As a hobby I sell stuff on Ebay, I generally have anywhere from 5 to 20 auctions going at any one time. One thing I don’t have to worry about are boxes and packing materials, I can get just about any size and type box and 50 kinds of bubble wrap at work for free, it is amazing the variety of stuff used to ship airplane parts. One place I check for boxes is the cardboard recycling bin by our cafeteria, the break area I use just happens to be close by. A few weeks ago I brought home a couple of boxes that had originally contained sausage patties. Before using any of the boxes, I take a large black Sharpie and black out most of the printing on the boxes. I used one of these boxes to ship a couple items to a buyer last week, it was the perfect size. Even using the Sharpie, the original contents of the box was still partially readable. Today I received a message from the buyer, he said he cannot open the box, he cannot accept what is in the box, and that he is considering other actions against me for violating his faith. He also said the box and items have been disposed of miles from his home, never to be found again. He promised negative feedback and did so a few hours ago. The feedback says “Inconsiderate seller, must be banned”. I was wondering what was going on then I realized something, the buyer had a Middle Eastern last name and must be Muslim.
As a pre-emptive measure, I called Paypal on the phone and explained the situation. Sarah at Paypal promised that no refund would be given based what happened. The items were some 50’s pottery I found at a garage sale, I paid very little and they sold for almost $50. I have also challenged the negative feedback, I was at 451 with 100% positive till this.
When it comes to the Muslim faith, is this a normal reaction? Is there a way to correctly apolgize? I have not replied to the buyer at this time. The one thing I have decided to do is not use anymore boxes that contained pork products.
What a pain-in-the-ass situation. I think religion is foolishness and I think your buyer is extremely silly. But hey, that’s just me.
Ultimately, I suppose the question is: To what degree must sellers be preemptively mindful of a buyer’s specific requirements or concerns, and vice versa.
When I was a waiter, a customer once ordered a piece of Mocha-Kahlua Ice Cream Pie. He then asked, “Is there alcohol in this?” To which I replied, “Well, it is prepared with Kahlua but the alcohol cooks off and there is essentially no alcohol in it. Kids eat this stuff like crazy.” At that point he became irate, “I am a Muslim! I can’t eat this!” He was really angry with me.
I’m sorry you’re in this situation, and think the buyer’s reaction was extreme. However, as a buyer I’d skeeve a little if I bought pottery and it came in a sausage box. Unless you’re talking about a box that contained boxes of patties. It’s late I shouldn’t be typing… but when I read your post I thought of the boxes that bulk sausage and bacon were in when I worked at a deli - kinda greasy and smelly, and wouldn’t even be in a recycling dumpster.
Don’t worry about your feedback. If I saw one negative out of 451 my first guesswould be that you sold something to a crackpot. Most people recognize that you can’t please everyone.
Only slightly related…I think it’s great for you that you got the piece cheap and sold it for a decent amount. Please oh please don’t be like the last seller I bought from. Take the yard sale price tag off it. I won an auction with 7 or 8 people bidding and ended up spending $22 plus shipping. The item arrived with a rummage sale hand written price tag that says $4. Grrr. The item is WORTH $22 to me, but the knowledge that I could have gotten it for $4 feels a little like a Nelson Muntz Ha-ha to me.
You probably shouldn’t get any boxes from the liquor store, either.
I think it’s utterly ridiculous, but IANAM. There are some Muslim cashiers in my area who will not scan pork products so that customers can buy them.* (They either call another cashier over or ask the customer to scan it himself!) So, yes, apparently some Muslims think that touching the outside of the pork package is too icky to contemplate. I suppose this could extend to the carton that the pork packages came in as well.
He couldn’t ask a non-Muslim friend to be brave and open the icky former sausage box? He couldn’t refuse the shipment so that you got your merchandise back? I smell a rat.
[sub]*I’m sorry, but there are many jobs that do not involve touching pork products. I’ve never had a job that involved pork, so I know it can be done ;). [/sub]
You can enter a response to feedback you receive and it will appear below the buyer’s comment - and you should do this - reply calmly and factually stating that the buyer threw away the parcel and that he made no attempt to contact you to resolve his grievance.
I don’t think there’s any way you could reasonably have anticipated this happening.
I know some Muslims can be very, very anal about pork. My boss is Muslim (of the non-anal variety). We ordered pizza for a office lunch*, and our office manager was serving up slices. He got his peppers & mushrooms slices right after someone else got their meat lovers slice. He turned to me and commented that he knew people who would refuse to eat the pizza because the office manager had previously handled (via napkin) a slice of pizza that had some sausage as a topping. Some people are hard core.
I guess you could leave a feedback that consists of something like “Shipping box used was against buyers religion, gave me no option at return or refund” or something of that variation.
I guess from now on use the most generic boxes you can find.
Really, the buyer needs a smackdown, but I don’t know if there’s any way to do it.
How can it be inconsiderate when the buyer’s special requirements were not expressed in advance and could not have been guessed? It’s just a cardboard box - sure, it’s had food products in it, but so what? I’m sure racer72 wouldn’t have used anything that was actually physically dirty or stained with food residue. Sure, it’s still dirty as far as the buyer is concerned, but in that case, it’s the buyer’s lookout - what if it was a box previously containing leather shoes and the recipient was a vegan? What if it was a box previously containing fishing rods and the recipient was a rabid animal rights nut?, and so on.
You can’t possibly anticipate any and every hangup that anyone might have, so I think the onus is on the person with the hangup to ensure it isn’t violated.
Oh, and one thing you should definitely do is to add the buyer to your blocked bidders list - in case he decided to try to interfere with your other listings.
Even if you concede that his objection to the box was totally legitimate, the buyer could have refused delivery or marked the box return-to-sender, you could have repackaged the item, and everything would have been okay. He claims that he’s already destroyed package and its contents? That seems fishy, like he anticipated that you would want him to send back the item before you gave him a refund. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was lying about having disposed of the item.
