CONTACTING the Seller!

[vauxbed]

Have you ever sent messages to your seller and wondered why you never had a reply, or at least one that maderefernce to your questions ? or worse still heard nothing but got a NPB dipute opened against you with NO warning ?

Then this could be the reason: It has taken many months of research and the co-operation of (some) sellers to verify this:

.

When sending Emails I have a habit of “indenting” the body of the message, unfortunately EBay messaging apparently does not support this (No HTML, No special characters etc.)

The result being that the entire body of the message is washed down the sewer by EBay, whilst diligently reporting back “your message has been forwarded to the seller”. Thanks very much EBay! I get understandably Pee’d off when I spend much effort wording and two fingered typing messages only to get no reply or at worst a non-paying bidder strike with no correspondence from some sellers.

Anyway it is like this, you send a message like: 

Hi Bill

            I have ..............................................a friend who can pick it up for me and mind it until further transport can be arranged or        I  make a trip to your state/city. His name is .......................... please advise if this is suitable?

           Please provide your phone number and I will get you in touch with each other, .........................

Regards

John.

The Seller receives a message like this:

Hi Bill

Regards

John.

and thinks you are just stalling, or continuing to arrange freight.

Whilst you are assured by EBay that your message has been forwarded to "seller name" (your seller).

You then wonder why you don't get any communication from the seller or just blunt messages "......please advise when you intend picking up item ..." or "...no contact; no payment..."

EBay should lift their game and bring their messageing system into the current century and be more comparable with Email in general.

I don't mean, and I don't want to see "smileys" and other BS in the messages, but just simple indentation, bold and italics and perhaps above all a "spell checker" for those EBayers who are notorious at typos and bad spelling.

[zenremix777]

That's weird. I suggest you don't indent your messages anymore.

[phorum_junkie*]

As a seller if I haven't heard from a buyer re a pick up item after 3 days I pull their contact details and give them a call, as a buyer if I have not had a response to an email regarding a pick up item after a couple of days I would pull their contact details and phone them so no that is never going to be a problem for me.

As a buyer I always use Paypal for non pick up items so again no contact is needed with the seller. I am at a loss to know why any buyer or seller would allow a buyer to arrange their own freight and if it were the case then I would certainly want to call them and finalise the arrangements voice to voice over the phone.

In your scenario as soon as the unpaid item dispute was raised I would have been on the phone as anyone who has been on ebay for any more than a few months knows the message system can be totally unreliable.

[vauxbed · Accepted solution]

Yes! agree. I have already decicded that I must now be diligent in remembering to make sure there is No indentation in any EBay messages I send.

I wanted to bring this to the attention of other EBayers, as I have not seen any indication that EBay have made this clear to all members.

No HTML means No formatting! only Punctuation: Comma, Stop, Space, Return(enter),"quote" are o.k.

[vauxbed]

The Op I posted above is a generalization that covers several real eaxample,s and the names have been changed, as I am not pointing at anybody in particular.

Yes I have pulled the contact details from EBay Community, the fun can then begin all over again:

e.g. one case the contact (mob.ph. was out of date.

In another the mobile phone is hardly ever answered and several brief messages left, but no call back or EBay message.

We must all be wary that some sellers are unexpectedly indiposed for various reasons (e.g. sudden confinement to hospital for who knows how long, computer has major crash etc.)

Re the freight considerations: obviously there are many items for which you can just leave it to the seller to pack and post.

It is the buyer who is paying for the item; it is the buyer who is taking ownership of the item and It is the buyer who is paying for the postage(freight). When the item is valuable, potentially fragile or the components within are fragile then of course the buyer as the major stakeholder shoulkd have some say in the packing, and may even want it picked up to avoid possible damage in transit.

Also an exprieced buyer notyt only knoes the item hthey are buying but will be far more expperienced from unpacking and inspecting similar items than a lot of sellers who just box it and hand it over the P.O. counter.  Also there are some sellers out there who do know the items and how to pack them, I can trust them to pack anything, as I know the quality and relevance of their packing routine.

As for the unreliability of the EBay message system - I think I have uncovered at least one major reason for that, see O.P.

[lozza47]

I am continually getting "Please enter correct code" after every time i "send" a question to the seller (ask seller a question page) i have tried 12 times to "send" and it just comes back "please enter correct code"  I am definetly getting the code right (after 3 other people here watching what i enter.) WHAT IS GOING ON ?????????? Why is it so hard to contact EBAY with a question ?????????????

Regards  Laurie

[davewil1964]

This is a very old thread. I doubt many posters are still around.

You have answers on the thread you started, so no need to drag up old one to ask the same question.

[lyndal1838]

The code on the message system is the worst "security device" to ever be inflicted on buyers.  When it was first introduced it almost never worked first time...my personal record was 9 attempts to get it right.  Congratulations, your 12 attempts has topped mine.

From experience, all I can say is persevere.....it can only improve.

[brownowl-14]

They don't want to be contacted. They are so snowed under at present with everyone complaining (and rightly so) that they have gone to ground.

Actually they have probably all gone to hawaii on a staff ebay seminar and put the rejections on an automatic loop hoping that we will all be in the lunatic asylum, dribbling in the corner by the time they get back and won't know what day of the week it is, let alone care that we can't list or communicate.

It is Saturday, isn't it??????

[davewil1964]

They are trying to contact a seller, not eBay.