posted on September 29, 2005 06:39:10 AM new
I had a buyer spend a whopping $3.50 on a debit card holder on the 21st.
On the 24th he sent me an email asking if he could negate that bid and buy a debit wallet set and I said sure.
I never heard another word.
I filed for my fees this morning since he had not paid yet.
I come home from work and find a neutral in my feedback saying I'm difficult to work with!
I'm difficult to work with because I want paid? Is he kidding me??? I'm a little beside myself over that.
I cannot believe it. I promptly blocked him and sent him a thank you email.
His response in the NPB file says that I was not understanding due to problems in his life. He never emailed me to tell me he was going to be paying late, nothing! I'm more than understanding and hello...it was a $3 sale.
posted on September 29, 2005 07:03:19 AM new
I already did that and it's certainly not going to ruin my day because all I wanted was to be paid! It's not like it took me 6 weeks to send an item and I *might* have deserved that neutral but all I did was file a NPB alert!
posted on September 29, 2005 07:25:20 AM new
I'm trying to think if there's a correlation between low dollar items and problematic bidders, but it can happen with more expensive items. I've had problems with $3 souveniers and a $6000 car. (mind you, with the car it was a 13 year old kid that bid for fun, not a "real" bidder).
But in general, I'd have to say that when there are problems, it's usually the lower the price, the more cranky the bidder. Maybe I'll stick to more expensive items?
posted on September 29, 2005 12:57:16 PM new
I try to explain that to my consignors. Sometimes, they'll ask me to list something that will go for very little. Even in cases where my work would be minimal, I try my best to avoid the listing, because it seems to always be some $10 POS that gets me a negative. People who buy $100+ items seem more willing to work with you to rectify the inevitable 1/2% of transactions that don't go as smoothly as one would like.
posted on September 29, 2005 01:04:27 PM new
As a seller of all low ticket items I have to say that I have VERY few problems. Maybe I am just lucky that postcard buyers are the best kind of folks! I do get a screwball every once in awhile but I'd like to see a seller selling more than 700 items/month say he/she doesn't run into them.
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posted on September 29, 2005 03:34:49 PM new
Neglus,
I'm sure that you're right about the category having a lot to do with the personality of the buyers. On cell phones, I get 50% NPB. On carnival glass, I've had maybe 1/2%. Sports memorabilia (which I'm no longer doing without COAs and PSA ratings) has the highest incidence of contentious emails. PCs and audio equipment has the highest rate of emailed queries by people who don't bid, and I think they never had any intention of bidding. And so on...
posted on September 30, 2005 10:13:40 AM new
It's so funny!
While my buyer with the quick draw feedback finger was blowing off my $6 payment because of "life problems" they were in the meantime spending upwards of $50 buying Longaberger baskets and paying for them while they were blowing off my payment.
Wonder what kind of life problems they were?
I did not hear back from them after my reply and my feedback left to them.
I'm wondering if I should bother sending a feedback withdrawl request.
posted on September 30, 2005 07:47:38 PM new
Why brother - your neutral will go away his/her negative never will.
I think this is why they are called bottom feeders.
posted on September 30, 2005 08:25:44 PM new
For a $3.50 item, ship it to him with an invoice enclosed showing a $36.50 charge for "expedited shipping and handling". Naturally he won't pay it. Turn the $40.00 debt over to a collection agency and forget it. Let him put up with a few nasty phone calls and letters. Eventually, it'll wind up as a black mark on his credit record. He'll never know about it until he tries to buy a car or get a loan.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
posted on October 1, 2005 08:14:14 AM new
This person is off their rocker. Really.
They replied to my neutral they gave me that they should have given me a negative because they paid.
They replied to the negative I gave them that the seller never reminded me to pay.
Reminded them to pay?
They paid because I sent them a NPB reminder.
Then they sent me a nasty email telling me just to send the stupid thing and they were never dealing with me again (ooh no worries there I already added them to my BBL) then they proceded to tell me that my $2.50 shipping charge was way too high for what I was sending since it was light and doesn't cost that much.
A., I use Endicia Stealth so they have no idea how much it costs.
B., Shipping isn't just the actual cost of the item and I guess people don't realize that.
C., If you don't like the cost, stay away!
