eBay feedback help

What type of feedback would you leave for a seller based on this scenario?


You bid and win a (single) lot of coins on eBay and pay immediately through PayPal. After a week passes with the seller taking no action, the seller contacts you and says you still need to pay.


You send snapshots of the PayPal payment info and explain that you already have. Three days later, the seller replies and says she had an issue activating her PayPal account and wants you to pay again, this time through a bank transfer (not at all out of the ordinary to pay by bank transfer instead of PayPal in Europe). She also provides an email address for PayPal, which doesn't match what eBay had (one letter off, potentially a typo).


You cancel your payment and resend through PayPal to the proper email address provided by the seller. You send the seller a message letting her know you paid and provide screen shots. You also made a note in the PayPal payment notes section about the payment being for the eBay article, so the seller would know to reference it.

A week later, the seller finally messages you and says you still haven't paid and that you have five days to pay or she will open a case against you.

You wait four days and then open a case against the seller because you've paid and didn't get your coins. The seller responds rather nastily stating that you didn't pay the shipping costs and you're trying to cheat the system and get over on her. She also claims the payment didn't come through on PayPal for over a week and that is why she threatened to open the case. She won't ship until the shipping is paid for. She said the PayPal issues were your fault, despite the fact that you have almost twice as many transactions as she does, 95% through PayPal, never an issue.

Looking back at your PayPal money sent, you realize you made a mistake and under paid the second time around. The first time you paid the full amount, but on the second go around, you accidentally paid 25 cents less than you were supposed to. You had typed in the total costs, shipping included, but made a small error. You immediately pay the remaining 25 cents and the seller ships your coins two days later.

In summation, it took over three weeks to resolve an eBay transaction. The seller claimed you were scamming her and "not paying shipping costs" over a 25 cents difference, she messed up the first payment by putting the wrong info on the listing, she took 3+ days to respond each time, and claimed to not have seen a payment for over a week, despite the fact that we all know PayPal processes most payments in under 24 hours.

What rating would you leave this seller?

 

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First, I'd want to know if the account is that of a new seller, and then would be curious as to the amount of the sale.

I'm guessing that at the very least this was a very modest purchase, and since mistakes were made on both sides, wouldn't stress myself out about it, especially if the seller is new. eBay in many ways is nothing more than the world's largest yard sale, so expecting professional service across the board is somewhat unrealistic.

Based solely upon what is presently known, I probably wouldn't ding them, but might try wording my feedback in a way that hopefully sends a message to the seller without making it obvious to anyone reading it that the transaction was not entirely smooth. Hopefully they'll improve in time, but take comfort in the fact that if they don't, the next person may not be so generous.

 

It would depend if you got a good deal or not. If I where to deal with any of that I would want to make sure it's worth every penny of my time. The rating still would not be high. For you having to transfer your funds,stop payment,re-send, all while dealing her attitude. If I made out like a bandit with the transaction I would give two stars and leave it at that.

 

Wait, wait... I don't recall reading where the seller placed a gun to the OP's head forcing him into making, or wanting to make the purchase, so why on earth should the "deal", good or bad, impact feedback? This makes absolutely no sense, sir, and reeks of both deflection and blaming others for our own choices.

I'm sorry, but you managed to nail down the one aspect that should NEVER have a place when leaving feedback, and is simply because the decision to purchase was entirely the buyers.

 

Agreed leave good feedback or just don't leave feedback and move on.

 

It took awhile but looks like all is ending well, even after the frustration. Like a grain of salt, I would toss it over my shoulder. But that's me.

 

Just out of curiosity, could we see the coin?

 

Ohh... I like it!

 

Don't leave any feedback at all. That'll teach 'em a lesson.

 

If it were me, i might leave negative, but they'll cut your head off for that around here...Leave your feedback as an HONEST account of the entire transaction, that's what i'd do.

 

I probably would have stopped as soon as she started claiming paypal problems and giving another email address other than what eBay has. I only pay via an eBay provided PayPal link so it would be easy enough to say no dice.

UNLESS those are some kind of otherwise unfindable coins, then I would have gone ahead and done as you did. I would not bother with feedback though. Not worth the angst.

 

I agree with @Stork
The first paypal payment likely didn't go through because the seller had a typo when they were linking ebay with paypal. If they had fixed their eBay account info, the payment should have gone through. Usually it's not a good idea to send ebay payments to a different paypal address.

