Here’s the story. I bought a set of books on Ebay from a seller with very good feedback (99.6% positives over more than 20000 sales). I paid £5.50 for them, plus £5 for postage. Unfortunately the books reeked badly of cigarette smoke, but the auction didn’t mention this, nor had any squirrelly language, like “sold as seen”, or “old and battered so don’t bother me”.
So I contacted the seller, who told me he couldn’t check these things because he had no sense of smell. I could send back the lot and ask for a refund, but postage in either directions would not be refunded. This struck me as unfair: I would lose the 5 quid I paid the guy, and be stuck with whatever it cost me to send the lot back - let’s say another 3-4 pounds. So I’d lose nearly as much as I paid for the books, with no books!
However, the guy previously sent me an email, just after he posted the books. In it, he said he was aiming to have average 5-star ratings; it’s the new Ebay feedback system, after evaluating your purchase as positive, negative or neutral you also evaluate certain criteria such as communications and speed of posting. So I had an idea. This purchase was unfair to me as it was, so I wrote to him proposing that if he refunded half of the books’ cost (not the postage, only £2.75) I’d be consider the transaction fair and would be happy to put 5 stars for his feedback.
Now it turns out this was a mistake. After a bit of back and forth, where he whined about costs and how this is his only source of income, I reduced my request to a refund of £2, to he replied he’d be ok with a refund of 1.50, considering it a token gesture in exchange for the 5-star feedback. Then today I got an alert from Ebay on “feedback extortion”. Threatening sellers to leave negative feedback in order to obtain additional goods or services is not allowed. Apparently my offer of a compromise was a mistake.
That pissed me off a lot. I was not trying to obtain extra stuff, I was trying to make the deal a fair one. He sold me smelly books and didn’t write they were in the auction. His refund policy leaves me stuck with double postage costs, losing as much money and leaving me with nothing. I’d not have bid on those books if I knew they were that bad; but the way things are, with the purchase done, I’d rather sort out things peacefully and make the deal a fairer one. I would not have paid 5 quid for them, but I’d have paid 2 quid. I even offered to accept a worse deal than that (asking for a 2 pound refund means I end up paying 3.50 for smelly, unusable books). Now this complaint.
I understand where the guy comes from. If what he wrote is true, this is his only source of income, he cannot personally check for smells and he has to watch his margin on every transaction. I don’t want to be too harsh on the guy. On the other side, well, the Sales of Goods Act of 1979 still applies to him, and I paid fucking 10 quid for books that smell like a pub’s ashtray, and he never said a word about it!
So, what are my best options in your opinion?
