Strategy For eBay Selling Situation

In My Humble Opinion
1

I had a car engine die and figured I would take it apart and sell the pieces on eBay before junking the scrap metal. I’ve just encountered my first difficult buyer issue.

I had a couple of parts that are kind of similar, but differ between right and left sides. I listed them together, but noted in the listing that the price was per piece, and that they needed to tell me whether they wanted the right/passenger side or the left/driver side.

A couple of listings of that sort went OK.

But now (last Sunday), a guy bought one piece and did not notify which he wanted. (He paid right away.) When I contacted him (Sunday), he responded that he really wants both and feels he should get both because both were mentioned in the listing. I pointed out that I had explicitly said otherwise in the description, and that he had the option of buying the other piece if he wanted, or canceling the sale if he preferred. He sent two responses within minutes of each other (on Monday), one threatening to “open a case” and the other asking how he could go about buying the second piece.

I directed him to return to the listing but he ignored that - next day he sent another email asking for my email address so he could pay for the second through Paypal, but I again directed him to buy it through the eBay listing. This was on Tuesday. Yesterday (Wednesday) I sent a follow-up and got no response.

Meanwhile I have his money and the part, but I am not happy about the situation and think it will likely end up with negative feedback (marring my current 100% rating) and/or an official dispute.

I spoke to an eBay person (on Monday) who advised that I wait a day and then try to cancel the sale. The problem is that eBay’s procedure for canceling sales is that you first refund the money and only then ask the buyer to agree to cancel the sale. If the buyer doesn’t agree - and there’s nothing in it for them that I can tell, once they have the money back - then you are out your eBay & Paypal fees, and plus the buyer gets to leave negative feedback.

I looked at some reviews of the buyer’s used car dealership. They have some very negative reviews, and also some very positive reviews. The thing is that the positive reviews seem to have been written by the buyers themselves. (The name on one of the reviews is the same name as the name I was given as the mailing address for the part, and another two reviews were written with the same name as each other, one month apart, for two different cars.) So I’m pretty sure I’m dealing with some sleazy guys here, and can’t rely on any sort of decency on their part.

So what’s to be done? What I could do is just fold and send the guy both parts. But I am loath to be ripped off like that.

2

The policies on listing items with variations is very strict. I don’t think engine parts currently qualify. As far as eBay is concerned, you’re breaking the rules and this guy WILL get a refund or both parts for the price he paid.

3

It’s not an engine part - seatbelts actually. (Though that doesn’t seem to be covered either, from looking at the link.)

I’m not any sort of eBay expert - I did it this way because I’ve seen other listings of the same sort done this way. ISTM from loking at your link that eBay’s objections to this sort of thing is people using variations to avoid fees, but this is irrelevant here because I’m not paying listing fees anyway and the final value fees are the same.

I actually went over the listing with the eBay person I spoke to a couple of days ago and he thought I had been adequately clear in my listing and didn’t raise any issues of rules violations.

In any event, I would be happy to refund the guy’s money and cancel the sale. Giving both parts is something else.

4

You might offer him a discount on the second part.

5

Ebay tends to lean towards the buyer anyway. It’s time to buckle like a belt and send both parts to the sleazy buyer if you care about the feedback. Note that feedback averages only go back 6 months, IIRC. I had some negative feedback that is gone now.*

*Long story short: I sold a whole bunch of songbooks and shipped them all out on the same day. Somewhere along the route, USPS decided to blow up the packages and then reassemble them incorrectly and still ship them to buyers. Luckily, I still had a receipt that showed that I sent a 5.2 lb box to one buyer, they received 11.6lbs of books. :confused: Needless to say, I’m now gunshy to sell anything on eBay with USPS again, my rating is back up to 100% after two of the buyers gave me negative reviews even though I fully refunded their money.

6

I had offered half price shipping on the second part in the initial listing, and I’ve reiterated this in my emails to the guy.

(I don’t think eBay will automatically do this if he goes back and buys the next one, as it would have had he bought them in one transaction, but I told him I would refund half the shipping via Paypal.)

7

The eBay guy I spoke to said if I could demonstrate through the listing and emails that the buyer was being unreasonable, then eBay would remove any negative feedback received. But I had never heard of that before and wondered if he was correct about this.

8

We use 2 strategies.

