Easy to do the right thing

[clubesquire]

We've been dealing with a gentle old chap, and gentleman he is, for a couple of months now, trying to find a particular high-end pipe for him. We found it and he's over the moon.

Before this though, he's bought two off eBay. Paid extraordinarily high prices and both were terribly flawed. He sent us pics and I can only assume the seller well knew of the flaws, but sold anyway with no mention of them. Being the dear old man that he is, he just copped it sweet - no neg feedback, but has identified the sellers to me. Their item descriptions and feedback say a lot about them, but I guess as we age, we miss those certain nuances that say 'beware.' His words were, 'Well, they must have needed the money more than I needed the pipes.'

I know it can't be avoided, certain apples never fall far from the tree, but I wonder if these rogue sellers (an assumption on my part), ever give kind thought to the people on the other end of their opportunism and deception, or thought for us, their fellow sellers and how it reflects generally on our reputations - it appears not.

On the one hand it's terribly disappointing - disgusting really, on the other it's been a wonderful experience. Doing the right thing was easy and it feels soooo good!

Using this as an example I can understand why the relationship between eBay and it's sellers is at an all time low, and why some of their autocratic and controlling policies exist. Decent sellers though, are copping it for the team!! There must be a way of rewarding good, honest sellers and cutting the bad away from the herd.

Melina

[kopenhagen5]

Quite agree. 

Need much strichter controls on immigration.

(One wouldn't put a go-kart racer straight into a Formula 1)

[digital*ghost]

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@kopenhagen5 wrote:

Much to our dismay, there exists people whom just don't give a rats, to be blunt.

Asian sellers come to mind especially Chinese. For them it is all about the almighty dollar with little or no regard for the trail of destruction left behind.

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The air they breathe is posionous, and the people there are often treated like slaves.

I'm pretty sure they're experiencing that destruction first hand.

[digital*ghost]

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@clubesquire wrote:

Using this as an example I can understand why the relationship between eBay and it's sellers is at an all time low, and why some of their autocratic and controlling policies exist. Decent sellers though, are copping it for the team!! There must be a way of rewarding good, honest sellers and cutting the bad away from the herd.

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eBay try, but the reason they are often unsuccessful is because they collect flawed data on buyer behaviour, concerns or preferences, and then package those as new features for sellers to either implement or lose some competitive edge. What they miss is that sellers have access to significantly better data about their customers than eBay ever could (and when I talk about data, I mean whether their buyers prefer free postage, or whether guaranteed delivery would suit their items and market etc). eBay apply these things indiscriminitely, and don't realise that if they are out of touch with sellers, they are also out of touch with buyers.

They also don't want to put actual man hours into it, with the resolution process, they don't want to train and pay staff to consider complaints objectively, or take evidence and / or long standing account history into account, because not only does that cost money, but people can be swayed in favour of sellers much more easily. If they use automated systems, they can set consistent expectations that work in favour of the demographic they're trying to keep the happiest (which is not sellers). 

This is just my opinion, of course, but I think eBay would rather let 100 scamming buyers get away with something, than have 1 honest buyer let down by their resolution processes. It still happens, of course, but I think that's the perspective they work from.