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Old 02-29-04, 07:14 PM  
FitBoop
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Angry I've had it with Ebay!

I recently listed a new piece of fitness equipment on Ebay. I had quite a few bids and the high bidder ended up giving me a sob story about how a water main broke the very instant that she won my auction, and that she couldn't pay me (but I searched her and she is bidding and buying stuff all over Ebay that day and in the days following). So, I ended up relisting the item. The auction ended today with several bids, and 10 minutes after the auction ended, the high bidder e-mails me and asks me to match the price of a large company that is selling the same item with FREE shipping (which would mean I would have to eat $12 in shipping costs and all the Ebay fees). Like the sap that I am, I said I would match the price! I am SO SO SO mad! My auction was explicit about shipping (I included a calculator) and that all questions should be asked before bidding. I looked up this bidder's feedback and she only has 9 feedbacks, and several negatives saying she backed out of the deal.

What bothers me about this whole thing is the fact that if I didn't go along with her, she could leave me negative feedback, which I don't want. I think Ebay needs to revise the feedback system because it isn't fair that people who back out of deals still have the opportunity to give bad feedback to an honest seller.

I have sold quite a few fitness videos and DVDs on Ebay, and for the most part, the transactions were fine. When you get a bad one though, it really leaves a bad taste.

How do you feel about selling your fitness things on Ebay?
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Old 02-29-04, 07:33 PM  
Debbie S.
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Hi Abbe. I agree with you about Ebay needing to change their feedback policy. It's not right that you should feel threatened to do the right thing and that is leaving a retraction feedback for the first buyer who backed out, and by telling your second buyer, "sorry, but I cannot match the price of a big company and I cannot ship this item for free!"

If you haven't done so, I highly recommend doing both. You can always refute their feedback if need be.
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Old 02-29-04, 07:41 PM  
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Hi Debbie. What's a retraction feedback? I already told the second one that I'd match the price, just to be done with the whole thing and not get the negative.
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Old 02-29-04, 07:41 PM  
Loretta S.
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I agree, Abbe. I've had only one negative experience on ebay, but it's pretty much soured me on the whole thing. I sold a VHS movie and the winner of the auction paid paypal. Several days later they emailed me that the tape didn't work (yes I had tested it before I sent it out and it played fine). So I promptly refunded his money via paypal only to find out that he had already posted negative feedback for me. Not only was it negative, it was down right nasty. I posted a response to it. But then I looked at his feedback profile and he pretty much had nothing but negative feedback. It sounded like he was doing bait and switch on people, selling them one thing and then sending them something else. If I had known that he was dishonest and so much negative feedback, I would never have sold to him. But I didn't know at the time that you could refuse bids from people with lots of negative feedback. The feedback system is not the best.

I much preferred half.com, because it took out the irritating element of having to collect money from people. But now that it's closing down, I guess I'll just sell stuff on Amazon if I can. I usually sell only books or videos.

I haven't bought much on ebay lately either, because it seems that too many people are trying to pad the shipping costs to avoid paying additional commission to ebay. The other problem that I've had on ebay is having people who bid, but don't read your payment terms. I've had auctions where I stated clearly that I would accept only paypal for payment and still had the winners of the bid email me begging me to let them send me a money order.
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Old 02-29-04, 07:43 PM  
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Hi Abbe. There is a way to post a retraction. If you look in the person's profile, you will see if that buyer has any retractions. Let me snoop around Ebay and see if I can find out how to do it.
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Old 02-29-04, 07:45 PM  
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Loretta, I've had many people not read the payment instructions, and send me a credit card payment when my auction says no credit cards in capital letters.

Is there a way to not sell to someone or void out a sale? I would love to void out this person's bid and take the second highest bidder.
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Old 02-29-04, 07:51 PM  
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Hi Abbe. It looks like the bidder can retract their bid, which then shows in their feedback. Unfortunately, this doesn't help you, because you are afraid of the negative feedback.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-retract.html

As a buyer, I do look at their feedback, but if the negative feedback is undeserving, I don't take it into account with my dealings with the seller. There are some buyers who will leave a negative feedback in a flash.
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Old 02-29-04, 08:02 PM  
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Sorry to hear this happened Abbe. Something my husband does on Ebay is that he doesnt allow people to bid on his or my auctions that have even one negative feedback. When you are the seller you can cancel the current bidder if you choose to. It saves alot of hassle in case they would win an auction.

I agree with what everyone else has said. There are still some people out there that are too quick to leave bad feedback. I hope you have better luck next time. Take care..Lissa..
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Old 02-29-04, 08:22 PM  
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Quote:
Originally posted by Debbie Stout
. . .As a buyer, I do look at their feedback, but if the negative feedback is undeserving, I don't take it into account with my dealings with the seller. There are some buyers who will leave a negative feedback in a flash.
This is SO important. Don't live in fear of undeserved negative feedback, and don't require 100% positive feedback. I readily buy from people with 95% and above positive--the more sales they have, the higher I require it to be. And I read the negative feedback, AND I read the feedback of the people LEAVING the negative feedback.

In nearly all of the cases where someone who's sold over 100 items has around 98% feedback, if you look at the people who've left the negative feedback, it's by these problem people. I'm not holding that against the seller I'm looking at--it's not his/her fault that some jerk won their auction. I've also seen cases where someone had a rash of negative feedback all during a short period of time, and the person responded to it and mentioned a death in the family or some other unexpected life-event that interfered with their selling duties. If all of their other feedback is positive (and particularly if they still left positive feedback for the people who gave them negative feedback), I will comfortably buy from them.

If you make it a practice of reading feedback (and not just looking for 100% positive), you'll see that there are a lot of chronically negative idiots buying stuff on ebay. They leave rude negative feedback at the drop of a hat ("It came in a blue box, the seller is clearly an idiot"). When someone has a negative comment that's rude, inarticulate, ranting, or otherwise unintelligible, I count it far less than when the negative feedback is clear, concise and reasonable. I also look at the responses to the feedback for the same sorts of criteria. If the response is rude, overly terse, hostile, or somehow indicating dishonerable business practices (e.g. the guy who responded to negative feedback stating that he was selling bootlegs by saying "what did they expect at this price?"), it tells me that I don't want to buy from this person. If they answer clearly, explain the situation calmly, and act professionally, I'm far more impressed.

When we don't research the feedback, and just count on 100% feedback, we give all of the power in these transactions to these freaks. That's probably what they count on, and that's what encourages them. They don't deserve this power!

Abbe, I think (fwiw ) you should have responded to her request by pointing out that the details were clearly listed, and told her that she should have emailed you prior to bidding if she wanted a different deal. And if she left negative feedback, you could have just pointed out that she was unhappy with the STATED terms of the sale, and that she has quite a bit of negative feedback. I'd still buy from you if I saw that.

Take care,
Kimberly
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Old 02-29-04, 08:24 PM  
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I have fortunately not had a bad experience w/eBay, but I'm fairly new to it. I did have one questionable transaction - the seller was REALLY slow with payment instructions - but it worked out. I was, however, reluctant to leave appropriate feedback; the seller had berated another buyer who complained about exactly the same thing and I didn't want the same thing to happen to me. And I wondered how many others had the same complaint and felt the same way... I know you can reply to the feedback, but you still get the -. Ain't that a shame? My answer is not to deal with the seller again, although he does sell things I am interested in. *shrug* This seller has thousands of positive feedbacks, BTW.

Anyway, I ramble. No, the feedback system is not perfect. I would take bidders with negative feedback on a case by case basis, and not worry if there's a stray negative or two in there. Seems you can usually read between the lines and get a semblance of the story.
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