I'm getting a bit miffed on the lack of support.
Was on hold for 5 minutes appealing a negative feedback that didn't get removed. Line went dead.
They got rid of Facebook messenger support and live chat. Now can't even have someone call currently.
I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable.
31 comments
onefootflipper
·5 months agoI have had really good luck just using the AI bot based feedback removal thing, the key is to explain to the bot what rule the person broke.
christworks
·5 months ago@quadcitypickers
In my view, based on your feedback history, you do some very shady stuff. I think your feedback history is relevant to the feedback you received here.
You have been on eBay long enough to know that eBay's Money Back Guarantee supersedes anything after the first 30 days, including a manufacturer’s warranty. I mention this because one of the five negative feedback entries you have received over the past year involved what may have been a manufacturer defect on a new item. The buyer claimed the product was damaged and stated that when they contacted you, you directed them to the manufacturer for a warranty replacement. In your reply, you added that you told the buyer to go to the manufacturer “to avoid returning the entire order.”
You know warranties do not transfer when an item is sold on eBay except in limited circumstances. You told the buyer that knowing full well it would run out the clock on their ability to open a return, yet you presented it as if you were doing them a favor. Of course, no shocker here—the manufacturer refused to honor the warranty because the buyer did not purchase it from an authorized retailer. The buyer then left you negative feedback, and you responded angrily because they did not contact you before leaving it. Why would they? They already knew you were giving them the runaround.
In your responses to buyers, you refer to or imply they are all “liars” and “scammers.” You are exactly the type of seller that runs off good buyers. You say a rep told you that your buyer should not be on eBay. I’ll stop there—you can already guess how I feel about you being allowed to sell on eBay.
Edit to add: I generally like your post here, and I always thought better of you. I had never read your feedback, so I am disappointed. I hope you will take our words to heart and reconsider how you do business.
krazzykats
·5 months agoWould calling at 3 a.m. even connect you to a live person, or would regular Pacific Coast hours like 8–5, Monday to Friday, work better?
eBay might not have anyone working during graveyard or odd morning hours.
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funfactorychannel
·5 months agoat 3:30pm eBay support says my wait time is 32mins. at 6:05pm. I am still waiting for the callback.
hartungcards
·5 months agoSpending 5 minutes appealing a negative feedback is unacceptable.
grann-4629
·5 months agoHaving any feedback at all is nothing but a headache for many members and a place to rant for other members. It does support forums like this because members like to talk about how they have been mistreated by feedback.
I have an idea ... just let me get under my cover first ...
Why not delete the feedback system completely and 'allow' sellers and buyers to communicate their differences between each other like adults?
powell-collectibles
·5 months agoFor me, feedback enables sales. My main selling account is in a somewhat niche space, and sellers in that space don’t always have good condition items, and most don’t know how to pack properly (it isn’t as obvious as one might think). Buyers understand this, so they go to feedback to check out sellers.
on the buying side, I rely on feedback to make purchasing decisions. I mostly buy vinyl records, and I want to avoid sellers that don’t pack well and those that don’t grade conservatively. If we didn’t have feedback, I’d buy far less on eBay. I really don’t want to deal with a crapshoot.
gurlcat
·5 months ago@grann-4629 If eBay did away with feedback I would be much more hesitant to purchase here. This is the Wild West of online commerce, where any scammy, crazy and/or moronic person can post stuff for sale, so I want to know if previous buyers have had trouble with any given seller.
Now if eBay offered free returns on all items (or better yet immediate refunds upon initial return label scan, like they do for some items), then feedback wouldn't be so necessary. But for now it's a buyer's best tool for decision making.
powell-collectibles
·5 months agoI don’t disagree with you about eBay support. I don’t necessarily agree, either – I’ve had just a few interactions with the live agents, and each time they were a big help. Absolutely, I think that the Facebook support will be missed – they helped me on several occasions, and it was always a good outcome, and much easier and faster than talking with an agent on the phone.