Then she wasn't done yet. She requested and got my user contact information.
posted on October 1, 2005 08:33:09 AM new
She's playing games with you. She obviously has nothing better to do. Have you received your FVF back yet? If not, file for them if she hasn't paid you yet. If you haven't filed for FVF and she has paid, you have no choice but to send it to her because then she can file for non-performing seller. Do what you have to do to prevent her from causing you trouble. I think at this point she is grasping at straws to try to get you into trouble with ebay -- hence, the reason for obtaining the contact information. She's probably trying to see if it is invalid so that she can report you.
Don't play her game. Don't respond to her e-mails. If she calls you, politely tell her that you do not wish to speak with her and to never call your number again. If she is sending you harrassing e-mails through ebays's e-mail system, report them.
At this point, you want to try to sever any relationship with this person. It may take a bit (as usually does with someone who gets obsessed with something), but eventually she will go away.
Try not to let it stress you out. Just put it behind you and move on.
posted on October 1, 2005 08:36:19 AM new
I'm not emailing her at all.
She already paid, after I filed the NPB saying that she "forgot due to troubles in her life" but that didn't stop her from buying and paying for $50 Longaberger baskets in between her purchase of mine and paying for it.
All of this trouble because SHE forgot to pay for something she bought from me and she's trying to make it my fault!
I don't want any trouble from her. I need my income from eBay and she doesn't hvae any business trying to mess with it!
I need to get some feedback this weekend from buyers and get her feedback off my first page. She agreed to withdraw it but only because i left her a negative. She said if she had left me one she wouldn't withdraw it because I deserve it.
Why did I deserve a negative? Because she didn't paying in the 7 specified days??
I would suggest a BBL for everyone if you haven't already blocked her.
[ edited by HelgaGPataki on Oct 1, 2005 08:37 AM ]
posted on October 1, 2005 08:59:46 AM new
Why did you withdraw it? I would have let it stand. Her negative hurts her a whole lot more than the neutral she gave you. You did nothing wrong!
As a buyer, I realize that you can please some of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. If I see some negs or neutrals on a seller's FB, I check to see what happened. I'm sure other buyers out there think the same way!
Send her the item and make sure you use delivery confirmation.
posted on October 1, 2005 09:56:40 AM new
Claude -- That's what I said. That people do check a seller's fb. However, if you have a seller with over 1,000 fb and a few negs and/or neutrals, of course I check those negs/neutrals to see what happened, but usually it's because of a difficult customer or the seller ran into problems for a while with illness or other personal tragedy that happened a while back. If they are shipping normally for quite some time, I'm understanding and will purchase from that seller. If I saw a neutral like what was left on Helga's FB, I would totally discount it and purchase from her; especially in light of all of her positive FB.'
On the other hand, if I pull up a seller's fb and they are one of these HUGE book sellers, I won't buy from them. They are too big and have trouble handling their inventory and shipping. So, I usually will spend a few bucks more and buy from a smaller seller that has the same item and better fb.
I just take it on an individual basis, but unless the seller is really horrendous, I'm willing to overlook a few negs and/or neutrals if the seller has a large amount of positive fb.
Maybe this is just me, but this is how I buy and I buy ALOT!
posted on October 1, 2005 11:10:54 AM new
There's always that differece between a 100% positive feedback rating and anything less than that, even if it's 99.9% which is still quite impressive. I understand that the more transactions a seller has under his/her belt, the more likely it is that there will be someone who posts a negative, whether deserved or not. But, you can usually read between the lines and see if the seller is a decent person.
But yeah, a buyer with a low number of feedbacks and low volume of transactions will be hurt more by a negative than a seller with a high volume. Someone with 4 positives will drop down to a 75% after just one negative. Someone with 100 positives will only drop down to 99% which isn't nearly as bad.
Still, the first negative really hurts no matter how many or how few positives there were prior to that.
[ edited by powerwebmedia on Oct 1, 2005 11:11 AM ]
posted on October 1, 2005 11:30:17 AM new
I have almost 1400 positives, with 5 negatives and a few neutrals. The person who left me the neutral because I filed a NPB has 300 positives and 1 negative, all from buying. Mine are mostly from selling. I have only 30 positives on my buying ID but that's a newer ID that I use for just that...buying.
If I'm looking at a seller with a 99.6% rating with almost 1400 positives and 5 negatives I wouldn't hesitate in the slightest to buy from them.
I look at every one of my buyers feedback profiles to see what their rating is, if they leave feedback and if they are trouble (i.e., leaving a lot of neutrals, negatives, etc).
