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Negative Feedback / Partial Refund Request
Good morning. To start, I have been selling on eBay here since late last year and everything's been going good - I've been packing things well, shipping them the day of or the day after and have been wholly honest about my products' descriptions in their respective listings. On Sunday, however, I noticed I received negative feedback from an international buyer - without any prior communication about the issue - so, naturally, I reached out to him. After telling me via eBay messages that he would change the negative feedback to positive if I gave him a 50% refund, which I regretfully did in a bit of a panic, I have not heard anything since (including an ignored revision request). Oh, and as for the context, the feedback is one-word and says "fake", and the items I sold him were reprinted, but still relatively rare, band merchandise (not vintage or original, neither descriptor being anywhere in my listing). I did ask the buyer twice in our somewhat brief messages conversation about what he thought was fake, or how he felt misled, but he did not answer either inquiry, instead focusing on a partial refund. I don't know, the whole thing makes me feel bullied, at best and extorted at worst. Are there any avenues that anyone could suggest here? I would sincerely appreciate any feedback you may be able to offer, and thank you in advance.
solarlunar
OP2 years agoTime will tell, although I'll be sure to keep this thread updated one way or another. I would hope that's not the case, of course, but your ranking is indiciative of a mighty eBay record that comes with a lot of wisdom and experience that I simply don't have. Honestly, this whole situation is rather frustrating. The fact that the buyer never told me what he was unhappy with - or what was "fake" about what I sold - is a bit of a hole, given that you can essentially leave people false feedback without there being any kind of penalty or need for clarification. Furthermore, when the buyer throws in some light refund extortion into the mix, which I foolishly fell for (a mistake I won't make again!) and then, to add insult to injury, doesn't even follow through on what he said he would do, it's simply lying and deception for financial gain without any substantiation. How is that okay? It's a shame I've had to go through even this many hoops for what is clearly immoral behavior. If the roles were reversed, and I sent a buyer an eBay message saying I'd do something that I didn't do, I imagine the buyer would have more options for recourse than I have had at my disposal thus far (or so I'd hope, anyway).
solarlunar
OP2 years agoI did contact customer service over the phone again, and the agent I spoke to said he is going to submit my case over to his team and that they will review it and get back to me within the next 24 to 72 hours. Funnily enough, he suggested I report the buyer but, since I have already done so, that base is indeed covered.
mam98031
Mentor2 years agoOK, if that doesn't work. Did you ask them to review the email the buyer sent you?
Try one of the other methods I previously posted to contact CS. The Social Media methods typically get you to more seasoned CSRs.
solarlunar
OP2 years agoI did, yes, and the agent on the phone could see my messages and was able to identify which one specifically violated eBay's policies, which is a sentiment that I hope travels to whomever is going to review my specific case.
mam98031
Mentor2 years agoThat is wonderful. My only concern is the length of time they told you it would take to have them reviewed and potentially removed. I've known some very rare times that when a timeframe like this is given to a seller that it actually happens and the fb gets removed. But on far more, nothing ever happens.
Which is why I said that if this doesn't work out for you in a couple of days, you should contact Ebay again and I would use one of the Social Media CS option.
solarlunar
OP2 years agoI haven't heard anything as of yet, and am not all that hopeful honestly. At any rate, I will give one of the other options a try if the current avenue I am on doesn't work out. The agent I spoke to said I would get an e-mail once it is reviewed, though if I don't hear anything by the beginning of next week I will assume the case disappeared into the ether.
mam98031
Mentor2 years agoI've been around a long time and unless this is some new procedure, I thing the CSR was not being honest with you.
solarlunar
OP2 years agoThanks again for your insight. From the little bit of skimming that I did, I do not see any negative feedback that the buyer has left others (although he doesn't buy a lot on here, amounting to only about 20 transactions a year). I did go ahead and report the buyer, providing all of the details I provided when I requested a feedback revision, although it doesn't sound like that will get the feedback removed either. I will try and get in touch with eBay again to see if I can reach any further resolution. Thank you!
mam98031
Mentor2 years agoAs I explained earlier, Reporting a buyer has nothing to do with actually getting the feedback removed.
