why does ebay feedback often close before a delivery has been made

[shatojak1]

With long delivery items Ebay feedback can close within the delivery period so if no delivery is made you cannot give bad feedback. This has happened once and the items were never delivered. It appears to be happening again. This practice appears to encourage and make it easy for bad sellers

[shatojak1]

The supplier was from Hong Kong, they are still selling on Ebay. Each time I checked the order it showed a new delivery date, just a few days away, but the product never arrived.

I contacted them after waiting many weeks, they said they would send the items again. Neither sets of items ever arrived.

I contacted them again requesting the second delivery date, they did not respond.

By then there was no feedback option.

When I finanally established that they had no intention of supplying I bought the product from another supplier with no problems. 

It was not a high cost item but the long period waiting for the order to be completed was very annoying.

I had no idea how to open a dispute. I have no idea how to contact Ebay.

I have bought dozens of items on Ebay quite sucessfully.

[shatojak1]

I can't see your logic. How does closing feedback before the end of a long delivery period benifit buyers?

You appear to have a biased opinion.

[repentatleisure1952]

"no idea how to open a dispute"

I call lunchmeat.

The eBay Money Back Guarantee is clearly displayed on the  listing.

[tazzieterror]

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@shatojak1 wrote:

I can't see your logic. How does closing feedback before the end of a long delivery period benifit buyers?

You appear to have a biased opinion.

and

With long delivery items Ebay feedback can close within the delivery period so if no delivery is made you cannot give bad feedback. This has happened once and the items were never delivered. It appears to be happening again. This practice appears to encourage and make it easy for bad sellers

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You said long shipping times where the feedback window closes before delivery encourages and makes it easy for "bad sellers".  Encourages them to do what exactly? What might a seller do differently if they suspect an item will arrive after feedback is closed?

They can't send nothing - a buyer can still claim their payment through eBay or PayPal. Likewise if they send something different or damaged. So what does a seller stand to gain? I say nothing.  And they'd be gambling anyway - their shipment might catch a lucky break and make it onto a plane, arriving with plenty of time for feedback.

A bad buyer on the other hand - they can certainly take advantage of the delayed shipping, and the selling section of this forum is peppered with sellers complaining of refund cases closed against them for items still in transit that were later delivered, and a buyer who's gone to ground.

Such a buyer, encouraged by knowledge of likely delays, risks at worst getting what they paid for in a reasonable amount of time, but is hoping a delay nets them both a refund and the item's eventual delivery. And this is exactly why most sellers shut down international shipping when the extent of the delays — and eBay's failure to account for them properly — became apparent.

So no, sellers don't gain anything - sellers are at the mercy of bad buyers.

And I'm not biased - I'm not a bad seller 

[padi*0409]

"A bad buyer on the other hand - they can certainly take advantage of the delayed shipping, and the selling section of this forum is peppered with sellers complaining of refund cases closed against them for items still in transit that were later delivered, and a buyer who's gone to ground.

Such a buyer, encouraged by knowledge of likely delays, risks at worst getting what they paid for in a reasonable amount of time, but is hoping a delay nets them both a refund and the item's eventual delivery. And this is exactly why most sellers shut down international shipping when the extent of the delays — and eBay's failure to account for them properly — became apparent.

So no, sellers don't gain anything - sellers are at the mercy of bad buyers."

Unfortunately tazzie, so very true...............

[4channel]

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@shatojak1 wrote:

I can't see your logic. How does closing feedback before the end of a long delivery period benifit buyers?

You appear to have a biased opinion.

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I certainly hear you shatoiak1! The close of feedback before the end of a long delivery benefits no honest or dilligent person.  That's why I threw up for discussion here that the feedback time be restored to the pre-2008 allowing time of three months. I forgot to add that I have been strung along by 4 sellers in the past who said they'd rectify a situation. Because I have a life outside of here, I don't have time to check emails and reply all the time. Anyway, I bought an item from a guy in Europe some years ago and he said he had another one that would replace the defective one. By the time I realised he never sent it, the FB time had run out. Another seller in Australia last year deliberately took long times to reply to me and by the time I remembered about FB, it was too late. I tried to get my money back from PayPal but it didn't happened. The item was a book. A dirty filthy book with insect feces on the cover. The sod deliberately sent it to me with a description that was misleading.

