"He tried to cuddle with me after we hooked up and i just looked at him and said why are you still here?"

Thursday, 21 April 2011

Why ebay should bring back the negative feedback option for sellers

I was an ebay seller for many years but when they changed the feedback system in 2008 so that sellers could only leave positive feedback for buyers, I gave it all up.

Recently, though, I have started selling again as I had a lot of stuff to get rid of so figured I would risk it.

However, while most of my transactions have gone brilliantly, I have had one dodgy one where I would love to leave (factual) negative feedback for the buyer.

I sold a designer handbag to someone in the US. The parcel was sent untracked but with proof of postage obtained for if I needed to make a claim; this is how I always send my international parcels unless they are very high value and then they are sent tracked for the extra insurance.

So anyway, about a fortnight after I sent it, the buyer emailed me and asked if I had a tracking number. I responded that I was very concerned it had not arrived and it had been posted on x date and can take up to 30 days, depending on customs, etc.

His response?

"Have received the bag - it is beautiful! - it's just if you don't have a tracking number, I am going to submit a claim through Paypal so I can have the bag for free and then you can claim through the postal service. Win-win!"

I responded that I, in fact, did have a tracking number and heard nothing more about it.

Of course, with Paypal, if someone submits a claim against you, they only listen to the seller if the seller has used an online-trackable postage method. If you don't have a tracking number, you automatically lose your case.

Now, I am completely opposed to sellers that leave retaliatory feedback and I do believe they should be banned but this is a case where someone was clearly trying to commit fraud and so there should be a way to warn other sellers. I cannot leave a false-positive feedback as they are against ebay rules and it will be pulled.

But no. I can't do a thing about it as ebay are going out of their way to alienate their sellers.

Kinda crap, don't you think?

1 comments:

Will said...

If you have proof they sent that email then you can use that in either your defence or to take action against the buyer for sugesting fraud.