You do need to contact Ebay again.
solarlunar
OP2 years agoJust to share an update, I did contact customer service over the phone and, after hearing what I had to say, they said that the buyer was in violation and that the negative feedback should be removed. After being instructed to go through eBay's remove feedback process, however, I was told that the feedback was not in violation of their policies. I suppose an argument could be made here that the issue is the buyer himself, as opposed to the feedback, so I am going to try to report the buyer which, in hindsight, may have been the better avenue to go down in the first place ... I don't know. This whole process is rather frustrating.
mam98031
Mentor2 years agoYou just need to contact Ebay again. That automated process is not going to review the email from the buyer or if they do this to other members like their feedback left for others may show.
solarlunar
OP2 years agoThank you very much for the thorough response. As for looking the buyer up on Facebook, I don't think that's much of an option since he is from Japan unfortunately (I also don't have an account, admittedly). My goal with all of this is to get the negative feedback removed, and eBay does seem to have a couple of options to either request the feedback be removed or to report the buyer ... the latter seems to be the more viable option. I did save all of the messages that he and I exchanged, so I do have that information at my disposal thankfully. I will try eBay's help page that you posted to see if I can make some headway on this matter one way or another. Since I am a relatively new seller, the vague negative feedback was rather jarring to see but, after forking over the relatively hefty refund to a promise unfulfilled, I began to feel like something was amiss with not only my error but with his approach as well. Once again, you have my sincere thanks for taking the time to respond to my inquiry.
mam98031
Mentor2 years agoWhoops, sorry. FB here doesn't mean Facebook, sorry. FB = Feedback.
Reporting a buyer does not get the FB removed. However you can use the function on the site to request the FB to be removed. There is no harm in doing that. However because you have info that needs to be reviewed, it is likely that the automatic process won't work for you.
Here is the link for the process on the site.
https://www.ebay.com/sellerhelp/feedback
If that doesn't work and you need to contact Ebay, make sure you ask them to review the email you received from your buyer about the partial refund and make sure you look at their feedback left for others to see if there is a pattern of doing this to other sellers. That can be very important to prove abuse of the system.
mam98031
Mentor2 years agoYou feel "bullied" because you were. What your buyer did was against the rules. They had no right to demand a refund from you and I'm sorry to hear you complied. The outcome unfortunately is to be expected. I'm so sorry.
In the future if this happens to you, your response is a brief and polite one. I am sorry you have issues with the item, please feel free to return it for a refund. If the buyer keeps writing trying to get a partial refund from you. Send them the same email again and again and again if needed. Most bullies asking for a partial refund have no desire to return the item, so they usually go away in short order.
Something I would like you to do. Go to the buyer's FB page and look at the FB they leave for others. Do you see them doing this kind of thing to other sellers? Come back and describe what you see.
You need to gather information and then contact Ebay for some help. While the negative FB won't hurt you with Ebay and your selling stats and likely not even with buyers, it is pretty nasty for a buyer to leave FOUR of them. That buyer is not only a Bully they are a thief in my book. That is simply shameful.
Once you see if the buyer has a history of this kind of behavior, you need to contact Ebay. When you do, make sure you specifically tell them to look at the email the buyer sent you demanding a refund and they would fix the feedback. That is extortion on Ebay. A no no for sure. And if this buyer has a history of doing this that is even a bigger abuse of the system and could help you.
Do not forget to put this buyer on your BBL [blocked bidder's list].
I would suggest that you contact Ebay for Business on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for the better trained CSRs.
Here are your options for contacting Ebay Customer Service. Please be aware that for social media CS, you send them a Private Message and briefly explain what your problem or issue is. Feel free to leave your Name, address, phone number and/or your email address in this message. It is private and secure and it may help to speed up the response for you.
https://twitter.com/askebay
https://www.facebook.com/eBay/
https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/
Your options will be on the left. If you use the link below you can only get to the Automated Assistant or Chat box type AGENT in the box and hit enter. You will then get more options. Not all options are available 24/7. It will depend on staffing available. So sometimes you can request a call back and sometimes you can't. Sometimes you have the Chat option available and other times it won't me. If it is important to you to use one of those options, just try back later.
If you use a cell phone or other mobile device, you may need to turn off your Spam filter so that Ebay can call you.
If you are a seller outside of the US or Canada, you will need to use the Chat Option.
https://www.ebay.com/help/home