Some sellers will string buyers along unitl the buyers options have run out. Sometimes FB is the best leverage to keep the sods honest. (Talking about the bad ones OK)

[repentatleisure1952]

I hear ya.

It is so time consuming to open a case for NAD.

Last year it took me nearly a minute to open two cases & the same amount of time to escalate & receive a refund.

I should have spent a month going back & forth with the seller.

[springyzone]

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@shatojak1 wrote:

The supplier was from Hong Kong, they are still selling on Ebay. Each time I checked the order it showed a new delivery date, just a few days away, but the product never arrived.

I contacted them after waiting many weeks, they said they would send the items again. Neither sets of items ever arrived.

I contacted them again requesting the second delivery date, they did not respond.

By then there was no feedback option.

When I finanally established that they had no intention of supplying I bought the product from another supplier with no problems. 

It was not a high cost item but the long period waiting for the order to be completed was very annoying.

I had no idea how to open a dispute. I have no idea how to contact Ebay.

I have bought dozens of items on Ebay quite sucessfully.

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There's your problem, right there. You have no idea how to open a dispute. Time to learn. Read up the terms & conditions & processes. Hopefully you won't need them in the future, but tuck the knowledge away, just in case.

It sounds to me as if the problem isn't the time allowed for feedback but more the fact you waited too long.

Tuckcase made a comment that it only takes a moment to open an official case and that no one should spend weeks going back & forth with a seller. That basically is the bottom line.

If an item does not arrive within a few days of the expected arrival date, you are best to just open an item not received claim. Some sellers will try to string you along for weeks till the time for doing anything has passed.

You may not be able to give feedback but the good news is that if you paid via paypal, you can possibly still open a claim with them for your money back. You get 180 days.

Go on, read up how to make a claim and follow through with that claim. Having to refund you will hurt a seller as much if not more than getting bad feedback.

[4channel]

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@repentatleisure1952 wrote:

I hear ya.

It is so time consuming to open a case for NAD.

Last year it took me nearly a minute to open two cases & the same amount of time to escalate & receive a refund.

I should have spent a month going back & forth with the seller.

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It takes a minute to open a case but that's after having to get a couple or more replies from a seller before opening a case. I like to see where it's going so me and seller can resolve an issue amicably . And for me to determine if an item is NAD, it may take a week of running an item if it's a 35 plus year old hi-fi item. Capacitors dry out and leak and they have a mind of their own sometimes.

And that all goes out the window when items are taking nearly as long or longer than the feedback time allows.

Also, when you're assessing a high-end piece of hi-fi equipment, there's a lot more to it than just what the ear tells you.

A friend of mine was victim to a dirty cunning trick where the seller had hot-wired a dead channel on a 4 channel system to another live one. It was cleverly done and it was only discovered when I checked each one individually and used a multi-meter to get the levels and resistance checked of each output, on and off. Then the very heady item had to be repacked, carried back to a bus company to ship it to the seller. A big effort after ringing up seller and getting a false promise.

I have had at least 4 cases that I can immediately recall where Paypal has sided with the seller, leaving me with a valueless or damaged item.  In another case where PayPal stepped in and payed me out of their own purse, I had to send (inferior and creased) item back to seller and from memory, pay for it myself. PayPal only part refunded me. This US seller r*******t sells memorabilia, records, books and often misleads buyers about the items which are nothing more than pages pulled out of magazines.  Being able to give a neutral or negative is a valuable warning to other unsuspecting customers. Oh and guess what, this was years ago and I ran out of FB time.  More to the story = Yes!

[repentatleisure1952]

So why would you spend time going back & forth about a dirty filthy book?

Me...straight to NAD.