posted on July 12, 2001 10:59:33 AM
I was one of the winners in a Dutch Auction for a CD on June 27th.
The seller never responded for a while, till one bidder e-mailed everyone else (including me) with this on June 29th:
I am one of the winners of the XXXXXXXXX and was just wondering if any of you had heard from the seller. I have sent him 2 emails asking about payment method and he has not replied as of yet. If any of you happen to know what payment method he accepts and where to send it, could you please let me know?
I never bothered to respond, and then the seller responded with his invoice on July 2nd.
Then, on July 11th, the bidder who e-mailed the rest of us e-mailed this:
It has been 15 days since the auction ended, for the $6 for shipping I paid, I should have received the items 3 days after auction end.
If I don't get them by Friday July 13th, I expect a FULL refund by Saturday July 14th.
I encourage all of of the other bidders who have a game coming to them to demand a refund as well.
Another bidder replied to him with:
I just left negative feedback. We'll see if he responds to that.
To which, he replied to and CC to everyone else:
I just did the same - also there is an investigation page on Ebay - here is the link for those of you interested, I am reporting him right now.
The seller then replied to this confusion even more on July 12th:
This email is directed toward XXXXXXXXX but since all of you guys are the winners of this auction, i want to publicly make myself clear.
Dear XXXXXX, i don't know why you have taken such a drastic measure against me as to leave negative feedbacks so quickly. As for your shipment, it has been shipped out on 7-4-01 and you should get it very very soon(if you still haven't gotten it). Please bear in mind that i have absolutely no intention of cheating any of you guys because i want to stay in business too.
[i]I know that once you pay someone money, you expect to get the item immediately and you start to get worried especially when the transaction is on ebay where sellers are individuals instead of major companies (sometimes this frustration kicks in for me as well). However, transactions like this
deserve a little patience and a little understanding. I have shipped your item 1 week after auction ended and since it will take a few days to receive it, it's possible that you still haven't received it when you left me a negative in frustration. But as a honest seller, i did indeed ship it and i
have returned a record of the receipt. Please expect it any minute.[/i]
As for the negative feedbacks, although it's irreversible, i would appreciate it greatly if you can post a followup when the shipment arrives.
thank all of you very much and trust me, if you are a winner and if you have sent payment, you will get what you have paid for. Thanks once again, i hope this letter will resolve some misunderstanding and some questions. Once again, your businesses will be greatly treasured.
sincerely yours,
XXX
To which, the disgruntled bidder replied:
[i]XXXXXX,
We may as well stay public since all of us on here are involved in the same manner and let me add that it is very discouraging that it took such drastic action to get you to reply & acknowledge us.
First of all, if you did mail the items on July 4th, even if it were mailed at 4th class rate mail, it should have taken no more than 4 days to get here. You are telling me that after 8 days in the mail, it is still not here? I have had things from Europe get here faster.
2nd of all, the feedback. It is not premature, you had your chance to prove
yourself.
It took you over 3 days to reply to my initial emails and it took 3 emails
to get you to reply.
There are people on here that have tried to contact you via email and up to this general reply from you, had not heard from you.
I will post a follow up ONLY if the items are here on or before tomorrow (7/13) and ONLY if I am satisfied with the games, in other words, they better match the auction description (No copies etc.)
And just so that you are aware, if you have not been notified as of yet, I did file a complaint with Square Trade.[/i]
I'm getting confused, and I have no idea how to respond nor what to do in this mess.
Should I send payment, or should I risk the neg and FVF??
BTW, this is all over a $6.00 item!!
edited for UBB snafus
:\\\\\\\"Crystalline Sliver cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
[ edited by Crystalline_Sliver on Jul 12, 2001 11:05 AM ]
posted on July 12, 2001 11:13:50 AM
I am not sure what you should do, but one thing that really jumped out at me was that the seller stated that they mailed it 7/4? The 4th was a holiday so I am not sure if you are dealing with an overwhelmed and confused seller or a con artist? I would be careful and perhaps wait a couple days to see if the other people do get the game.
posted on July 12, 2001 11:23:58 AM
I mailed some items on July 4th. Our airport postoffice is open 24 hours every day of the year except Christmas. Very handy. I frequently run to the P.O. at 11pm or on a Sunday.
posted on July 12, 2001 11:26:12 AM
To me, this just once again shows that everyone needs to retain patience and have a group hug every now and again...
To this seller, it was obviously perfectly acceptable to him, to mail an item one week after receiving payment. To some buyers, this may be acceptable as well. To other buyers, it isn't.
posted on July 12, 2001 12:01:16 PM
Have you gotten your purchase? If not are you concerned over the length of time it has taken? Did you find the sellers performance "substandard"?
I have really never had a turly "bad" experience with a seller, but I had one that irritated me a bit.
The seller sent an EOA and I used PP within the hour of receiving it. No more contact. Ten days later..still no package I contacted seller and was told it had been mailed and give it a few days more. Package arrived 3 days later with a postmark showing it had been mailed same day I had made my inquirey!
