Quick synopsis of a recent transaction on my buying ID. Note that this is a recent (registered 2008) ID and since I only use it for purchasing, there are zero sales associated with it, and no references to any of my other activities on eBay.
- Found a listing for neat widget that was interesting enough and inexpensive enough (under $5 delivered) to trigger a purchase by me. Payment was made immediately.
- eBay messaged that order had been shipped.
- After 3 weeks, order has not arrived. No tracking is available on the order. I opened an Item Not Received case, basically just to get the tracking details from a seller who didn't think to post them to the order in the first place.
- Get a less-than-welcoming reply from the seller, very quickly after opening the case, that basically said I was stupid, the order was delivered well over a week ago, the seller and eBay have the delivery confirmation, and why was I such a b***head to open a Case?
- After I quit laughing, I replied politely that eBay allows me to open a case or contact a seller - they don't care which and they don't prefer one over the other. I said I was simply looking for the tracking information so that I could find out where the order is - if it's hung up or mis-delivered, I can get that straightened out.
- Another lightening fast response in the same vain as the first - I was dumb, he & eBay had the delivery confirmation, and if I didn't close the request he was going to contact my local police and ICC3 (his reference, not mine - I assume he meant IC3) and I would be charged with fraud and go to jail. He was also going to file a complaint with eBay (I guess because I was being polite?)
- I went to bed. This all happened between 1:30-2:00AM Central timezone. I don't think he was US-based, but his messages were not your typical English-is-not-my-first-language type. So I went to bed. Checked again in the morning and he had left another reply (I hadn't sent any response to his last message) wanting to know why I was creating so much trouble over so little money! Uh... cuz it's my money and I don't have what you say you shipped & delivered by cannot prove.
- Replied to his second rant by explaining that this was my buying ID (true), that I have been buying/selling on eBay since 1997 (totally true), that I was fully aware of how eBay handles different types of cases (true), and that all I was looking for was the tracking number so I could check with USPS (true) and possibly with my eBay rep (kinda true) to get the delivery info, if indeed it had been delivered. Please just send me the tracking number you used for my order.
- Went to court (environmental court - long story) and then to work. Came home, checked order. Seller had refunded in full three days before I was allowed to escalate. Never did give me the tracking number.
- When I checked his feedback, somewhere thru all of this, he had a rather high number of "Not Received" negative feedbacks on his account, each with an almost verbatim response that the buyer was trying to commit fraud and the item order had been delivered days/weeks earlier. Enough negative comments to drop his rating below body temp (98.6).
Does this sound like maybe he was the one running the scam? The item purchased could have been shipped using the eBay Standard Envelope, giving it an untrackable ESUS tracking number, which would have required contacting eBay to get the delivery details. BUT... if that was the case, the tracking number would show on the My eBay > Purchase History > Order Details, and it didn't. When I opened the case, the seller had 'posted tracking details' listing USPS as the carrier but supplying no tracking details.
Putting all of that together, especially given the temp & temperament of his replies to my inquiries, gave me the uncomfortable feeling that this was a seller who was either shipping via USPS First Class MAIL (envelope & stamp) and trying to bluff his way out of a lost shipment, or he was just trying to scam a few of his customers - enough to raise his profits but not enough to trigger an eBay review of his activity.
A buyer who was not a seller would not necessarily realize that in order for him to win the INR case, he would have to provide the tracking number, whether it's an ESUS number or a regular USPS First Class Package tracking number. Without it, the buyer wins since the seller did not prove, or provide, delivery confirmation. And if you hadn't ever had it happen, you might believe what he was feeding you and just gave up on the payment/product. Especially when he came out with that local police and ICC3 (his term) reporting, and reporting to eBay. A new buyer wouldn't know eBay buyer protections well enough to know this particular seller was just spouting nonsense and terms he most likely did not understand, or understand how they worked.
If this is what buyers are complaining about when they talk about "bad sellers", I'd have to agree with them -- this guy was going to ruin eBay for a lot of buyers who wouldn't know he was in the wrong and they were due a refund or a properly shipped purchase.
-Bob.
PS: he left very nice positive feedback (one buyer perk = no negatives) at time of payment. So I don't even have to worry about negative feedback on my purchasing account, and got his quickie good comments instead!
@dbfolks166mt wrote:This could be one of several things. I am not sure where your buyer is located or where the product was located so not sure what may have happened. It could be that he/she is a legitimate scammer and hoping that the small value of the item is lost on buyers that are not aware of the MBG and they refund those sales where they are caught and the rest just ends up being a cash cow due to uninformed buyers. It could be that he/she is in a country that does not have a postal system that has tracking. It could be he/she is a drop shipper, there appear to be a LOT of them selling items out of China, and the seller did not have access to the shipping information.
With the way eBay is so quick to crucify sellers for the most minor of infractions I am surprised this seller still has an active account.
I believe he's done this before, more times than we might think. His messages were not the random rants of an overly emotional newbie seller who screwed up. And I'm pretty sure he's not US based, simply based on word choice, spelling, and some minor phrasing. Not your typical 'broken English', but not what most 3rd+ generation, English-as-a-first-language folks would speak/write either.
