I had a similar thing. Buyer opened an INR 6 weeks after I posted. She had a PO box in a small town and the tracking showed as delivered. I told her she would lose a dispute as the tracking showed as delivered. I also suggested she check with her PO. They said it must have been put in the wrong PO box, but remembered the parcel.
She closed the case and left negative feedback. I had been in touch with eBay throughout the course of the dispute (via email) and I sent them another email requesting the neg to be removed and shock horror, it was gone 20 minutes later VIA EMAIL. I noticed after the fact that she had bought from one of my other account previously and I'd had no problems, but that account has way more feedback than this one. I wasn't sure if maybe she was trying it on with a "new" seller.
I refuse to bribe people into not leaving negs. They are a coloured dot on a screen. They aren't going to dictate my life. If they leave them, they leave them. A neg on that account would have made me look bad as at that point I only had about 5 feedback, but I still wasn't that worried. I could have just ditched that account and created a new one if it affected my sales.
I've had 2 negs on my main account and it didn't affect sales at all. I think the fact that it was my error and I admitted it was my fault in the reply made a big difference. As I said on another thread, most buyers don't care about negative feedback in a lot of cases. However, if they see a seller abusing the buyer, calling them a thief or a scammer, it doesn't give them much confidence in that seller. If a seller leaves a professional reply, taking responsibility if it's their fault, it gives buyers the confidence that if they encounter an issue, it will be dealt with professionally.
