OK, so a weird thing / series of the same thing happened in just the last week that I haven't encountered in my many years on ebay: I was BLOCKED by no fewer than 3 sellers!
Before you go thinking "well, you're clearly the problem here" I will give you a rundown of how it all went:
1st one: I very politely asked if I could get a better price on a used £30 item which I happen to know will be very hard to sell, as it's outdated technology in a field where the money moves with the new stuff; it's also in the upper price bracket for items in that sector. They clearly agreed with my assessment and came back with £27. I accepted and then very politely mentioned some packing tips, purely because I had been sent THAT VERY DAY an item (bike cog set - cassette) loose in just a card Amazon envelope, no bubble wrap, no anything, not even some string to hold all the clinking parts together. This is what I said, word for word, copy & pasted:
"OK, let's do it - I'll buy it tonight once you amend it - will you pack it up in a decent amount of bubblewrap and a card box? Or double-jiffy bagging it, that might also do it - I want it to get to me in the same shape as it is now 🙂 Do you use RM or Evri?"
Reasonable and polite, no? But it clearly got his back up; his EXACT response:
"Hello.
Bit demanding on your packing request.
I do know how to package a parcel. What do you think I going to tie a label on it and post it! Good luck in your search for the part you require."
ANNNND... block!
But I NEVER KNEW this at that point. (It could be inferred, I suppose, BUT I didn't think this happens, I just thought he was refusing to sell to me and that was all.)
But really, HOW MARDY do you have to be to turn down a sale that's in the bag over a perfectly normal and POLITE request / packing tip? Yes, I can see it might seem a touch insulting IF you're a great packer, but then, I have had MANY, MANY horror stories with sellers packing SHOCKINGLY (one that I even received earlier that very day too!) which is why I sent this basically throw-away comment, and I then tried to explain this very situation in 4 separate messages before working out that I was BLOODY BLOCKED!
The second one was over a £50 hub - I needed to know a few things so was asking a bunch of questions, which maybe was a bit much, but it's this new, conversational ebay message system, you see, it clearly encourages this to some extent...
At the end of a relaxed convo (5 messages stretched over a few HOURS, BTW), I asked him if he would measure whether if the flanges were symmetrically placed on the axle - a simple matter of using a ruler on a flat surface! He says "I don't own a ruler" (lol, what? but ok) "I use a measuring tape". SAME THING, buddy! (I never said this, of course). "and I'm not with the hub right now" OK, I say, no problem, I can wait, please let me know, I AM INTERESTED. (this convo is a bit more paraphrased)
Day and a half passes, I get back to him to see what's up, he says (EXACT QUOTE:)
"Never got back to you because I offered you a deal and you still wanted more cheaper so no I refuse the right to sale."
Now, the hub was on a Best Offer. I NEVER ONCE ASKED FOR A DEAL, but HAD received a fair(ish) offer of £40 early on. I was mulling it over, but I NEVER SAID NO, nor did I bring it up - this was purely because sometimes the ebay system sends out automated offers!
This guy is a less than unimpeacheable seller, pretty poor from reading his FB - 9 negs over 685 FBs - and I feel his attitude confirms it. Come on, AITA here??
THIRD and final one (this is a short one, lol):
I was browsing another pro seller's offerings [ ] when I spotted a mistake in one of their listings and very helpfully messaged to mention the cog they were selling was not stainless steel, but chromed steel. (I know, no good deed goes unpunished, and I did have a bit too much time on my hands)
Their immediate auto-reply:
"Hi,
Apologies for this pre-written message.
We now have automatic system that puts on a blocklist all users that send a message before payment. This is because return requests and partial refund demands increase by 500% for those accounts and our number one priority is to keep the ebay account free of 'defects' that ebay introduced some time in the past.
Also all items are SKU stored away so man-hours required for double checking and answering messages have become costly over time.
Once again, my apologies. I am sure you are not one of them but we have to apply it to everybody to have the desired results so unfortunately you will have to move on to another seller.
Sorry
The seller may well be correct in their assessment (though how accurate can your data be after 1132 transactions is a bit debatable) and I'm sure some professional sellers might be somewhat sympathetic, but it's still a horrible, rude thing to do (and in this case, CLEARLY counter-productive AND PLAIN NASTY, as NOWHERE do they mention you'll be blocked for asking a simple question, clearly looking to entrap people by instantly rooting out ANY BUYER who is LESS THAN INSTANTLY 100% SURE OF THEIR PURCHASE (they sell USED items, BTW!). Crazy!
I mean, you COULD just NOT REPLY if replying is so costly, right? Why BLOCK potential BUYERS?? SO stupid.
This is basically the last bastion of gross discrimination! It's like "we won't refuse to serve black / gay / old / women but we WILL refuse anyone who isn't ZERO extra work for us than the absolute bare minimum"
This surely cannot be right. I am so sad and annoyed by all this. This world was already going to hell in a handbasket, as we all can plainly see, but this is yet another nasty little nail in its coffin.
