I buy a lot of things from eBay. The vast majority of the time, I get exactly what was advertised, quickly and at a good price. Recently I needed a particular type of electronic adapter. I found it, ordered it and waited…and waited. Eventually, something arrived. It was wrong. I was supposed to receive a male DisplayPort to female HDMI adapter. Instead, I got a male HDMI to female HDMI. I have no idea what possible use this thing could be to anyone. A 1" long extension cable? What the fuck?
So I gave the seller a negative rating. A richly deserved negative rating after checking the original listing, which was still up there, advertising exactly what I wanted in the first place. So, after ordering what I wanted from a different seller, I left negative feedback saying exactly what had happened - that I got something different than what I ordered and that the original ad was still up.
That’s when the fucking whining started. The latest is that his boss will punish him for the negative feedback. I wrote back that he should piss off and directed all future e-mail from this sender to the bit bucket.
In the future, if you don’t want negative feedback, make sure your listings are accurate, asshole!
Yeah, I saw someone today who had a note on their store page that said something to the effect of, “If you have problems email us. If you give us negative feedback we will regard it as a hostile act on your part and will not help you resolve your issue”.
I know there are a lot of scammers on ebay. And I know sellers are in a a bind, because ebay and paypal usually side with the buyer in disputes. I understand where they’re coming from.
But I scrolled past the store.
Ebay favors the buyer so much that I’m surprised sellers are still selling on eBay. BTW, do you know that they purposefully sent you the wrong cable and that they expected to just screw you over without trying to send you the right one or did you just jump to that assumption?
Two months is unreasonable, but I’m afraid you’re not going to get much sympathy here without having even tried to talk to the seller to see what they might have done to fix the problem. Aside from a few users that are going to share horror stories, you’re pretty much going to find yourself on the receiving end of a dog pile.
I’m normally in favour of taking it up with the seller first, but as a buyer I’d like to know things like “The item took two months to arrive and was significantly not as described”. I think they used up their first chance in the two months they took to dispatch, and weren’t owed another chance when they got the item wrong. Also, they could have responded with an apology, a refund and a request to have the feedback changed rather than holding the refund hostage to get the feedback changed. Screw them. If they are only this incompetent once, one neg won’t do them significant harm. If it’s ongoing, then all the better that the negatives build up and warn others away.
The thing is negative feedback is the correct feedback. They posted a single picture showing the female HDMI connector, shot in such a way that it impossible to tell that the other end is NOT a male DisplayPort connector.
I got so sick of the whole feedback thing on ebay that I haven’t set foot on the ebay website since Amazon got popular. First off, IMO, the seller should leave feedback first, always. The second they receive payment. I mean, that’s what they’re leaving feedback for, right. But too many sellers would withhold feedback until after the buyer leaves feedback. Of course, they’re only doing that so that if the buyer says something negative, they can retaliate.
Then, there was people that were the megasellers, those people that had 10’s or 100’s of thousands of sales under their belts. Well, you likely weren’t going to get feedback from them. I didn’t even bother leaving them feedback.
Anyways, there’s just so many other ways to get the stuff I want now, and I really don’t have anything to sell that I don’t thing I’ve even been to ebay.com for at least a few years, where as 10+ years ago I used to just look around for the hell of it, just to see what I could find.
I remember, about the time I stopped using ebay, they were going though a lot of changes. Something about not being able to leave sellers negative feedback, and then you could but in some weird limited fashion. It all seemed to be getting really strange.
I still go back to what I said earlier. IMO, I think the system should be set up so that the seller is forced to leave feedback first, based on the payment (how fast, correct amount, according to the directions stated in the auction, etc), then the system would allow the buyer to leave feedback for the seller. If that was the case, sellers wouldn’t be able to leave retaliatory negative feedback for buyers. Also, these giant megasellers would be forced to leave feedback if they want to see their numbers continue to grow.
So, I missed it… When did you contact the seller about the mistake? And, after they sent you the email suggesting that you should “stop bitching and take what you are given” and that they were going to “screw you and your little dog too,” how long did you wait to provide negative feedback? The timeline is not clear.
I’ve always felt that the majority of feedback problems would be solved if feedback is only displayed if and when both buyer and seller have left feedback. Nobody sees feedback until the other party has left feedback. This means that megasellers would have to leave feedback to get more feedback, and it means that nobody can hold feedback hostage unless they’re willing to not get feedback themselves. However, eBay would also have to show disputes, if they aren’t resolved in a certain time period. They’d have to do this because some sellers (and buyers) would rather have no feedback than negative feedback.
In eBay land, “Negative” is apparently a code word for “Criminally Fraudulent”. “Neutral” is code for “Uselessly Incompetent” and “Positive” is everything else, including “Able to eventually fix a complete cockup of a simple transaction”.
The whole thing is idiotic. You send the wrong item to your customer, you sell something you don’t have, you advertise something you’re not selling, you fucked up, and deserve a negative review of the transaction, but that’s not the eBay way.
Yeah, as somebody who never uses eBay, this sounds right to me. You fuck up, you get (at least somewhat) negative feedback. I don’t give a shit if you can fix the problem.
Are some of you honestly saying that if a seller sends me the wrong thing (after 2 months), and I get in touch with them and they “fix it” by sending me the right thing or giving me a refund, then I’m supposed to give them a 5-star review? That’s retarded.
I was ready to dogpile onto the OP over leaving negative feedback without working with the seller to resolve the issue, but then I saw the two months thing and agree that the feedback was completely warranted and deserved.
I attempted to purchase an item (a dark green jade bangle if it matters) and when I got to the Paypal part, I wasn’t allowed to proceed because my address was unacceptable. Never mind that I’ve had a bazillion items sent to this address (Ebay and Etsy) and the seller indicated that he/she would ship to Australia.
I emailed the seller, waited a week and having had no reply, emailed again. I just wanted the bloody bangle and hoped that the seller was able to/willing to send to my address. When another week went by without an response. I bought a similar bangle from another seller.
Yesterday I got an email from Ebay saying I had to pay the first seller immediately or I’d get a black mark against my name or something - and possibly have my account suspended. I’ve been buying from Ebay for over ten years and always pay as soon as I win/purchase the item. I emailed Ebay telling them the story re the address and non replies from the seller. Neither the seller nor Ebay have replied.
Good lord you are patient - if the seller does not respond within 48 hours I contact ebay. To tell you the truth I would have contacted ebay or paypal as soon as there was a problem - easier than trying to deal with a seller who speaks no English. I’m pretty sure the "unacceptable address’ thing was a paypal problem anyway rather than the seller.