posted on July 30, 2004 08:45:21 AM
The setup: I recently recouped FVFs on 5 items for this person with 297 feedback of 100% rating and cancelled a few more outstanding bids. I never heard from her on any of the transactions. Until now:
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Hello,
I was unable to email you and send my payments due to 2 family medical emergencies. These were very unexpected and life threating experiences that I had no power over and had to attend to my sick family members. My husband, a quadriplegic from a long ago car accident, caught a summer cold and it went into pneumonia. I stayed in his room assisting him to cough for 8 days. My adult disabled son had a flare-up of a chronic bone infection of his femur.( 103 temp) six days into my husbands illness. The ER where my husband was admitted was closed to new patients that day due to overcrowding and thus my son was routed 10 miles away. Talk about when it rains, it POURS! Luckily both are home now and still needing breathing treatments for my husband and IV antibiotics for my son. They are both feeling much improved.
If the items are no longer available, I would gladly pay for your listing fees and whatever other expenses you have incurred. If the items are still available, I would like to pay for them. I would like to have the unpaid strikes removed from my eBay record. You can see by my feedback I have never failed to pay promptly to all the other Sellers I have bought from before. I am sorry to have inconvienced you. My youngest son sells the jewelry I design on eBay so we are familiar with the flakes who buy and are never heard from again. I assure you I want to resolve this matter with you.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Barbara
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I might believe this (if I first had a frontal lobotomy AND got hit with the stupid stick) except that Barbara placed bids every day in July, all during the time this emergency activity was supposed to have taken place. Also, she has paid all her other recent sellers quite promptly, if her feedback is to be believed.
If she was placing bids every day in July during the "emergency" period ... and going by her feedback, she paid all of her other sellers promptly ... any sense of why she didn't pay you as well?
Were your items more expensive? Did she pay for cheaper items, but delay paying for yours because more money was involved?
Usually, people who have 100% feedback are very protective of their ratings, especially if they sell, too.
I agree that the "story" is a bit much - especially since there's that big hole in it re her bidding activities.
Was she able to get very similar items cheaper in other auctions - so she wants to back out of yours - pay just the fees as a means of horse trading, to get the FVFs removed? Therefore, she's finally responding and offering to pay for them - after the items have been re-listed and resold (???).
Did you check out her "feedback left for others"? Sometimes, that tells a story that's quite different from what you see in the buyer's feedback profile.
posted on July 30, 2004 10:25:54 AMany sense of why she didn't pay you as well?
No clue. My items are not expensive. Possibly she didn't pay me right away because I don't take PayPal...there are people like that who can't be bothered to deal with payment if it involves more than three mouse clicks.
However, she certainly should have known I don't after five auctions and fifteen emails. I make it very, very clear.
I've found a lot of people have enough smarts to realize that the reason they're getting such a great deal (and they ARE) is that I don't have to pay PayPal fees. But not everyone. 'Sokay. I'd rather have the grownup realists as customers. You guys can have the spoiled brats.
It sounds to me like your buyer went on a buying spree in July and didn't have enough money to pay for everything immediately. So, with the sellers who took PayPal, she was able to put those "on the card." With yours, maybe she needed to wait for her next paycheck to have enough money in the bank for a money order or a check, and so she ducked out temporarily.
Maybe she decided to pay after all for another reason. When eBay instituted the new NPB system, it said it would restrict the future bidding activities of the NPBs.
So maybe she just woke up to a notice that her account was about to be restricted. 5 FVFs in one shot is a lot. The 100% feedback is history. Maybe her more recent history in the month of July isn't so good, and she's racked up other FVFs.
If you take her up on her offer, it's money in your pocket and a happy ending for both of you, but in your gut, how do you feel about rescinding those FVFs? Do you feel that she really deserves the FVFs - would it leave a bad taste in your mouth to rescind them?
Then there's feedback. If you say "no," do you think she'll flame you with 5 nasty neg's?
Has feedback been exchanged yet?
Did you check out her "feedback left for others"?
I had a guy a while ago whose buyer profile looked OK, but the "feedback left for others" told a completely different story. He'd been leaving lots of negatives and neutrals complaining about condition - "not as advertised" .."not as described" ..and "seller refused to make it right." The sellers' responses were consistent: This guy would complain about condition, and he wanted a full refund - but he had refused to return any of the items. The responses said that he "wanted a refund, but he wanted to keep the item, too" ... "offered a full refund, but he refused to return the item." Quite a few mentioned "buyer's remorse" in their responses. Clear from the sellers' responses that he would pay promptly - and the sellers would leave "prompt payment" feedback first - and then he'd try to extort a "have your cake and eat it, too" refund by being a whining and complaining PITA and by threatening a neg or a neutral.
He was a complete PITA with me, too, but I managed to sidestep being his next victim.
But that was a valuable lesson - that good feedback doesn't always mean that someone really is a good bidder.
She's touting her 100% rating - she definitely wants you to consider that - but maybe she's been playing this same game right along with other sellers.
In your gut, do you believe that the way she's treated you is some sort of special circumstance - or that she's been doing this with other sellers?
My guess is that she has.
You also have the option of not responding - done deal.
She ignored you for weeks. You'd be perfectly justified in ignoring her now.
But...do you think you'll wake up to 5 neg's if you do?
posted on July 30, 2004 08:09:03 PM
You could ask her to prove her story by sending you copies of her husband and sons medical bills, certainly if what she is saying is true she would have tons of invoices for different things related to their problems. You'd probably be better off just ignoring her.
posted on July 30, 2004 10:04:11 PM
What a load? I guess the youngest son was in a car accident that broke both his arms so she could not even ask him to answer your emails for her.
She laid it on just a bit too thick. Tell her you will accept payment of the fee your out and block her.
posted on July 30, 2004 10:15:51 PM
If I ever return in my next life as a deadbeat bidder, that's going to be my #1 excuse for not paying. Tell her to send a money order for your fees, which amounts to $(cost of 2 bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label), and withdraw the NPB. Then join Jack, Stop and me at that joint jack has lined up on Waikiki.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on July 30, 2004 11:48:36 PM
Spit happens for whatever reason. She obviously wishes to make good. Take her money if you still have the goods or let her pay the fees to remove the strike against her account.
Be generous it won't cost you anything. I have bidders get into financial trouble and allow them to delay payment within reason, it's only business. Don't take it personally.
posted on July 31, 2004 12:18:45 AM
I had one of those "death in the family" stories. They couldn't pay for the item because they needed the money to bury their love one. Turns out they were bidding up a storm. I left them a neg.
posted on July 31, 2004 06:56:48 AM
I would write her back and ask her why she was able to bid on other items and pay for them while all of her family medical emergencies were going on, and yet couldn't find the time to pay for your auctions. It might be interesting to see how she responds.
