BriarBlues
Active member
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2007
- Messages
- 31
- Reaction score
- 1
Oh the joy of selling on E-Bay. Please excuse me, as I am about to rant. I need to vent a little, so if you do not wish to read a rant, please ignore me.
I have seen a few posts about E-Bay and feedback. Why sellers hesitate to leave feedback until the buyer has left feedback. In all cases when I sell an item on E-Bay I leave positive feedback, once payment arrives, EVEN, if the buyer sends a check with the in correct name or a postal money order, which I can only cash in the US. Well right now I may re think my leaving feedback right away policy and here’s why.
A short while ago I sold a pre smoked Castello Sea Rock to a buyer in the Ukraine. Gevorg, I think his name was. He paid via Pay Pal, feedback was left and the pipe shipped. He received the pipe and I get an email telling me he thinks the pipe has a possible burn out issue. I suggest he sends the pipe back and I’ll issue a refund. No, he first wants to send me pictures and get a refund. I explained that taking a photo of any sea rock that was burned out will not be of any use as the photo might not be the pipe he bought. I ONLY give refunds if the good are returned. So the buyer starts a “dispute” in Pay Pal for a refund. There he states his case and I get to respond. And we can banter back and forth, all the while the funds are held in limbo. Except there is an option as the seller to end the dispute. You need only say, you’ll issue a refund if the good are returned. End of discussion. Buyer then must provide proof they have shipped the goods back. Then as the buyer you can release the refunds or wait and let Pay Pal do it after a certain time period.
After near 2 weeks in transit the goods had not arrived. I was pretty sure they had been “lost” so I issued the refund. Two days later the package arrived at my CDN address. I had clearly stated the item was to be shipped to my US address, as things going through Canada are always slow. Also I was “nailed” with a 14% duty, 5% GST, a 6% PST, plus a $5.00 fee to Canada Post for collecting the GST. But such is life. Pay the money, get the pipe.
I look in the bowl and indeed see some “spider webbing”. Indeed it might be a potential burn out. Ok, fine. So up to the bench goes the pipe. It is reamed back to the wood for further inspection and guess what? NO issues. The spider webbing is only in the cake. Wood is ok. So I sent the pipe to a friend, as it was written off the books. The pipe smokes well and has no issues.
Yesterday I get an email from the original buyer telling me that unless I Pay Pal him $15.00 US for the shipping, he’ll leave negative feedback. I said no, leave whatever feedback you’d like. If I pay him $15.00 now, and he does nothing, he can email next week and say Pay Pal me $20.00 or I’ll leave negative feedback and up until he does leave feedback he can try and “extort” money.
Well indeed he left negative feedback to which as the seller you can respond to and I have. This am I get an email telling me that he is going to post of two large Russian pipe groups and I will loose lots of customers.
All I can say is I do this for the joy. Not for the income. It’s buyers like this that really make me question why as a sellers we use E-Bay at all. Yes the coverage of buyers is huge. But as a seller, it takes only one buyer like this to make your miserable.
Yes there are some terrible sellers that offer no return policy and sell crap. On the other side there are buyers trying to scam the sellers. It is not a perfect system. You play the game, you take your chances. I really think my days of offering on E-Bay is coming to a dramatic slow down.
Sorry for the rant.
Regards
Michael J. Glukler
PS. There is no reason for anyone to post a reply to this thread. I really just needed to get this off my chest. To those that have read the above. Thanks. Sorry to have bored you.
I have seen a few posts about E-Bay and feedback. Why sellers hesitate to leave feedback until the buyer has left feedback. In all cases when I sell an item on E-Bay I leave positive feedback, once payment arrives, EVEN, if the buyer sends a check with the in correct name or a postal money order, which I can only cash in the US. Well right now I may re think my leaving feedback right away policy and here’s why.
A short while ago I sold a pre smoked Castello Sea Rock to a buyer in the Ukraine. Gevorg, I think his name was. He paid via Pay Pal, feedback was left and the pipe shipped. He received the pipe and I get an email telling me he thinks the pipe has a possible burn out issue. I suggest he sends the pipe back and I’ll issue a refund. No, he first wants to send me pictures and get a refund. I explained that taking a photo of any sea rock that was burned out will not be of any use as the photo might not be the pipe he bought. I ONLY give refunds if the good are returned. So the buyer starts a “dispute” in Pay Pal for a refund. There he states his case and I get to respond. And we can banter back and forth, all the while the funds are held in limbo. Except there is an option as the seller to end the dispute. You need only say, you’ll issue a refund if the good are returned. End of discussion. Buyer then must provide proof they have shipped the goods back. Then as the buyer you can release the refunds or wait and let Pay Pal do it after a certain time period.
After near 2 weeks in transit the goods had not arrived. I was pretty sure they had been “lost” so I issued the refund. Two days later the package arrived at my CDN address. I had clearly stated the item was to be shipped to my US address, as things going through Canada are always slow. Also I was “nailed” with a 14% duty, 5% GST, a 6% PST, plus a $5.00 fee to Canada Post for collecting the GST. But such is life. Pay the money, get the pipe.
I look in the bowl and indeed see some “spider webbing”. Indeed it might be a potential burn out. Ok, fine. So up to the bench goes the pipe. It is reamed back to the wood for further inspection and guess what? NO issues. The spider webbing is only in the cake. Wood is ok. So I sent the pipe to a friend, as it was written off the books. The pipe smokes well and has no issues.
Yesterday I get an email from the original buyer telling me that unless I Pay Pal him $15.00 US for the shipping, he’ll leave negative feedback. I said no, leave whatever feedback you’d like. If I pay him $15.00 now, and he does nothing, he can email next week and say Pay Pal me $20.00 or I’ll leave negative feedback and up until he does leave feedback he can try and “extort” money.
Well indeed he left negative feedback to which as the seller you can respond to and I have. This am I get an email telling me that he is going to post of two large Russian pipe groups and I will loose lots of customers.
All I can say is I do this for the joy. Not for the income. It’s buyers like this that really make me question why as a sellers we use E-Bay at all. Yes the coverage of buyers is huge. But as a seller, it takes only one buyer like this to make your miserable.
Yes there are some terrible sellers that offer no return policy and sell crap. On the other side there are buyers trying to scam the sellers. It is not a perfect system. You play the game, you take your chances. I really think my days of offering on E-Bay is coming to a dramatic slow down.
Sorry for the rant.
Regards
Michael J. Glukler
PS. There is no reason for anyone to post a reply to this thread. I really just needed to get this off my chest. To those that have read the above. Thanks. Sorry to have bored you.