Although he technically didn't "lie" to me, I would have preferred for him to have been forthcoming with the fact he had "goofed".
posted on July 12, 2001 01:26:57 PM
"I was one of the winners in a Dutch Auction for a CD on June 27th"
Which was Wednesday. Ebays policy says you should get in touch with each other within three days (business days?) Business days are Monday-Friday in most instances. (Even EBAYERS deserve a day or two off once in a while.)
"I have sent him 2 emails asking about payment method and he has not replied as of yet"
Maybe he hadn't responded because he hadn't yet had time? Maybe he was on a mini vacation? Maybe his computer blew up? All this has happened to me, right in the middle of auctions ending!
"I never bothered to respond, and then the seller responded with his invoice on July 2nd. "
Which is only 3 days from end of auction, just like EBAY rules say, if you count that some people dont work the weekends!
"It has been 15 days since the auction ended, for the $6 for shipping I paid, I should have received the items 3 days after auction end. "
For the $6.00 shipping, you expect him to email you with WBN, wait for your response, pack your item, run it to the post office, ship it priority, all done by 28 June at the latest!!! (which is the ONLY way you would have gotten it by three days from EOA)??
""it has been shipped out on 7-4-01 ""
This is absolutely possible, if you use services such as Stamps.com, or have a post office that is open 24-7 as previous poster commented. And if they shipped it media mail (is that what was in their TOS???) then, you would NOT receive it until the end of the next week, due to the Holiday, and the weekend. MAN!!! Why do people get so damned impatient!!! Please take into consideration: A...it was a HOLIDAY week! B...It was a weekend! and C.....it was probably shipped via media mail!!!
posted on July 12, 2001 05:05:16 PM
There is a 24/7 post office in a grocery store here. I have to drive about 12 miles one way the few times I was desperate enough to use it, and yes, they actually put the postmark on while you watch, so you're sure of the date..
posted on July 12, 2001 05:34:35 PM
I'm really confused!! Are you (Crystalline Silver)asking if you should pay for an auction you were a successful bidder on? You "signed" the contract when you clicked the mouse! Shame on you for even considering this a legitimate question!! It's been 15 days since the auction closed...it should be a done deal, paid for and delivered by now!!
For the last bloody time, I'M NOT THE PERSON WHO'S COMPLAINING HERE!!
I just wanna make sense of of another bidder's intrustion and paranoia over a stupid $6.00 CD-ROM, and the sellers obvious communication problem!! Is the bidder's accusations a valid point for me to not send payment, or is the seller being tricked into something else!!
This is the most confusing auction i've ever bidded on and won, and I want to make sense ON WHAT THE #*!@ IS GOING ON HERE?!?!
Obviously, theirs more than one answer to ANY question, regardless of how stupid or irrelevant it maybe, and I want at least one consicse answer to this!!
:\\\\\\\"Crystalline Sliver cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
posted on July 12, 2001 08:25:31 PM
I would do as I would on any normal auction. I really wouldn't care so much about the other bidder. They sound a bit impatient to me.
I would email the seller immediately, tell them you wanted to make sure everything was OK, and send him the money as soon as I could.
Then, I would sit back and think about how good that CD is gonna sound when I get it.
posted on July 12, 2001 09:06:00 PM
"yumacoot: If your implying this is me complaining, it's someone else that's complaining and causing this confusion."
No, Crystalline, I was not referring to you as the complainer. I DID read all the posts....I was simply making a statement or two. Sorry if you took offense. If it were me, I wouldn't worry about the other bidders, I would pay for the auction and get on with life. It's too short.
posted on July 12, 2001 10:13:23 PMIs the bidder's accusations a valid point for me to not send payment, or is the seller being tricked into something else!!
Send the payment for the auction you won.
Just because this other bidder is having a problem doesn't necessarily signal you will have a problem. Just read what is happening to doninpa in his thread to see how one disgruntled bidder can turn something into a nightmare for a seller.
Yes, this seller does seem to have been very slow in his EOA response time. You might look at his feedback and see if this is normal for him or if most customers receive their stuff in a pretty timely fashion.
As for the "unhappy bidder", expecting to receive his items "3 days after the end of the auction just because he paid $6 for shipping" is a bit unreasonable unless he paid for express delivery & the seller guaranteed in his TOS that shipping was immediate upon payment.
posted on July 13, 2001 10:17:12 AM
Wow, sounds like the agitator needs a better hobby. Maybe the seller could have shipped faster, but the group emails and the neg. are overkill.
The only thing I would add/clarify is the part of that person's email about 4th class mail taking "no more than 4 days". THAT is fantasy. Media mail, as it's called this week, is a much bigger crapshoot. Distance between seller and buyer makes a huge difference to delivery time. If you're shipping cross-country, 2-3 weeks is more likely.
If I were you, I'd ignore your fellow buyer's emails, and do whatever you would have done if none of this had happened.
posted on July 13, 2001 12:52:50 PM
Send your payment and judge the seller by his performance with you. Sounds to me like this bidder was far too impatient, and expects the seller to be able to control post office deliveries as well! Even if shipped priority mail, the PO doesn't guarantee delivery within 2-3 days, just says that it will probably get there within that time - sometimes faster, sometimes slower. The complainer needs to get a life. mary