  1. Always think of the big picture i.e. your feedback. Yep this guy is an a-hole and we all get them. Sometimes it is best just to suck it and give the customer what they want i.e. both parts and not lose feedback for one a-hole.

  2. Pickup the phone and call him. People RADICALLY change when you call then. Via email they can be right a-holes however on the phone the can be really nice people. Just be nice to them and remember the big picture.

Its hard but try not to get emotionally connected to one person ripping you off, it is just part of doing business.

9

I’m an eBay buyer. Generally, when I look at feedback, I look for MOSTLY positive feedback, and I am willing to overlook a small number of bad feedback posts. I recognize that some people are going to be unreasonable assholes, and nothing will make them happy unless they’ve completely screwed someone else over. Now, if the feedback has a LOT of negs on it, and the negs are all the same thing, then I regard that as being the seller’s fault, but if it’s just one or two, I figure that this might be a simple misunderstanding, or it might be an asshole buyer.

I’d take the feedback hit, but I am not really an eBay seller, I’m just telling you how I evaluate feedback as a buyer.

10

We might have a bit of a different perpective on this, though.

I am not anything remotely like a professional eBay seller. I did this almost as a lark - stripping a car and selling the pieces on eBay is an interesting experience for someone who doesn’t normally do things of this sort. And at this point, I’ve probably sold most of what I will end up selling.

I would not be pleased by getting negative feedback, but it’s not like it puts my livelihood at stake. A lot of what I would object to is the nerve of this crook ruining my 100% score, but then I balance this against the nerve of the guy ripping me off.

I agree and it’s not a big deal. But if there’s a best way and a second best way of dealing with it, I’d rather do it the best way, hence this thread.

As it happens, I called eBay again yesterday. Th woman I spoke to said that I could in fact propose a cancelation without refunding the money first, and she suggested that I do this. So that’s where it stands now - so far the guy hasn’t responded to this either.

Same here, but I don’t actually read the feedback unless it’s for a major purchase. Generally I just look at the score and compare it to the score of other sellers in that category. (I would not buy anything from someone with a 95% feedback score - that’s a pretty low score and I believe a lot more han 5% of people have to be dissatisfied with someone before they get a score this low.)

The thing is that I am not a major eBay guy, as above. If I get even one negative feedback it could ding my average significantly, especially if - as someone posted above - it only goes back 6 months.

11

Under no circumstances ship the part or parts unless they are very inexpensive and you are willing to lose the parts and the money sent shipping them. You are currently on the right track, just send the request for cancellation, and give him his money back if he cancels (or doesn’t respond - you get the option to cancel it yourself after X amount of time with no response). If he won’t cancel (responds with no cancellation), keep resending the cancellation request or make him open a case with ebay to get his money back. And thank god that he got this way before you sent him anything.
If you are a hobby seller or a really giant seller one negative feedback should mean absolutely nothing to you. For a giant seller because it gets lost in the shuffle. For a hobby seller, like you, because you just open a new account, buy some chinese phone cases, cell phone chargers, etc to build a few positive feedback, and then use that account. Only the guys with say, a few hundred to low thousands of feedback and a decent but not huge number of items listed at the same time really should worry about negs.

12

If you cancel the purchase can the buyer leave negative feedback? If he can’t leave negative feedback I’d seriously consider doing that. Because otherwise even if you send him both he could still leave negative feedback.

Otherwise if it’s not a whole lot of money I’d send him both and send him a sentence to the effect of “I apologize for the confusion, even though the listing wasn’t for both I’m sending you both.”

13

I read the comments from the negative feedback, just to see what the buyer was complaining about. I rarely read the positive comments unless I’m hesitant about the negative comments.

14

Ha, from the OP I also thought you were parting out your engine. Who in the world would buy a used piston?

15

On rereading the OP, I see the first sentence was poorly written and confusing. (The engine died so I took apart the car.) I agree with you - I took very few mechanical parts out, for that reason. I wouldn’t buy used mechanical parts myself.

What I took apart was the dashboard & steering wheel and related electronics & switches etc., interior trim, and tailights and the like. Stuff that you would have to buy from a dealer for 10X the price if you didn’t buy an almost-as-good one from a (local or online) junkyard.

16

Update: guy accepted the sale cancellation request and I refunded his money. So I think everything ends off OK.