Idiots on eBay

I am fairly new to eBay, only have 4 or 5 purchases all together but I make DARN sure I know WHAT I am bidding on and I always make sure to pay.

 

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These are certainly falling in price. $900 was the price of a raw set.

 

I pay at the end of the auction or as soon as I'm invoiced depending on the terms. I know that there are some people that bid on tons of stuff and then don't have the money to pay for it and ask for delays. Frustrating for everyone because the sellers have to take this into account as well and set up certain requirements because of bidiots.

 

I am a power seller and a top rated seller and also an anchor store (un-related to coins). I spent an hour and a half on the phone they other day with a ebay rep venting my fustrastions about how every change they make is against sellers. He told me that there is going to be a major change coming to the feedback proccess that will basically make someone go through a long proccess in order to leave neutral or negative for a seller. I agree with you about not being able to leave negative FB for a buyer it kinda feels a little like being held hostage. I only have 7 neutrals and 1 neg out of 4000 most of which are related to our lovely postal service losing my stuff that I had made good on every time. I had 3 of those neutrals left by one person who I messaged to find out why and I had no response. How am I suppose to fix a problem if I don't know what it was?

 

I had a good one this morning.

I have a no reserve auction running for a piece of currency. Someone placed a bid and then retracted it... probably fishing for the other guys high bid... I messaged him and told him that wasn't cool and if he did it again I was going to block him from bidding. The bid retracted was for one cent over the high bid.

The underbidder then messaged me with :

"I WAS BID UP BY SOMEONE WHO HAS WITHDRAWN THEIR BID IF NOT FOR THIS PERSON MY BID WOULD BE $13.25 HOW DO YOU WANT TO HANDLE THIS ???"

He was totally incorrect as there was another bidder a quarter under his current high bid of $22.... This guy has a feedback of less then 30... seems like the same ole noob story.

How do I want to handle this?

I then explained how his issue was with EBay's policies of allowing bidders to retract bids... and with the bidder who had retracted his bid. And if he wasn't willing to pay more then $13.25 then why did he obviously bid higher???

Le sigh.

 

That should actually read, "I swear, people should have to pass an IQ test before being allowed out in the world to do anything with the rest of society." :yes:

 

Here is my story. I listed a toned MS65 Morgan Dollar with a $500 BIN or Best Offer. A guy with a feedback of 5 messages me instead of submitting a best offer asking me what the bottom dollar I would accept. Considering that my E-Bay store just opened, I tried to be accomodating and gave him a dollar amount instead of just telling him to submit his offer through the system. After getting my lowest offer, he asks for $20 off that price. That left me at a break even situation on the coin but because of the advanced toning, I knew it would be difficult to sell otherwise so I accepted the offer. He then sends me a message saying that he can't make any more offers on the coin so he is going to use his E-Bay alt which has a feedback of 0.

My policy is that buyers must make payment within 3 days of auction close. Well, 3 days pass, and guess what, no payment. I assume that he forgot that he bought it under his alt account and send him an invoice with a friendly reminder. He responds by asking for more time to pay. I give him 10 days to pay at which point he stops his communication and forces me to file an unpaid item case to recover my FVF and had to relist the item. And for my generosity, I get to block 2 bidders instead of one.

My opinion is that if an E-Bay bidder under 50 feedback has an unpaid item case opened and successfully closed on them, they should be NARU'd. Kinda like a probationary period. Also, since the E-Bay newbies are such problem children, they should not have the ability to give negative feedback to a seller until they reach the 50 positive feedback.

 

That makes sense, so eBay will never do it. Sellers are held hostage by bad buyers, due to eBay's anti-seller bias.

 

I am confused. I thought us buyers never got any feedback anymore. How then would a buyer get over 50 feedback in order to even get involved in the system? I know I have bought a lot more since they removed feedback to buyers, so my account only has a few hundred feedbacks, but I have bought maybe 500 more lots since then.

Not saying it doesn't suck what happened to you Lehigh, I agree that situation sucks. I am merely asking how your proposal would work. Maybe I am wrong about buyer feedback.