It's also -very- possible/probable that he is a drop-shipper and didn't get tracking from his supplier. Or that he's shipping using First Class Mail (no tracking) using an envelope and a stamp. His feedback indicates that he's done this before - not had tracking, package gets lost, and he ends up calling the buyer a fraud and scammer when they leave negative feedback after going round-n-round with him.
He was aware of the MBG because he was most upset that I "went rite to Not Received case" instead of stretching out the remaining time arguing pointlessly with him. He also was extremely quick in his responses - and this is at 1-2am Central time (I'm a night owl), which also supports the non-US thoughts. And the almost instant claims of fraud and lying and all the rest -- either extremely defensive or he's just trying to scare off the newbies.
Once I mentioned that I was also a seller, long-term seller, and knew I could contact eBay at any time to deal with this -- straight to refund. Hopefully he also put me on his BBL list, because there is no BSL (Blocked Seller List) so I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting his ID. Well, that ID anyway - odds are he has more than one selling ID.
It's been a long time since someone on eBay has truly surprised me like that. A very long time. I just hope it's not the beginning of a new trend....
-Bob.
@gosimus wrote:
< So I don't even have to worry about negative feedback on my purchasing account >
FYI, that's a gimme. Nobody has to worry about receiving negative feedback from their seller.
eBay removed the ability of sellers to give negative feedback to their buyers in 2008. Management worried that buyers would feel inhibited from giving honest feedback to the sellers for fear of sellers retaliation. See the rest of the story at https://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/changes.html scroll down to #4.
There was a great amount of wailing and gnashing of the teeth when that was announced, as I recall. And many many predictions that it would be the end of eBay. 🙂 Instead, everyone adapted, feedback rates dropped, almost to the point of becoming irrelevant, and eBay probably deals with as much nasty negative feedback today as they ever did before the change... only now it's coming from their "basically good" buyers. 🙂
I guess what worries me about this is that if it is indeed the beginning of a new trend, it could become a very big issue for eBay's bottom line. Buyers treated this way don't come back, I would think. I know I'm not going to stop shopping, but I'll probably pay a bit more attention to the seller's feedback, meager as it is, before placing that order. Plus, for every buyer scared away by this type of behavior, there are probably 10-20 friends that don't even give the rest of us a chance to show that this one guy is just a jerk. THAT will hurt not only eBay but also small sellers who need as many friendly eyeballs as they can get!
-Bob.
@coolections wrote:Why does every situation have to be about someone scamming. Maybe the seller is just not too savvy at procedures ? Maybe you could have asked for the tracking number instead of opening a case first ? Maybe the buyer did not get tracking and was seeing if YOU are trying to scam him ? Maybe the seller has already been scammed by buyers saying they did not receive their item ? Many items sold under $5 do not have tracking as most buyers our honest and selling just take a chance. It sounds like you spent too much time going back and forth over an under $5 item.
When I opened the case, I specifically requested tracking. As a seller, the first thing you do when a buyer opens an Item Not Received case is post the tracking number and carrier to the case - proving that the carrier received it and either still has it or has delivered it. What this seller posted to the case was "USPS" -- no tracking number.
Each time his responses to my simple inquiry for tracking were overly aggressive and extremely defensive. It's quite possible he'd gone thru this before - but he should have learned from those instances, not keep repeating them. I shipped my collectible souvenir pennies for years in First Class Mail with a stamp. If one got lost, the buyer got an immediate refund and an apology. This would happen maybe half-dozen times a year, and 3-4 of those would contact me later that their purchase showed up, just very late. There purchase was still free - it wasn't worth the stress for either of us.
All I was asking for was tracking. The order was late -- eBay knew it because there was no tracking showing on the order in My Purchases. And I checked several of my own shipments -- there were several places that I, as the seller, could get that info from. And on my other purchases, I could see tracking numbers, even the new ESUS numbers.
I don't believe he was mad because he thought he was being taken advantage of. I believe he was mad because I wouldn't back down and simply kept asking for the tracking number. He even told me he'd confirmed it with eBay!! But he couldn't give it to me so I could do the same??
If you are going to take a chance with untracked shipping, you have to accept the responsibility to refund when a customer says it didn't arrive. If you had tracking, you could prove them wrong and eBay would cover you. Without tracking, you're deciding that profits from sales delivered will exceed the refunds from sales not delivered. If that math doesn't work - get tracking. Just don't blame your buyer for the decision you made.
-Bob.
@coolections wrote:
@rosachs wrote:When I opened the case.Cases are not opened to get tracking numbers, they are opened to get refunds and returns. Since you opened a case and the seller did not provide tracking you should have automatically been refunded when the case timed out. Done deal.
He refunded before the case automatically went to Customer Service. Within about 12hrs of that action, as I recall. So I'm comfortable that he knew he was going to lose the case and was simply trying to buffalo me into closing it so he would not have to refund.
He knew how it worked. And he knew he could scare newbie buyers. Unfortunately for him, I'm not a newbie... only my buying ID is new.
My concern, and a bit part of why I posted this here, is that many more people will read the boards than will ever post here. If what I had to deal with can help one other person avoid getting taken by the same hollow threats, then I'm just fine with that. When I first started using computer networks in 1975 (MN had all the colleges in the state connected, and started hooking up the high schools in 1975 - very forward thinking), we all learned by sharing experiences. I guess the habit remains. 🙂
-Bob.
