posted on September 27, 2000 12:04:45 AM new
Well, what an eye-opener I have had in the past few weeks. A buyer emailed me 7 days after receiving her item saying she was not entirely happy with an it. I told her that although my policy is an email within 3 days of receiving the item, she could send it back to receive her bid amount. I did not hear from her for another 10 days, in which she said that she would like to keep the item, but that it was not exactly as I described it. She said that she would "accept $30 from me in exchange for positive feedback and not making an issue with eBay." I did not respond to her and forwarded the email to Safe Harbor at Ebay. Guess what? Their response was that they do not get involved in user to user emails. What about feedback extortion? Isn't that what it is called when a person offers to give you money in exchange for feedback? Wow, my eyes are wide open at this one! Even a second request to Safe Harbor to get another opinion came back from the same person with a rather nasty reply. I know they want the new bidders, but at the expense of not following their own rules? Amazing! In the end, and after many, many nasty emails from the buyer, I did get her to return the item and sent her money back. I will probably get a negative too, but at least my integrity and my 500+ positives speak strongly for me. Any others with bad experiences like this?
posted on September 27, 2000 02:30:36 AM new
No, that's not really feedaback extortion. Feedback extortion is "leave me positive feedback or else I'll so such-and-such." Buying/selling feedback is also prohibited, but from eBay's standpoint it's not clear to them if that is the case here.
The bidder sounds like she is trying to scam you. You did the right thing. This sounds like blackmail to me, whether or not eBay takes any action.
posted on September 27, 2000 05:36:19 AM new
Actually, "feedback extortion" involves the making a threat of negative feedback in order to coerce the other party into doing something that s/he would not NORMALLY do as part of the transaction, e.g. telling a seller who's taken payment but won't ship that you will leave a negative ISN'T extortion, because shipping the merchandise is part of the seller's NORMAL obligation in a transaction. I suppose that Ebay is less likely to discipline this buyer because she offered positive feedback in return for a refund. (She's apparently found a loophole in the guidelines.) If she does threaten you with negative feedback for not refunding, just tell her that you don't do partial refunds. She has to choose between keeping the item, or returning it for a complete refund. Just curious, does her feedback show this kind of behavior on a regular basis? There are buyers who routinely better their deals by being "unhappy" with the merchandise and getting a partial discount.
posted on September 27, 2000 06:29:22 AM new
It is not feedback extortion, a eBay infraction, but extortion, a federal felony. eBay and you need to take criminal action against this individual.
posted on September 27, 2000 08:14:27 AM new
I experienced a very similar incident wherein the buyer advised that if he did not receive a full refund (which was unwarranted for bidder's remorse) he would not leave me positive feedback (which is the same as leaving negative as far as I'm concerned). I replied that his tactics were considered feedback extortion and cut and pasted e-bay's policy regarding this issue. I refunded him the bid price and copied e-bay on my e-mail to put them on notice of a potential problem.
I received a nice reply from e-bay advising that they were filing my e-mail and to contact them if I needed their assistance.
Fortunately, I didn't need to take it any further - no negative feedback or e-mails from the bidder again.
posted on September 27, 2000 08:17:45 AM new
I was very unhappy with an item I bought from a Power Seller (item was totally misrepresented) and even more unhappy with his insulting handling of my complaint when I dared bring it to his attention. In my response to ThAT, I included the comment that I'd never buy from him again and "my feedback will likely reflect that."
He responded by PROMISING feedback retaliation if my feedback wasn't *fair* and that he'd renege on his return privilege in that case. Well, I know the definition of *fair* just as well as you who are reading this do. IMO opinion, fair would be "misrepresented item, insulting, promised FB retaliation." But I somewhow doubt the Seller would.
SafeHarbor wasn't the least bit interested in this Power SEller's email to me.
I don't understand what feedback extortion is (LOL -- esp. after reading this thread), but I think ebay ought to get involved in taking a stand on feedback abuse, but they won't. Somewhere in their labyrinthine rules I read some comment to the effect that everyone's entitled to their opinion, or perhaps it was more directly First Amendment related, but all of that is, to be frank, hogwash.
To the extent that ebay won't take an active stand against abuses -- whether feedback or other types -- it is tacitly but actively fostering them.
posted on September 27, 2000 08:26:25 AM new
The very fact that eBay doesn't get involved in many cases, is most likely because it would be very expensive for them to do so.
Like the guy on Hill Street Blues used to say, "Let's be careful out there." You really do have to keep your guard up.
posted on September 27, 2000 09:06:31 AM new
Well, very interesting to get views depending on the experiences people have encountered, both as buyers and sellers. Coming from different perspectives is what I really wanted to see, and did. No, this user has not done this before as far as I can see, but then again she is fairly new with a feedback of 10, at least under this user name.
I should have said in my post that the use of "feedback extortion" was not my term. It was used by Safe Harbor in their response to me and that in their opinion, this buyer's offering money in exchange for positive feedback didn't meet the criteria for it. Hmmmm......wonder where those criteria are hidden? I just know how this looked to me - like she was threatening me to do what she wanted, or else! Good business is never operated on threats and intimidation, and that is why I took the stand I did. Thanks.
posted on September 27, 2000 11:04:03 AM new
Well . . .
Whenever I buy something and it arrives not-as-described, I contact the seller.
If the shipping is a large portion of the price, I ALWAYS ask for a price adjustment, since it is silly to spend more on return shipping than the cost of the item.