The seller was a bit harsh if the difference was just 25 Cents and they messed up in the first place. However, if you got everything as described, I would chalk it up as a minor nuisance and just move on. Don't leave any feedback (I would avoid using negative or even neutral).

 

Exactly!! She was blaming him and he did everything to make it right. Yes, it does stink. But not because of something he did wrong or out of deception. If I'm buying something online I would appreciate detailed information on why my order did not ship. He took pictures "screenshots" of what he did to try and make it right. If I was the seller. Which I DO sell. I would expect and accept me being wrong and doing whatever it takes to make it right. In a PROFESSIONAL WAY. If I gave it a couple stars that's great for the seller. I didn't say to leave negative feedback. Any star is a positive. Not a negative. What I typed makes absolute sense. I didn't NAIL down anything. You apparently read into things to much and are just out to argue. I gave my opinion. Leave a couple stars. If it was a absolutely terrible experience don't leave any. If it was a great experience loaded it up with those stars. Why not just be honest about the issues you have with a seller??? Why is this a big deal..?.. like I said. I never said anything about leaving negative feedback. What you didn't nail down was just leave a couple stars if it wasn't a smooth transition or the item exactly as described. If you made out with exactly what was ordered and you had a great experience why not help the seller out and let everyone know these sellers are on their game and top notch.

 

Exactly

 

Here's my two cents:

First of all, I don't know if PayPal has consistent policies and funds transfer speeds in other areas outside the US.

If you receive the coins as described in the listing, I would leave a positive feedback and ding the seller in the DSR for extremely poor communication, the listing error, and "general unprofessionalism." At WORST a neutral if you get the coins. They made some mistakes, you made a mistake. This can either escalate to a flame war (you'll have to decide if it's worth that) or you can try to see the transacton from their end and maybe diffuse the situation. Maybe payment didn't show up on their end. Maybe PayPal is screwing around with your money (they've done it to me a few times for no apparent reason.) My point is that you might not know the full story.

Maybe sleep on it for a day and approach it again when you're not fired up.

If they have yet to leave you a feedback, I might hold off on leaving feedback until they have done so to avoid a potential reciprocal neutral/negative.

 

That's really not true with how the system is set up now, its more true to say that anything but 5 stars is closer to a negative than 1 star being a positive.

What you also missed was the OP messed up. I would have walked away from the deal before he did, but he didn't and made an HONEST MISTAKE. Makes no sense to hold other people to a higher standard and penalize them in the process

 

I agree. I didn't say anything about leaving negative feedback though. I wasn't prepared for the guy get so worked up about it. Or anyone. It's a touchy subject so I'll make sure to steer clear of those. First time I ever posted anything and just joined. Makes me want to just not say anything ever. Everyone has their opinion but they don't need to be thrown under the bus or deal with that drama the other guy was dishing out.

 

I appreciate all the perspectives; here are some follow up thoughts.

The seller has over 100 transactions with a 92% positive Feedback. A couple negative and neutral.

In Germany, paying by bank transfer is totally normal and I've done it successfully many times.

I did get the coins I purchased, and for me it was a great deal (a gamble that paid off). Having said that, I don't think whether it was a good deal should ever play into whether I give positive or negative feedback.

I noticed that a lot of people are saying to give positive feedback despite my very negative experience. Citing my mistake as grounds for an "even draw". I also noticed these folks sell on eBay. I wonder how the responses would have been if the post was regarding a pain in the butt buyer who dragged a transaction out for a month? Obviously buyers can only get positive feedback, but I'm sensing a strong bias here.

The seller had terrible communication and called me a liar/thief over 25 cents. I owned up to my mistake, apologized, and sent in the money right away. I was prompt with every message and provided screen shots to show the seller what was going on. I don't feel our mistakes were on equal ground.

I personally feel that leaving a positive feedback would be lying to other buyers. Had the seller simply made the error of the email address, I wouldn't have even asked and given positive feedback. I would not want to deal with this seller again and feel that not giving honest, neutral or negative feedback is lying to those who rely on my information to decide if they want to purchase from the seller.

I'd like to pose this question: what purpose is the postive, neutral, or negative rating. Why do we use it? Shouldn't it reflect our (subjective) perception of how the transaction went?

 

It is in this thread, start at the top:
https://www.cointalk.com/posts/2849595/