 

If they email you first you have the opportunity to block them until you evaluate them to your liking. It doesn't work 100% of the time but it helps.

 

Here is a fresh idiot story, from today. I bid on a banknote but didn't win yesterday. Today I get a second chance offer from that seller for 3 more banknotes, not the one that I bid on. I've asked for scans and finally managed to get 3 links for a website that got blocked by my anti-virus. Not a deal breaker, I used an online service to retrieve the 3 images without actually visiting the shady website.

Image #1 - Banknote with a bit more wear, definitely not worth the price in original second chance offer.

Image #2 - Extremely explicit pornographic image.

Image #3 - Another banknote with more wear.

I found it amusing, but the seller, knowing about 10-15 words in English, just couldn't realize what am I talking about when I messaged him asking for a proper banknote image.

Few messages later, the verdict is: he is an idiot, I should stay away.

 

Both buyers and sellers still leave feedback. The only change that took place was that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback. If you buy multiple items within the same week from the same seller it only counts as one feedback, not one per item. Here is the lowdown on E-Bay feedback.

All About E-Bay Feedback

The situation that happened to me is much easier to handle than auction listings which involve multiple people. I am just saying, how do you negotiate a price and then fail to pay. I don't understand why people are buying $500 coins if their financial situation has them floating their bank account.

 

Thanks for correcting me. I guess maybe I spend too much with too few sellers to move my feedback.

Sorry again about the coin. You never know with people though. My cousin literally has garage sales to afford diabetes medication, but will go to the bank to remortgage his pickup to be able to buy a fishing boat. Some people literally have no financial sense.

I do hope it works out for you sir.

 

It's there.. you can block them. Under Buyers Requirements in your Preferences.

[h=3]What are buyer requirements?[/h]You can block buyers from bidding on or purchasing your items by specifying buyer requirements. You can block buyers who:

• Don't have a PayPal account
  
• Have unpaid items recorded on their account
  
• Have a primary shipping address in countries you don’t ship to
  
• Have reportedly violated eBay policies
  
• Have a Feedback score lower than the number you specify
  
• Are currently winning or have bought 1-100 of your items in the last 10 days (you can specify the number)
  
  
  

 

Seriously? They chopped one foot off the feedback system, and their solution to "improve" it is to put the other foot in a bucket of cement?

An imbalance of power is only one aspect of the feedback system's failure. The big problem is that there are malicious buyers out there, and there is NO way for sellers to identify them.

Here's why I stopped selling on eBay.

Several years ago, I listed a $1600 camera for a friend. The "winner" hit "Buy It Now", sent PayPal, then immediately filed a complaint that I hadn't shipped the item, blocking the payment. Yep, PayPal let them file an "item not received" complaint within a few seconds of making the purchase.

Within an hour or so, they canceled the complaint, and PayPal reported the funds cleared. At that point, PayPal said I should go ahead and ship the camera to their confirmed address. I was nervous, but my friend wanted to go ahead, so he hauled the camera off to the UPS affiliate and paid them to box it and ship it.

The next day, AFTER my friend had dropped the camera off at the shipper, I got email from PayPal saying that the transaction may have been unauthorized, and that I probably shouldn't ship the camera. Within a few hours, I got a notice that the payment had been reversed due to non-delivery (26 hours after the auction closed!), then another notice that the payment had been reinstated and I should go ahead and ship.

The camera had already gone out UPS. It got to the confirmed address (in TX), and threw an exception -- "no longer at this address". It went back to UPS, then got redirected to the buyer's new address, in NC, less than 100 miles from us. Problem: the new address was NOT a PayPal confirmed address!

I called PayPal, and after some escalation, got through to an actual, live, helpful person. The upshot: "Seller Protection" only applies if (a) you use trackable shipping [ok], (b) you ship to a confirmed address [ok], and (c) it's actually DELIVERED to that confirmed address. So, even though I shipped to a confirmed address, and even though the redirection to a new address happened without my approval or cooperation, I was not covered under Seller Protection, because the address to which the camera would finally be delivered was not a confirmed address. The recipient could've taken the camera, told eBay "well, I didn't get it!", and we would've been out $1600+.