Regardless, I think that we (the collective “we”) get a bit to entrenched in absolute positions, which just leads to bad feelings. Declaring something “unacceptable” sets you up for stress if and when there isn’t an accommodation from eBay. If their support continues as is – or gets worse for you – what will you do? If you really won’t accept it, it is a deal breaker. You’d walk away. You’d need to – if something is truly unacceptable, if not fixed, you aren’t going to carry on. If that is the hill that you will die on, sure, you can make that absolute statement. But, if you are just going to put up with it, better to find another approach. Otherwise, you're making a liar out of yourself, which just leads to disappointment (in yourself).
So, for me, I find it best to accept that I can’t control and find workarounds to challenges to what some might find “unacceptable.” In this case, it would be to learn from other sellers how they manage failed feedback appeals or just accept the negative and move on. Sure, I suppose that there are some "unacceptable" things for me. Maybe if eBay starts charging 50% fees, or if they require that I send everything Express mail, or if they won't stop asking me to be a mentor and I can't block the messages. Maybe I'll consider those things unacceptable and will say goodbye to eBay.
gurlcat
·5 months ago@powell-collectibles When was the last request for you to become a mentor?
powell-collectibles
·5 months agoHah! It is actually been a while. Probably five weeks ago. It was fairly relentless for a while. I really don’t recall whether they just stopped, or if I started blocking the messages.
gurlcat
·5 months ago@powell-collectibles Where were you receiving the messages, here in the forum PM's, or on the eBay platform? What did they say?
powell-collectibles
·5 months agoEmails from eBay. It was just the relentless resending of the CDA to make me an official mentor. I’m still referred to as unofficial mentor by some, of course 🙂
gurlcat
·5 months ago@powell-collectibles Some people call you the Space Cowboy.
powell-collectibles
·5 months agoAnd some call me Maurice, but that is only because I don’t want to hurt no one.
house*of*paws
·5 months agoAw, poor thing. It must be difficult being so darn desirable. LOL 😉
As I recall it, you were using 'Unofficial Mentor' as your Signature on posts. I didn't realize it was inspired by popular demand. My bad.
powell-collectibles
·5 months agoI only went through the process - up until signing the CDA to see how easy it is. Plenty of people opined that no way I’d be approved. It was really very easy. From what I’ve seen on these boards, they aren’t very discriminating in the approval process. The mentors are all fine - but there isnt a high bar to get into that club.
tobaccocardyahoo
·5 months agoI expect no support from Ebay and never get miffed when I do not get any.
Somehow, I survive, and sometimes even thrive.
I must be out of step with other sellers, AGAIN.
meme6253
·5 months agoI agree there should be a much better system that we should be able to access, But the powers that be must think the current system is sufficient enough so we just have to deal with it.Considering your customers issue, I doubt that you would have any luck getting that removed.Just move on.
albertabrightalberta
·5 months agoIMO, what's unacceptable is your response to the buyer. You earned that feedback.
bonanza125
·5 months ago"Before I could even respond he called me another name for a bundle of twigs, as well as a bad slur for mentally handicapped people. Then he said he was "going to have his wife and his friends buy things just to leave me negative feedback". Yes, he said this in writing. It made me laugh when he said "it costs nothing to be nice" when he was the one calling me all kinds of names."
This is where I would've blocked the buyer and ended all conversations with the buyer cause it would lead you to nowhere.
"When I called to appeal it, and surprisingly reached someone in the US, he reviewed the messages from me and the buyer, stated I did nothing wrong, and "this buyer should not be on eBay".
Yes customer service will agree with you but they don't have the authority to remove. They have to send it to someone who does and it's not a guarantee. They would suggest appealing through the system. It's more of a hassle than it's sometimes worth cause we already know the outcome.
quadcitypickers
OP5 months agoThere's 2 levels to the appeal, 1st one is simply a request that runs through AI.
Oddly, feedback I never thought would get removed, gets removed by the AI, but more stubborn feedback (stuff more qualified) does not.
The second level is the appeal, which gets human eyes on it.
I did not have anymore lock cylinders to offer the buyer. He complained "I would not replace it" but then stated he "didn't want another one because it too would be junk". Like...ok which is it then? Why are you wanting me to replace it if you don't want the replacement? That makes no sense.
