another ebay idiot!

[proteus]

ok so i bought a figure on ebay- an old mego, when it arrived it was damaged, the neck area was smashed and the head could be pushed down into the body- it wasnt obvious from the photo.
so i complained to the seller- its not broken , he says, me and my brother checked it - you are a fraudster- i see you have bought other figures like this befor!i am reporting you to ebay for fraud!

so i open a dispute, and again list the damage- that it is broken inside that the head can be pushed in..blah blah blah...then the sellers brother sends me a message telling me im a fraudster, that my case is very suspicious, that i have bought a similar figure befor...i explained the break to him - even tho it wasnt any of his business. and that as it was not as described i would like a refund- he replies again saying theres nothing wrong with it and my explanation was too intense.
so now im crazy too.
eventually the seller offers a refund, but doesnt do it through the dispute-so i cant enter a tracking number- i have a feeling they wont refund me so call ebay who say to wait and if they dont do it properly they will sort it.
next day the guy offers a refund properly i send it back i enter the tracking number and off it goes.
the next day i get a message- the figure came back but it is not damaged, please explain the damage- the seller suggests i just dont want the figure- says i am uppitty with him and hes reporting me to ebay.

for the 6th time i explain the damage as simply as i can and i say go ahead report me.- i also say that the figure is back with him and he hasnt refunded me, so im reporting him- i call ebay and they forcibly refund me out of the sellers account- result.

when i first complained to this seller i was very polte but his reply was agressive, rude and threatening, and unfortunatly theres a few assholes like this on ebay spoiling it for everyone.

[figurecollector]

The name of this seller is ??

[dfunk7]

There have been many I have come across in 10 years on ebay, Fortunelty the good have way outweighed the bad

[proteus]

would you believe the guy had the nerve to message me the next day to ask why i had banned him from my auctions?

[proteus]

oh and another seller sent me a set of carded air raiders figures- in a dam padded envelope- when i left nutral to say they were sent this way and the card was MASHED they responded that i was being very harsh, and they are not responsible for damage in the post!

HOW DO PEOPLE MANAGE TO STAY ALIVE AND BE THIS STUPID- HOW DO THEY MANAGE TO WORK OUT HOW TO OPEN A CAN OF BEANS WITH THIS FEW BRAIN CELLS?

[bowspearer]

I feel your pain Proteus.

Seriously, what is it with alot of sellers on eBay these days? Alot of them seem to think that they have no responsibility to list things accurately or even know about the item they're selling.

Seriously it should be dead simple.

First off, list the issues with the condition of the item- it takes like 30 seconds and saves alot of hassle and unmet expectations.

Case in point. I recently bought 3 Shadow figures MOC. The cards weren't perfect but Boog was upfront about it all, so when I got them and saw the damage up close, my thoughts were "yeah there is a bit of damage here, but oh well, they're still pretty cool" and I was happy with my purchase.

On the other hand when eBay makes it clear that the seller has to list all issues with an item (which is just ethical behaviour) and you get items where damage wasn't listed, you automatically feel ripped off when had you known about it upfront, you may well still would have been happy with the item/s.

Another thing, sellers should know what they're talking about. With all the message boards around, there's no excuse for someone not knowing about what they're selling. Seriously how hard is it to find a decent general action figures board or specialist action figures community (like Rebelscum or He-man.org) and say "Hi, got this lot of toys here to sell, but not too familiar with the toy line. Is there anything I should particularly know about this lot of items I'm selling?"

Related to this is communication. Obviously it's unrealistic to expect a response 5 minutes after you sent it, but some sellers, like the one I linked to, failed to respond to half a dozen inquiries about the item over more than a fortnight- no kind of belated response, just no response at all.

Then there's postage- seriously, bubble-wrap and boxes shouldn't be too much of an issue- it takes a few minutes but saves alot of headaches. Sure there's no way that sellers can control what happens during shipping, but they can definitely minimise the effects of something happening with some common sense.

Which leads to postage charges. Contrary to what some sellers seem to think, postage is not some additional extra to profit from. I don't mind paying for reasonable expenses such as any packing materials which the seller had to buy (but at the same time, if they've bought a new big roll of bubble-wrap and only used a small portion of it to wrap 3 small figures, then there's no way I should pay for the entire roll), but when you have people doing things like charging $18 for shipping and only paying $3.12, when all they've done is put 6 figures in individual zip-lock bags which have then been put in a padded envelope, then that's pure profiteering.

