posted on August 6, 2001 09:08:31 PM new
How's this for a creep. Buyer orders an item from me on half.com. I confirm it. Buyer then decides he doesn't want it, and leaves me a 1/5 rating along with a note telling me to cancel the order (the heading even said I Don't Want This!)! No explanation--just I don't want this, cancel it. Creep doesn't even attempt to contact me by email first. Meanwhile, I'm out my commission and my half.com rating just went from a perfect 5.0 to 4.9. Does anyone know if I have any recourse on that site or do I just have to relist and eat the commission and the negative?
posted on August 6, 2001 09:30:01 PM new
There is no recourse with Half. You are stuck with whatever feedback and whatever else the customer does. This is more the exception than the rule. This is just a deadbeat in customer clothes and most half customers do not act this way...
Half is totally a one-way street. You just fill orders. If you can fill orders and make money and your service pleases most of your customers, you will do fine. I actually prefer this to the generally deteriorating eBay venue, but you need both to sell books.
posted on August 7, 2001 02:01:04 AM new
As a seller, I wouldn't touch half with a very long stick. I didn't have a good feeling about it when I first checked it out, and from some of the posts here, I get that my gut feeling was right. Too much low-balling of prices, your situation now, etc.
If I want to have a yard sale, I'll have one, and not have to pay half their 15%. It's the way I see half, and there are other venues out there to sell books. And without that eBay odor about them.
posted on August 7, 2001 05:21:18 AM new
You need to contact Half.com about this. Buyers cannot cancel orders once they are placed. In a case like this I think they will remove the feedback. It might take some time but I think they will solve the problem for you. Good Luck!
posted on August 7, 2001 05:33:15 AM new
Thanks. I mostly use half. for low-priced stuff that's not worth taking the time to put up on Ebay. I don't make that much but it comes in handy. But the total inability to correspond with buyers or respond to feedback is frustrating. Maybe I will contact them regarding this negative by the deadbeat, but hopefully other customers will see that this is the first one, with over 100 positives, and figure out then person is a loon.
posted on August 7, 2001 05:33:23 AM new
Customers can not cancel orders once they are confirmed, which I assume you did.
Further, the idiot who posted the cancellation in your feedback will likely still find the charge on their credit card.
I would calmly write to half.com citing the transaction number, your shipping date, and the date of the erronious feedback. State that you thought they should know about this situation, ask that they remove the inapproptiate feedback, and assure them that you followed the half.com rules and shipped the item after confirming, and would not welcome a chargeback for a properly completed sale.
It might work if you get someone with common sense, though in the ebay/half.com feifdoms such basic stuff often seems to be forbidden.
posted on August 7, 2001 05:35:52 AM new
That's true--it didn't occur to me that the charge would still be on THEIR credit card. I should just ignore the note and send the item and let them deal with the headache. As far as I'm concerned it's a legitimate sale and if I'm going to get a negative for it I might as well make them have a little grief.
posted on August 7, 2001 07:11:19 AM new
Do not hold your breath! Calmly explaining yourself will do little good. Half. uses almost nothing but canned responses. We have been trying to get money returned to us for months. We sold a book. It went to an inmate at a prison. The book was returned to us, with a note on it stating "Inmate unable to receive mail at this time" I guess he had been a bad boy and got this right suspended for awhile. I wrote Half., telling them this. They told me to cancel the sale & they would look into it. They did not follow up & we could not get instruction on how to cancel an already confirmed sale. About a month later we received an email from Half. saying they would deduct the money for this sale from our account because the buyer just complained he did not receive it, this was now a good 2 months after the sale(It took awhile for the book come back). I can understand taking the money for the book, They also took the money we spent on postage! We emailed them again and got the explaination that since we did not have a BUYERS ACCOUNT it was impossible to recredit our account. We would have to open a buyers account, buy a book we did not want and then file for the credit. They would treat this as a referral, and we would get that $5.00 as if we refered a friend. We thought this was very stupid but after awhile we tried this. When we filed for the credit we included ALL THE EMAIL FROM THEM. They told us they didn't know what we where talking about. They did finally refund the postage but not we are out the money for the book! Several months later we still have not gotten this fixed & they have not responded to our last two emails. They also will not respond to the question "What did we do wrong?" We followed their instructions & are now out the cost of a book we do not want.
posted on August 7, 2001 07:16:50 AM new
Well, I have sort of a happy ending, but not really. I canceled the sale and the buyer revised his feedback from 1/5 to 5/5, noting that I handled the cancelation well. But I noticed half. still took their commission, which in this case comes out to about $5. I'm going to keep tabs on this. If they keep their cut on a canceled sale, something is awfully fishy at half.com.
posted on August 7, 2001 08:18:42 AM new
Our concern has been growin with Half. They have always had too many mistakes in their descriptions, PB as HC, Wrong title for ISBN etc... They never notify those who have already listed when they fix their mistakes. Add to this the new secret limits that requeire you to give your bank account & SS#.
At some point they will reach a point that they have too many mistakes, too high charges & too much red tape that they will reach that Yahoo Auction point where the whole house of cards falls down & a great way to make money goes away.
posted on August 7, 2001 08:35:32 AM new
I am surprised when I read here that anyone is still selling on half. It used to be a great place to sell, but not any more, at least not for my stuff.
I am doing much better on Amazon Marketplace. I signed up for their merchant account so I no longer pay 15% PLUS 99 cents per sale. It's more of a gamble because now I pay $40/month up front, but the sales prices are better or are simply THERE, whereas the same copies aren't selling on half.com [I list on both sites simultaneously....or used to, anyway].
Also, buyer and seller are able to exchange email, and I find this helpful a lot of the time, esp. for West Coast buyers. I can let them know up front how long to wait for Media Mail delivery.
posted on August 7, 2001 09:03:26 AM new
I am doing well on Half, but I am not holding my breath on it as a permanent venue.
Half simply has too little seller orientation--but then again neither does eBay. At least eBay has a better rectification process for common problems;half still has nothing.
