When sellers are bad

[george744]

I've been on Ebay for 20 yrs as a buyer and a small seller.

Overwhelmingly sellers are fantastic and value their reputation.
There are of course a few bad apples

By way of comparision - I recently bought a small item (a few bucks). The seller was away on leave but had that posted on their site. They still contacted me after the payment to ensure I was happy to wait. They provided a tracking number.

On the other hand I am current in dispute with another vendor. Their postage fees were not transparent, they said they's dispatched an item after 10 days of nothing, they faled to provide tracking info.

I opened a compliant with Ebay when the item failed to arrive.

The seller responded with vague answers and gave the overall impression they were hiding details.

Yesterday, whilst I was on the chat to an Ebay agent (thats 20 days after I paid) the seller actually posted the item (as discolsed in the finally obtain tracking number). The seller sent limited info on this and failed to actually mention it wasn't posted until 10 days after they said. I only found that by going to Aussie post.

What's even more frustrating is that this seller as 30 current negative feedbacks ALL on exactly the same issues - no stock, no postage, no commumnication and no refund.

I should have chcked.

I did try to leave my negative feedback but Ebay has withheld that ... Hmm, ponder on that.

My question is when will Ebay stop recalcitrant sellers.

Surely this vendors histrory is enogh for sanctions?

I do hae supporting evidence but will not upload this as it may be called upon should I open further legal action

[*tippy*toes*]

Legal action is expensive and pointless against most eBay sellers. You might think that the seller would have to pay all costs should you win, but that can't be enforced. You would be out of pocket a lot of money, for how much?

EBay won't do anything about shonky sellers because people continue to buy from them. If their feedback drops down to -5, then they get shut down. It was up to you to check the feedback prior to buying, not complain after the fact.

If the seller is rate top seller, then you have to wait a certain time before leaving negative feedback. If it's been more than 60 days since the sale, then you can't leave feedback at all.

[eburtonlab]

eBay does not judge sellers by feedback comments; feedback is there for buyers to use to decide whether they want to do business with a seller.

eBay measures seller performance by whether items are shipped on time or delivered on time, whether cases are opened, whether cases are resolved by eBay having to step in, whether items are cancelled for being out of stock. Because of the time between when an item is sold and when a case is resolved, there is often a long delay between a sale and any repercussions for nonperformance.

You can avoid a lot of headaches by examining seller feedback closely before making a purchase. A high feedback number or a good percentage is not necessarily a sufficient measure; if the seller is also a buyer, much of the feedback may be for purchases. Check to see how long a seller has been selling items in the category you are interested in, and how long the seller has been receiving feedback for selling those items. Check any negative feedback comments for indications of item location misrepresentation, out of stock cancellations, or other troubling patterns.

You may still wind up dealing with a bad seller at some point, and even otherwise good sellers can have bad days, but by limiting your purchases to experienced sellers that have an established track record, you can sidestep many problems.

[twyngwyn]

I did try to leave my negative feedback but Ebay has withheld that ... Hmm, ponder on that.

I can see the f/b you left??

[jellybirddesigns]

You don't need to get into conversations with a seller.

You don't need to contact Chat either - what, exactly, will they do?

If an item doesn't turn up when expected, just open a case for INR.

This puts the ball in the sellers court to respond within a certain time frame to the dispute.

The seller then has limited options within the dispute, namely to either provide a tracking number or refund. There may be another resolution option, but I haven't had a dispute for so long that the case parameters might have changed a little.

If the seller doesn't respond within the 3-4 days allowed, the case will close out in your favour. Finished.

Then move on.

What legal action do you possibly think you could take which would be worth your while?

[lyndal1838]

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@george744 wrote:

What's even more frustrating is that this seller as 30 current negative feedbacks ALL on exactly the same issues - no stock, no postage, no commumnication and no refund.

I should have chcked.

"I should have checked".....says it all really.  The seller's feedback is atrocious.....I would have hit the back button in double quick time.  Why would you think your experience would be any different?

I did try to leave my negative feedback but Ebay has withheld that ... Hmm, ponder on that.

Which seller was your last neg left for.....the one mentioned above or have you had 2 horrible transations?

My question is when will Ebay stop recalcitrant sellers.

Surely this vendors histrory is enogh for sanctions?

Probably not any time soon.  Buyers are given the tools to protect themselves from bad sellers.  Do your own due diligence instead of expecting others to do it for you.

By reading the feedback you would have known what to expect.

I do hae supporting evidence but will not upload this as it may be called upon should I open further legal action

Have you actually received the item?  If so, what legal action do you think you can take?  If not, open a dispute for item not received and get a refund.

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[katistrophik]

According to seller's reciprical feedback item has been received - signed for?

And as you said Lyndal, I would have run a mile at the sellers FB

[4channel]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

"I should have checked".....says it all really.  The seller's feedback is atrocious.....I would have hit the back button in double quick time.  Why would you think your experience would be any different?

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Yes indeed!

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@katistrophik wrote:

According to seller's reciprical feedback item has been received - signed for?

And as you said Lyndal, I would have run a mile at the sellers FB

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Absolutely!

Feedback is an invaluable tool when it comes to determining if a buy is a safe one.  So many headaches, heartaches would have been avoided if people have taken the time to research. Actually, clever buyers do this research. I now do as I have had some horrific experiences in the past.

[springyzone · Accepted solution]

As I read through this thread, my thoughts were a bit the same.

It is ironic because in a lot of discussions about feedback, people are prone to comment that they don't sell for a green dot and if they buy, they don't buy in order to give feedback.

Both comments are completely true, people sell to make money and they buy because they want whatever it is they are buying.

We're even sometimes told that feedback is increasingly irrelevant.

Yet when someone buys and comes in here to talk about a bad experience, they are usually told they should have checked feedback.

What that says to me is feedback has a place and on ebay, a reasonably important place. On here, we're dealing with thousands of different sellers and it's definitely not a level playing field, some are better than others. Any seller who gave me the run around or lied to me, didn't have transparent fees etc would probably get a neg from me too these days. 

George's comments in feedback would be potentially helpful to other buyers. Someone said he has been able to leave some, so that's good.

But back to george's question.

My question is when will Ebay stop recalcitrant sellers.

Surely this vendors histrory is enogh for sanctions?

As long as the seller is still sending items and not obviously scamming, I would guess ebay will leave them alone. But from all I have read, if a seller has a lot of claims opened against them, then their selling account could be affected. I'm not a seller so i don't exactly know when it would kick in, but I think I read a while ago that sellers with a downgraded account or who don't sell as much may pay slightly higher % fees?

So the incentive is there for regular sellers to try to avoid disputes and to provide a timely service.

[george744]

Thank you and also to everyone who replied

1) Yes I did conceed that I should have done more checking. My bad but there were only limited sellers for the product desire

2) I note some arh well you got it and yes EVENTUALLY but the sellers words were at best evasive.

3) With each passing day I was give a little more info.
E.g the seller said it was signed for interesting when the original postage method did not require this.
I was led to bleive this was a new package but the seller said it was sent with the same tracking number. I find it hard to beleive that Aussie post would recycle a tracking number - this could cause chaos.

4) What were the core failure?
a) my lack of due dilligence

b) The excessively long delay in shipping in the first place - 10 days
c) The failure of the vendor to truly accept ownership - "all they needed to say is we fouled up, the shipping info we provided was incorrect and it never left the store, we'll rectify now". Rather they chose to use evasive language.

I note some say litigation is expensive or can't be done.
Yes it's costly and with small calims that cost is predominatley time but it can and has been done succesfully on poor vendors.

Anyhow, thanks again and hopefully more will report issues such as this in the future.