posted on November 16, 2000 11:08:25 PM new
OK, I've met my first deadbeat seller ever this month. I posted a thread about that one earlier.
Now I have a new problem with another rotten seller. I bid on and won a lot of 20 items, which I paid for in full (including the rip off high shipping). The seller took a millennium to ship them. When they finally arrived, only 16 were sent. The box was intact, and the 16 items were tied together in a bundle.
I emailed the seller, and they were innocent of the problem. They promised to send the other 4 items that were lacking.
It's been a over a month now, no sight of the missing 4 items. Every time I mail this person, they tell me it's going to be mailed, it's been already mailed, etc. etc. You know the routine.
I'm going to ask for a refund tommorrow if the items are not in my mail box--the latest claim was that the items were sent Monday. I'll see if I get the refund, then I'm going to neg--unless they do something heroic to salvage my satisfaction.
Aside from leaving a well deserved neg, is there any other action I can take against this seller? Who would I report them to? It's not that it involves lots of money, but I want to make sure other bidders are forewarned about this seller's practices.
What is happening to eBay? Not only is there a growing nation of deadbeat bidders...now the sellers are starting to stink. I've noticed a general deterioration of attitude in general.
posted on November 17, 2000 12:29:03 AM new
It is what happens when any group or system gets more into the main stream and further away from the inovative first users and the
"community" that they used to speak of.
If the system is going to be global and commercial that's what ya get.
posted on November 17, 2000 03:41:36 AM new
Unfortunately, you ran into a couple of bad apples here, but it doesn't spell the downfall of all sellers or suggest a general trend, IMO. Plenty of us take being a merchant very seriously and have the feedback to back it up.
On the flip side however, I'm not exactly full of trust either and I look closely at a seller's feedback before I bid. That may not work in every case but it's pretty easy to weed out the ones who are slow shippers, have problems, are hot-heads, etc.
Better luck to you--hope it works out to your satisfaction.
posted on November 17, 2000 08:01:20 AM new
Thanks everyone. Unfortunately it looks as if I will have to file a mail fraud claim. Now I'll get to see how that system works (probably very slow).
Too bad eBay doesn't have some sort of system in place that will boot bad sellers, the way it works for bad buyers.
posted on November 17, 2000 08:06:44 AM newmzalez:, you need to report this to [email protected]. If oyu do not even attempt to make eBay aware of this bad Seller, then you become part of the problem. There's no knowing if eBay will actually do anything about it.
The other thing that you should do is to pull the Seller's information and call their local police department and file a fraud report. The local sheriff or policeman knocking on their door tends to get their attention.
posted on November 17, 2000 10:19:44 AM new
It's happened to me so many times with late shipments that I'm thinking it's the rule, not the exception.
I win an auction or order an item from a small on-line seller, and get payment to them immediately. I wait a month and still haven't received it. I email or telephone the seller and say (nicely), "Hey, it's been a month and I still haven't received it - just a little concerned that it's gotten lost in the mail, can you tell me when it was sent?" "Oh, I sent that out a week ago, you should be getting it any minute now."
When it finally arrives, the postmark inevitably shows that it was mailed the day I contacted him. Are sellers so dumb that they think the buyer can't look at the postmark to see that the seller has lied about the ship date? Personally, I'd MUCH rather a seller tell me, "Sorry, I've been a little busy lately, I'll make sure that package goes out TODAY." I can respect the fact that sometimes sellers get busy & a shipment can be delayed. I can't respect a liar.
Shipments from Canada to the US seem especially slow lately. I recently won an item from a Canadian seller, sent him an email after a month had passed (which he ignored), waited a week and sent another email, which he responded to saying he had mailed the item last week and to give it a few more days to arrive. After 9 days had passed I still hadn't received the item. On the 10th day, when I'd just about given up hope of ever seeing it, it arrived, postmarked with the date of my second email.
mzalez I don't know what the actual timeframe is here that you're talking about, or how many email exchanges you've actually had with this seller, but I'd encourage you not to burn your bridges prematurely. Once you start claiming "fraud" here and making your reports, it's pretty unlikely that the seller's going to ship the balance of your items. And it may be that the seller is just flaky and not an outright crook (still #@*!% annoying but perhaps a more salvageable situation). I wonder if you might still get the items with one more contact, saying something like "I'm concerned that it's gotten lost in the mail, do you have a delivery confirmation # for the package so I could track it?" Not that you'd expect that the answer would be yes, but maybe this would be the nudge that finally gets the flaky seller to move his butt and ship the rest of your stuff. And a phone call might carry more weight than an email, to make it clearer in his mind that you're a real person who is waiting for shipment and not just a few lines of text in an email, which is much easier to ignore.
As far as warning other potential bidders, I think leaving the neg is your best bet. I think you have up to 90 days to do this.
[ edited by triplesnack on Nov 17, 2000 10:22 AM ]
posted on November 17, 2000 07:01:40 PM new
borillar, you are so funny!!! Try those things for fun and revenge. Thanks for the suggestion to report to SafeHarbor, whether or not it does any good.
triplesnack, I sent yet another email today to the seller. Supposedly the rest of my items were mailed on Monday first class from a couple states away from me here in Louisiana. Nothing from there today in my mailbox. I think you are right about the seller just being flaky rather than a scam artist. Looking at their feedback seems to communicate this. It just irks me how this seller couldn't seem to care any less. I know if I were in that seller's shoes, I'd be jumping through hoops to make sure my buyer was happy.
It's been going on 6 weeks now, so I have 6 weeks left to try to salvage this before I start the fraud thing and leave a neg.
I've also found a mediation place at eBay. I may look into this, too early next week to put the heat on this seller.
All of your responses are very helpful, thanks so much.