We ended up recalling the shipment, and eating something like $60 in packing and shipping fees. We did get the FVF refunded; yay, I guess.

And, after all this, I was offered the choice of leaving positive feedback or... nothing. As a seller, you can't even leave NEUTRAL feedback any more. So, there was absolutely no way for me to warn other sellers about this scammer and her neat end-run around "Seller Protection".

eBay is still a great place for buyers, and since there are still people selling stuff there, I have to assume that crooked buyers are a small minority. But, as things stand now, there's not a thing you as a seller can do to protect yourself from them. Brrr.

 

I think your reply explains the newbie situation completely.

 

A minor clarification, sellers can no longer leave negative OR NEUTRAL feedback.

More appropriately, sellers can ONLY leave Positive Feedback. An it has to be nice or else it'll get yanked.

 

• 
  
  It may SAY that but it doesn't DO that. If you go to the "Buyer Requirements" on the Site Preferences page of Your Account, you'd see that:
• [TABLE="width: 100%"]
  
  [TD="width: 100%"]Select requirements[/TD]
  [TD="width: 6"] [/TD]
  [/TABLE]
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  [TD="width: 100%"]Important: Select buyer requirements carefully - they may reduce your selling success. The requirement(s) you select will be applied to your current and future listings, except as noted. eBay encourages you to learn more by visiting the Buyer Requirements Help page. [/TD]
  
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  [TD="width: 100%"]Buyers without a PayPal account
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Block buyers who don't have a PayPal account. (Note: This block only applies to future listings and can be disabled per item on the Sell Your Item form.)

  This requirement can help you avoid Unpaid Items, as PayPal account holders have up to an 80% lower Unpaid Item rate.

  [/TD]
  
  
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  [TD="width: 100%"]Buyers with Unpaid Item strikes
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Block bidders and buyers who have received Unpaid Item strike(s) within month(s)

  This requirement can help you avoid bidders and buyers with a history of not paying for the items they have agreed to purchase.

  [/TD]
  
  
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  [TD="width: 100%"] Buyers in locations to which I don't ship
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Block buyers whose primary shipping address is in a location I don't ship to.

  This requirement can help you avoid buyers who agree to purchase your items without realizing you don't ship to their location.

  [/TD]
  
  
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  [TD="width: 100%"]Buyers with policy violation reports
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Block buyers who have Policy violation report(s) within month(s)

  This requirement can help you block buyers who have been reported to have violated eBay policies.

  [/TD]
  
  
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  [TD="width: 100%"]Buyers with a negative feedback score
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Block buyers who have a feedback score of or lower.

  This requirement can help you avoid buyers who have received more negative than positive feedback from other eBay members bidding on your item.

  [/TD]
  
  
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  Buyers who may bid on several of my items and not pay for them Block buyers who are currently winning or have bought of my items in the last 10 days. Only apply this block to buyers who have a feedback score of or lower.

  Consider selecting this requirement if you are selling expensive items and don't want to sell over a certain number to any single buyer. Learn more about how this requirement works.
  
  [/TD]
  
  
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  Apply above settings to active and future listings.

  Existing bids will not be affected.
  Turbo Lister will pick up these settings after you sync each item with eBay. Third-party listing tools will pick up these settings after you synchronize the tools with eBay.
  
  [/TD]
  
  
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  Don't allow blocked buyers to contact me. (Buyer will not see the "Contact Seller" button on your Q&A page.)

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BTW, reading eBay auctions is right up there with reading threads BEFORE posting~!

Although, sometimes, like me, there are folks who read a reply and immediately form an opinion. That opinion stays until its re-addressed somewhere else or as in my case, continuing to read the thread.

Its unfortunate but its also human nature. We might not be as quick as a cats with our reactions but we try. Well, at the very minimum, I try.

 

Because he is an idiot.