. Sometimes, I've found a seller is just new and they got some ass who tried to bully them. I'll read through the feedback of the buyers who have left negatives to see what kind of feedback they have. Often, they have some wild comments left on them.

Unfortunately, with the changes on eBay, I'm re-evaluating selling there. I was never a big seller; I didn't do it to make money, just to clean out extra items and clear space in my storage, so it's not a necessity. There are some pagan auction sites that I might start listing on, so I'll have to check those out.

It's too bad. eBay was so cool, until they got greedy. Greedy makes you stupid.

[draftermatt]

See all of these reasons is why I gave up on eBay. If I need something I can't find elsewhere I'll go there, but I sell on Craigslist, and buy in stores now.

It all went downhill when I got banned by eBay before they tried to contact me about an item I was selling (and it was the 2nd time I had listed said item). Then my father got a negative because he left one. The guy didn't ship, then sent a refund thru paypal (my father never had or has had a paypal account) so he left a negative since he now had money in a non-existant account. The guy left negative back since "I gave a refund" Dude, you just randomly popped up and said "Sorry, forgot to ship it, here's a refund to paypal" Didn't ask, nothing.

[HYHYBT]

So why is eBay changing their feedback rules?

(It's taken me nine years to get a score of 35)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

So why is eBay changing their feedback rules?

(It's taken me nine years to get a score of 35)

Because people who only buy on ebay complained that sellers wait until the buyers leave feedback, so that they can use it as a retaliatory weapon if the buyer leaves them a negative.

Which is very much a problem of ebay's own creation since they started handing out suspensions for sellers whose feedback scores over a 90-day period place them in the bottom 5% of all sellers doing similar volume (or something like that). If you're a very low-volume seller like myself, it can take as few as 2 negatives (or neutrals, which ebay considers "soft" negatives) to trigger a suspension.

So what then happened is sellers would suddenly find their accounts restricted, ask Live Help(less) how to get the restrictions lifted, and Live Help(less) would sometimes suggest leaving negatives for buyers who left them negatives, and then offer mutual feedback withdrawal. Anything necessary to get the negative off their record.

(One more tidbit for the ebayers out there: If you have a problem, go to the Answer Center or the Discussion Boards for help. Avoid Live Help unless you want to be given politely-stated but completely incorrect advice)

[Andara Bledin]

So why is eBay changing their feedback rules?

(It's taken me nine years to get a score of 35)

Boneheaded stupidity and a complete and utter disconnect from the reality of what it's like to be a seller on eBay.

(One more tidbit for the ebayers out there: If you have a problem, go to the Answer Center or the Discussion Boards for help. Avoid Live Help unless you want to be given politely-stated but completely incorrect advice)

The eBay discussion boards are mostly run by other interested and involved eBayers. If you do have a problem, the board titled Feedback Forums is one of the most active, and since everything will eventually end up relating to Feedback, nothing is truly off-topic. (it is possible that things have changed in the last year or so since I was a regular, but it would surprise me)

^-.-^

[LordGek]

So I wanted to get a copy of Tetris for my wife, who's a big fan. Problem is, the GameCube version is out of print. No worries, I turn to where everyone goes for crap they can't get anywhere else: eBay!

(snip)

Whoa! I read this and thought, dang, this sounds familiar and then, after double checking, noticed the IDIOT that took MONTHS to finally send me a game nowhere near the claimed mint condition is also based in Ohio.

She sounds like a very rare gamer indeed, eh?

We never retracted our negative statement even after being legally threatened and did have to endure her baseless negative feedback warning others to be careful of us as deceitful buyers. What I loved most about her negative comments , however, is that they were the EXACT SAME reply she left to anybody who DARED send her negative feedback.

[poofy_puff]

Quote Andy Bledin:

All of the real power, for anyone who does their homework, is in the buyer's court. That the seller has the power is mostly an illusion. Mostly because most people are honest and don't understand/consider all of the crappy things that scammers and just plain sucky people pull on sellers pretty much every minute on eBay and elsewhere.

It looks like we are not arguing about the same thing. You are making a case for who has more power at different points during a transaction. I am making a case for whether or not the buyer's obligations to the seller end when the seller receives payment. I am *not* denying that there are ways for the buyer (customer) to SUCK after the seller ships. I *am* speaking of those rare, under-reported instances where people do the RIGHT thing.

My experience with eBay has been positive overall, but then again I don't expect great things from it and I am not out to get over on anyone with it. That is why I believe that for myself, when I pay for my item(s), my obligation to that seller is completely fulfilled. When I receive the item, there may or may not be some additional options that I can pursue, but if I were to drop off the face of the earth and never be heard from again, there is NOTHING the seller should be complaining about.

Everything else is Intro-to-eBay-101. I don't really like some of the changes eBay is making to the feedback either, such as the one about how negatives will disappear after a certain amount of time, and others. When I first started eBaying, I read in a (paper) book that you could leave feedback FOR ANYONE, FOR ANY REASON, even if you were not involved in a transaction with them! That must have changed fast because it was not true when I joined and the book was fairly new.

[Andara Bledin]

What I loved most about her negative comments , however, is that they were the EXACT SAME reply she left to anybody who DARED send her negative feedback.

That right there pretty much guarantees that anyone taking the time to read them will dismiss them as knee-jerk retaliatory Negatives. That's another example of why they need to keep Feedback comments for buyers. The comments that seller would leave would give me more than enough info to never do business with him.