Lastly being accountable. Everyone's human and makes mistakes, but the main thing should be acknowledging those mistakes and trying to rectify them. Yet so many sellers, and I hate to say it but the vast bulk of this problem I tend to have with North American eBay sellers, get defensive and spout the "all buyers are conmen" copout when they've made a mistake which has actually resulted in the buyer being ripped off- which in turn is the height of irony.

A part of that too is partial refunds. Sure if postage is only going to cost a few bucks, then returning the item for a full refund is practical. However when you're talking $30-$40 shipping which both parties are going to lose (the buyer in paying for return shipping and the seller in paying for initial shipping) then surely it makes far more sense to look at compensation which is less than the actual shipping costs- even from the perspective of what will leave the seller less out of pocket.

It seems like the good sellers get all of the above (and hell I'm had some sellers who've gone above and beyond, or others who've screwed up, in some case quite badly, but have been accountable and who because of that, I'm happy to deal with again.

Yet the dodgy ones either don't get it, or simply don't want to get it. Considering that being ethical is simply going to make life easier for everyone in the long run, I can't get why even from the perspective of self-advancement, that being ethical and using common sense wouldn't be the ideal way to go for sellers.

[geomagno]

I think we all have these stories about idiots who just want to complain. My guess is because these people have small lives and exist in a small world and feel very powerful on the internet. All of our business is done via email. Most of these people would not have the balls to talk the way they do to others if forced to speak on the phone or in person.

I bought something from a women some time ago; it took her 11 days to ship it, which I think is excessive as I ship within 5 days of payment, so I decided not to leave feedback rather than leave a bad comment. She threatened to block me from her auctions if I didn't leave feedback! I explained my reason and she got nasty in a couple emails threatening to report me to ebay. Well, in the end she got her feedback!

I just wonder, what are people thinking?

[bananamuffin2024]

Wow...how messed up! I'm glad you got your money back though (after a while...)

[valentinespell]

Proteus and Geomagno, your stories are just crazy! some sellers are just plain psychos out there

[victoryleo19]

I think the entire community is getting worse in ebay in general. As a seller, which I don't tend to do but sometimes I need to in order to get newer stuff I may want, I find that buyers are getting worse and worse. One time I got a buyer who bought an HUGE lot of figures and he lived in Canada. He then paid 5 dollars for shipping. 5 dollars? He didn't even wait for me to send an invoice, then he complained that the shipping was enough and I could not charge him more. The lot of figures was only 15-20 dollars, and the shipping alone was like 25 dollars. I would have ended up having to PAY to have these toys shipped to this guy.

I sold a lot of gi joe vehicles for like 10 dollars, and the buyer lived in China. China???!? He expected not to pay very much for shipping. It was like 40 something dollars just to ship them to him, so he never paid. What did he expect?

I think ebay needs to really evaluate the entire process of getting an ebay "ID" because kids and idiots are able to manipulate the system sometimes.

The worst was one time I sent the wrong package to someone. They had bought maybe a 10 dollar item off of me, and they received an item worth about 100 dollars. First they complained and reported me to ebay without even giving me a chance. So i refund him the money, AND pay for more shipping to get the item back. He asks what it is, and I mistakenly informed him. He obviously looked it up, because he never sent it back. Does ebay help sellers? Unfortunately no. Ebay has almost entirely gone to the side of the buyers. It is nearly impossible to resolve a problem if it really isn't the sellers fault. :/

[bowheadwhale]

Sometimes, it's the postal service 's fault. Last winter, I sold a drawing to France. For safety, I put it between two cardboard box pieces and put a DO NOT BEND sticker on the package. Believe it or not, the buyer complained to me that I packed it butchily, because th e package was FOLDED IN THREE when he received it! I told him I didn't expect french postal services to be too careless to read "do not bend" stickers (my sticker was in french). I never got any feedback. Crap...

And what about that drawing I sold but got for it neutral feedback because "the color was not as expected"? Didn't the buyer know about cameras not always reproducing colors exactly the same? And he gave me that feedback WITHOUT contacting me! All of this for a drawing he paid 10$ for it... he was lucky I was so generous.