Customer threatening with legal action because of negative feedback.

[retrogamestoreau]

I need advice on how to handle this situation because it is very unusual. Here is what happened.

A seller sold an video game to a buyer on eBay which was faulty. The games contain a little lithium cell battery which is used to store save state on the cartridge, this battery was dead so esentially the game was worthless to the buyer. There was no mention of this in the listing.

Obviously the customer was upset and to attempt to fix the situation the seller promised they would send them a replacement battery that they could install themselves to repair the game.

I sell these batteries. So the seller purchased a battery from me and requested I send it to their buyers address which was obviously different to the one listed in their Paypal account. Normally I would not do this because I understand it violates the conditions of Paypals seller protection, but it was a cheap item so I decided to facililate and sent the battery to his customer knowing I would not be protected if they claimed it did not arrive.

That's exactly what happened. The customer that purchased the game never recieved the battery and as a result left negative feedback for the seller and now the seller believes I am responsible for loss of income as a result of this negative feedback and is threatening with legal action. They also opened a missing items case against me. I've responded to that by sending the item to his original address and provided eBay with the tracking details.

Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

[ircinic-7]

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@retrogamestoreau wrote:

That's exactly what happened. The customer that purchased the game never recieved the battery and as a result left negative feedback for the seller and now the seller believes I am responsible for loss of income as a result of this negative feedback and is threatening with legal action.

They also opened a missing items case against me. I've responded to that by sending the item to his original address and provided eBay with the tracking details.

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Morning Ninja

We can only wish the ' seller ' well with that one.

Courts would be chocker if anyone with a neg decided to ' take legal ' (smile) action.

The item was faulty in the first place ' said seller ' has very selective memory ' convenient ' .

[retrogamestoreau]

Thanks for the reply. I was pretty sure I shouldn't be worried. I think it would be awkward for him to have to explain to the courts that he got negative feedback as a result of essentially creating a fraudulent listing. lol.

[lyndal1838]

Why didn't the buyer enter his buyers address when going through checkout.  There would have been no need for you to have lost your seller protection.

[retrogamestoreau]

I know. I'm kicking myself. I should have just cancelled the order and got him to repurchase like I do every other time this happens.

[kopenhagen5]

Yep, always cover yourself and in doing so you are also teaching everyone else what should be done.

The legal action is nothing but hot air, the seller won't spend money on that.

And even if they did, you followed their request and the action between seller and original buyer has nothing to do with you.

For all anyone knows they were always going to leave a neg because the game didn't work originally.

[1781anna]

I would also add the original sellers ID to your banned bidders list so they cannot buy from you just to leave negative feedback

[retrogamestoreau]

I definitely did do that already, but thank you 🙂

[4green2000]

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@retrogamestoreau wrote:
Thanks for the reply. I was pretty sure I shouldn't be worried. I think it would be awkward for him to have to explain to the courts that he got negative feedback as a result of essentially creating a fraudulent listing. lol.

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i would of said "yes please take it to the courts" pretty please..i would of filmed the judges on the floor laughing their "a" off.

[retrogamestoreau]

This guy keeps persisting. It's becoming very frustrating. He really thinks it is my fault. He supplied me with the details of his customer and funnily enough the guy is a repeat customer of mine and I've never had any problems with him. Can I report this guy? He keeps harrassing me and will not take responsibility for his error.