I offered to have the vendor send him another one, at no charge, so he would not have to buy another one, but he then only wanted to return it.
This exact part through the exact vendor on Amazon has over 300 good reviews, and maybe 15 bad ones, mainly for late shipping.
Then he told me he had to "drill it out to remove it" and then I knew he was full of it because he said "the part inside broke" which would not require drilling it out.
Before I could even respond he called me another name for a bundle of twigs, as well as a bad slur for mentally handicapped people. Then he said he was "going to have his wife and his friends buy things just to leave me negative feedback". Yes, he said this in writing. It made me laugh when he said "it costs nothing to be nice" when he was the one calling me all kinds of names.
When I called to appeal it, and surprisingly reached someone in the US, he reviewed the messages from me and the buyer, stated I did nothing wrong, and "this buyer should not be on eBay".
m60driver
·5 months agoIt s not unacceptable, it is just life selling on Ebay. It is rarely worth the effort to contact Ebay over a neg. Just file a removal request but understand that they are not often removed. And as far as requests for refunds by buyers, regardless of how ridiculous the reason may be, just refund. The only decision is whether it is worth paying for return shipping. Most items are not worth paying for the return shipping, especially if the item is broken. I recently had a buyer file an INAD for a new sealed book. Not sure what could have possibly been not described properly. But I still just refunded to avoid any further headaches, I just blocked the buyer and moved on.
quadcitypickers
OP5 months agoTerrible advice. There's too many Amazonians that also use eBay and know how to game the system. Refunding them without requiring a return just enables them to do it to other sellers who might give in as well.
I have to take returns back as I am forced to in Auto Parts, which was a terrible idea by eBay as so many people who are shade tree mechanics and people who have adequate reading comprehension would be light years apart on a Venn diagram. Out of 30 returns in that category in the last year, 3-4 were actually bad parts (defective, new out of box).
The other 25-26 were due to numskulls not looking at the part photos or the part numbers, and somehow completely unaware that the same exact car/truck/suv will use different parts, quite often, depending on either the engine size, 4x2 vs 4x4, trim level, etc.
Had they actually taken a few moments to look under the hood or lookup their car on a parts site and compare the part numbers, it could of been avoided all together. But the "confidence" of "free returns" took any thinking out of equation.
Which is really interesting because I used to work AT a parts store and pretty much every customer came in with the part number or the part with them to compare photographically or knew what engine size, drivetrain or trim level their car was. Which means your average eBay auto part buyer is even less intelligent than that.
Then to make it worse, half of those returns I could not even relist because since they get shipped back in the original box, often with little to no packing material. Someone shipped back an alternator recently without any packing material whatsoever.
stainlessenginecovers
·5 months ago@quadcitypickers wrote:
You also need to respond to people like you are a Millionaire Robot. You ONLY want to help them and are sorry that what they purchased isn't working out. "I can refund you in full, or send you a XXX that fits if you'd like".
Defending your pockets is NO WAY to do business.
Well, it is if you want NO repeat business, vindictive buyers and negative feedback.
You can argue the 'Amazonian Way' etc. but if are getting 26 of 30 returned for the 'don't fit' reason there is 1 common denominator.
soh.maryl
·5 months agoRefunding a buyer who has opened an item not as described case is a choice ultimately made by the seller.
If the seller does not respond to the case, that's what happens. If, however, the seller sends a prepaid return label, there's no requirement that he refund unless/until the item arrives back to him.
kensgiftshop
·5 months agoTell buyer to return for a refund.
Once they are refunded, ask if they'll change it.
bonanza125
·5 months agoTo appeal negative feedback you need to go through the system and file an appeal. Calling Ebay will not guarantee a removal. The agent answering the phone doesn't have the authority to remove the feedback. They would tell you to file the appeal through the system. The negative is considered a lack of description claim so good luck in getting it removed. The phone line could be dead right now. So you and anyone else will have to wait. Technical problems happen.
jonathanbrightlight
·5 months agoThis negative feedback?
kibble-net
·5 months ago+1 to this.
Yes it stinks that ebay isn't easier to talk to directly. But, this is working as intended. Learn from it and do better next time.