When I first started eBaying, I read in a (paper) book that you could leave feedback FOR ANYONE, FOR ANY REASON, even if you were not involved in a transaction with them! That must have changed fast because it was not true when I joined and the book was fairly new.

I've been eBaying that long. In the beginning, you could leave Feedback for anyone that could say anything and there was no procedure for removing it. I have a Neutral on my account that I left myself, for example. They changed it to transaction-related only after a rash of Feedback padding by people who knew each other and would create a couple dozen accounts so that each account would start out with a lot of positive Feedback without any transactions having happened.

And as for the "when does the buyer's obligation end" question, that's easy. Their obligation doesn't end until after they've received the merchandise. The last action a good buyer needs to do is inspect the widget. And then they should also let the seller know they got it and all was well, but that's just being a decent person.

^-.-^

[Nekojin]

Poofy, I think you're misunderstanding part of it.

The transaction isn't over until the customer has the product in his hands and is happy (or at least content) with it. As long as the transaction is still "open," the buyer does still have responsibilities.

Chief among these responsibilities is acting mature - not sending flaming-hot emails demanding where the widget is 3 days after payment, for example. But also important is the responsibility to let the seller know if something has gone wrong. The seller has a responsibility to make the transaction right if there's something wrong, but he can't do that if he's never notified responsibly about the problem.

Compare to a brick-and-mortar store, for example. If you buy something and it doesn't work, you have to go back to the store and ask for a refund or exchange. Attempting to sue the store for fraud doesn't fly if you haven't attempted to work things out with the store... that's one of the steps of due diligence, legally speaking. You have to give the seller the opportunity to fix the problem.

Finally... just as a Buyer can rate for anything and everything a Seller does, so too can a Seller rate a Buyer for anything and everything the Buyer does (well, until this new change takes effect). Someone who sends daily aggressive, harrassing emails until their widget arrives would not be described as a "Positive" experience by many people.

When I first started eBaying, I read in a (paper) book that you could leave feedback FOR ANYONE, FOR ANY REASON, even if you were not involved in a transaction with them! That must have changed fast because it was not true when I joined and the book was fairly new.

That was still the case when I first joined, and you're correct, it was changed quickly. At that point, people were encouraged to give Positive Feedback for anything helpful that was done - someone explained how to do something with the site? Positive Feedback was encouraged. Unfortunately, some malcontents decided to start leaving Neg-bombs for any reason, and some trolls started Neg-bombing random people for no reason. The ability to Neg people you hadn't had transactions with was swiftly removed. Then it was discovered that some people were making dummy accounts to give themselves Positive feedback and look more legitimate than they really were, so the ability to leave Positive feedback when you hadn't had a transaction was removed. Finally, the ability to leave Neutrals for other people without a transaction was removed when it became obvious that some people were using it for harrassment, leaving dozens or hundreds of comments on other people's Feedback, and eBay was spending more money and time cleaning up people's records from the trollish attacks.

eBay has come a long way, and I too believe that the announced change is a change for the worse.

[poofy_puff]

No, I don't misunderstand; I just disagree. If, for some reason, I receive the item and something is "wrong", I can choose to ignore it for whatever reason. If everything is fine, it sure is "nice" if I RSVP to the buyer, which I personally do when they request it, but otherwise no news is good news. Feedback is NOT mandatory.

Quote Nekojin:

Compare to a brick-and-mortar store, for example. If you buy something and it doesn't work, you have to go back to the store and ask for a refund or exchange. Attempting to sue the store for fraud doesn't fly if you haven't attempted to work things out with the store... that's one of the steps of due diligence, legally speaking. You have to give the seller the opportunity to fix the problem.

Quote poofy_puff from earlier:

I'm not worried about it; I have been using eBay just fine and it's like any other store where sometimes you have to go back and resolve an issue after you leave with your purchase.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said that that it was OK for the buyer to sue the seller for fraud, stop payment, or to leave negative feedback without giving the seller a chance to correct something. I'm not going to keep going round and round with this because I think I've said what I have to say very efficiently and all the original posts are still up there.

[CancelMyService]

Heh whoa, I didn't realize things were getting heated. Apparently threads about eBay are Serious Business as well

As a follow up, after more messages filled with legal threats and other assorted blarga blarga, I told her that I would no longer reply to her messages and she can have her lawyer contact me if she wishes (he hasn't, big shocker).

She's still claiming she sent and has a the receipt from the Post Office, but she didn't get tracking because she thinks "sellers wouldn't appreciate me adding $1 to the price" of her items. Whatever. If she thinks here lies and bully tactics are going to phase a cable company CSR, she's sadly mistaken.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

She's still claiming she sent and has a the receipt from the Post Office, but she didn't get tracking because she thinks "sellers wouldn't appreciate me adding $1 to the price" of her items. Whatever. If she thinks here lies and bully tactics are going to phase a cable company CSR, she's sadly mistaken.

That, right there, is a steaming pile of fail.

Selling stuff on ebay, accepting paypal as the payment method, and shipping without DC=free merchandise for the buyer.

I guess simply eating the cost of delivery confirmation (which might only be 35 cents, if memory serves) was not an option.

[CancelMyService]

I made a point of asking the last time I was at the Post Office what the cost was for tracking, and the most it would have cost her was 75 cents. I know gas is rising and all that, but if she's running so close to her margin that spending 75 cents to ensure proper delivery of merchandise is too much perhaps she should consider a new line of business.