posted on November 21, 2000 09:20:14 PM
Hi, I picked up a CD-R burner and was browsing for discs. I came across this interesting FAQ by a highly-rated eBay seller.
A while back I posted a link to an auction where I thought the seller seemed burned out by eBay and pretty hostile. Wow! THIS one takes the cake. Page after page of rants and raves, disguised as a FAQ page.
Check it out, but put on your galoshes first. It's pretty thick.
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posted on November 23, 2000 12:01:46 PM
this does seem like a very long drawn outgrip session but this guys point are very valid.
I am not a big seller like this guy but I have weeks when I have felt about the same as him but would never put this stuff on a me page.
No matter how crazy sales and email get I try to keep a good additude with all no matter how many times I must repete the same thing over and over.
buyers who neg frist then write get a big fat neg right back buyers need to learn to work problems out in mail with the seller not through feed back or feed back threats threats never got anyone any where.
posted on November 23, 2000 12:19:00 PM
I've been selling at eBay for three years and have encountered just about every type of yokel this seller describes. I sympathize, but this page is abusive.
Dman, if you'll check the seller's feedback profile, most of the complaints (that I saw) come from ignoring customer emails.
posted on November 23, 2000 12:39:16 PM
He claims many times the items sell for less than his cost. He could definitely cut down on his work load by starting auctions at an acceptable minimum bid. He runs multiple identical auctions all starting at $.01. Seems like a recipe for disaster. There should be no need to take potential bidders on a tour of his private hell.
posted on November 23, 2000 12:45:53 PM
This is exactly the kind of bozo that is giving eBay and online sellers a bad name...churlish oaf with few customer service skills and obviously in way over his head. The many neutrals speak almost more loudly than the negatives.
Many of the guy's points may be valid, but when you look at the way he responds to his negative feedback, and the fact that he engages in retaliatory negs, you can see someone who may know the front end of the business but can't handle the support back end. I love the "5000 people can't be wrong" feedback...guess anyone who didn't leave positive feedback was wrong and didn't matter at all.
Making people call instead of email for status is simply idiotic, no matter how many emails he supposedly gets a day. And I love how that he has not got the time to answer emails, but can write web page after web page to vilify his detractors.
If your sales are down this year, this is a good look at the bigger reason why.
----
TRC
posted on November 23, 2000 01:18:17 PM
And did you catch, in one of the negative feedbacks he has left, the URL for a webpage he's devoted to ridiculing one specific customer? I don't think eBay's rules allow you to include an URL when leaving feedback, I would guess the buyer could probably get eBay to remove this one.
Buyers have a lot of choices of where to spend their dollar on the web, and a lot of choices even just at the eBay site. I'm a pretty active buyer and am bidding on something 'most every day. Frankly I'm always looking for reasons NOT to bid. I recently ran across an auction for a CD I'd like to have -- the seller had a pretty high feedback rating, over 1000 I think, but when I checked out the feedbacks he's left I noticed that whenever a sale went wrong, he immediately leaped to insulting the buyer (idiot, bimbo, moron, etc.). Well, no bid from me. That particular CD will turn up again, as does just about everything, and I can wait to buy it from someone who's a little more professional. Somebody who has a chip on his shoulder right from the get-go, I'll avoid.
Seems to me that terms of sale are becoming increasingly complicated. (A couple weeks ago I mistakenly bid on an auction that required payment by only PayPal or Billpoint, neither of which I wanted to use. Another auction required I submit my personal info to a third-party site like Andale, which I also don't care to do -- this info was not on the auction page, but delineated on a linked "about me" page which I didn't bother to read.) Clearly, checking out the TOS is no longer a matter of just seeing if the shipping amount is listed. You have to read everything the seller says in order to be sure there isn't some undesirable hoop he requires you to leap through to complete the sale.
This seller's contempt for his customers aside, I just won't bid on anything from a seller that makes a lengthy reading assignment such as this one of the conditions of sale. A seller should be able to condense his TOS into a single paragraph.
[ edited by triplesnack on Nov 23, 2000 01:29 PM ]
posted on November 23, 2000 02:01:41 PM
I can see both sides to this one. Some of the complaints are deserved while others are ridiculous.
"habit of not leaving feedback" That is a stupid reason to leave a neg....
I also like this neutral: "pants were as described, would not return emails on exchange" This person is an ebay seller, not Walmart...
I really liked this one: "the leather pants came quickly but the zipper broke the first time i put them on" - Sounds to me like the pants were too tight.
[ edited by outoftheblue on Nov 23, 2000 02:16 PM ]
posted on November 26, 2000 04:53:59 AM
Yep, been there done that.
He needs to either hire help or scale back.
I personally would never buy from someone so disorganised that he cannot hire help to answer email.
Sure some of the questions are stupid, some very stupid.
But this will always be the case, the world has all kinds!
What a perfect world it would be if people would bid, send money and wait no matter how long it took to get there purchases.
Well this guy has to figure out that this is the I want it now years, and a seller not equipped to ship immediately because he is overwhelmed with orders won't be in business much longer. And as for losing money on what he sells,
GIVE ME A BREAK........
posted on November 26, 2000 05:02:55 AM
Actually, I do think he is right about one thing, he has quite a few negatives and when people have a problem they go look at his feedback and then give him a neg. Bandwagon feedback, that is what the guy has received. True, his customer service skills could use some work and he needs some office help. Quite a few of those negs are just ridiculous though.
posted on November 26, 2000 05:54:08 AM
If he raised his margin he would be able to shag some of the low end buyers. Sad though, as he has the business... Nice pick..
