This is a follow on from my previous question; Does anyone know if Ebay allows (which they probably do not) the right of a seller to refuse service to a buyer.
Australian laws allow this legally so Ebay should also.
For example, shouldn't a seller have the right to not serve a buyer who has left say 20 negatives to other sellers in a short time frame believing that person seems intent of hrting other business on Ebay?
Yes, ebay allows you to block any member at all for any reason or no reason at all. It is called the Blocked Bidders List.
You can also prevent them from contacting you although this will not work if you have already had a transaction with them. You will have to wait for that transaction to time out before the Contact blocks will come into effect....90 days I think although I am not 100% sure of that.
There is no way of knowing who will buy from you. If someone makes a purchase and has numerous negatives towards sellers then you should have the right to refuse service by Australian law.
Ebay should either allow your right to cancel such a purchase or at least have a list where all users with a specific number of negatives left against others can be blocked to prevent this situation in the first place.
I have this ability on another site, and it definitely came in handy recently. Buyers don't actually have a feedback profile over there, so you can't look through their FB left for others to try and gauge potential for problems, but sellers can refund and cancel an order for any reason (no defects, and if set up correctly, or done within the right timeframe, no feedback can be left by the buyer). I would really like it if we had that kind of ability here, though as stawka mentioned, we kind of do, it's just that feedback can't be prevented, you can only request removal if it appears and hope for the best.
I doubt that ebay would introduce a similar thing here that acts as an official "service refused" option, though. I sometimes wonder if they are even aware that some people will actually turn away a paying customer by choice, and that it can be for good reason (I know they have effectively done that themselves, via suspending seller priveleges of members, but I also believe eBay considers buyers first and foremost, even though many members were / are both). Things like that are also open to a little more abuse on eBay, especially where auctions are concerned (eg didn't like the final price? just refuse service. It could also be used to attempt to manipulate buyers, eg to get them to pay by unsafe methods or service would be refused. Neither of these are issues on the other site in 99.9% of cases).
In my case on the other site, a buyer who had purchased two sets of an item that contains multiple components, came back and purchased an additional two sets and left a note claiming that there were parts missing from the first order (a combined value of less than 50c), and that they would appreciate it if I refunded their postage costs on the new order to compensate (international order, so P&H was just a little bit higher than 50c). That didn't sound right to me, because I sat down one night to make up the sets, picked each part from my own little "production line", counted each piece into a packet, then double checked that each packet weighed the same (actually picked up on a couple that didn't, so was able to recheck those and fix them), so there was no way that her packets were missing pieces. And even if they were, I take exception to A) not being notified so that I can check the remaining packets before any more get sold, and B) being told what and / or how to "compensate". So I refunded and cancelled the second order, citing quality control processes now need to take place.
I've been selling there for 3 years, and it was the first time I have ever done something like that, but I've always been glad to know I could.
I wanted to add this as a separate post, but I was reading a website the other day that was talking about adding a member's PayPal email address to the BBL - several people suggested this would prevent purchase from any ID associated with that PayPal account. Does anyone know if this is true?
I know you used to be able to add an email address to the BBL, but it had to be the eBay-registered one so was still ID-specific, and they actually removed the note that mentioned this from the info page a couple of years ago.
I'd like to see them adopt the same system that facebook uses. If you block someone there, they can't see any of your posts or communicate with you. Not being able to see any of your sale posts means they won't know to open a new account to get around the block, as so many do on ebay. I suppose I can always dream...
The BBL allows you to block buyers with xx negative feedbacks. What I would like to see is the option to block buyers who have left more than xx negatives for sellers. That would cut out the serial neg buyers.
I have been banned from buying from two sellers because i complained to them, no negative feedback, just complained about a product or the time it takes to send an item, i dont think this is right because they were upset over my comments to them and not bad feedback.
