Negative feedback I left for a seller

[lstc-7]

At the beginning of this month I placed an order for a headset that was about 1/2 the price of what the item was new, so good deal, right? Well... kinda.

I can deal with the color being wrong (it's a gaming headset and honestly I doubt I'd ever use it anywhere but home anyways), what I can't deal with is the detachable boom mic missing. Now it's a relatively small part and I'm a pretty understanding person so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that maybe he just dropped the part when he was packaging it or something. So I reached out to the seller and said I was missing the part, and gave him the option of either finding it and sending it to me, or paying me for the replacement part and the s&h to get it directly from the manufacturer. I got no answer from the seller so I reached out to ebay directly and laid everything out just like I did here. Ebay's response was to either suck it up, or send everything back, get my money back, and just order it again - hoping that the same thing wouldn't happen again, but at the very least waiting weeks until I find out if I'm back at square one again with another missing part (considering that manufacturers don't often sell spare parts directly, this sounds like something that must happen on a pretty regular basis for this).

Getting that reply from the ebay rep and no reply from the seller for about a week, I said "Screw it." I got mad and gave negative feedback, ordered the replacement myself, and paid for it out of my own pocket. Then the seller gets back to me and gives me more than what I told him the replacement would cost, and asks me to remove the negative feedback.

Now maybe he lost the part. Maybe he knew it wasn't there and that's why he was selling it so low. I would've honestly been fine with either of those answers. If he'd spelled out in the ad that he was selling it w/o the mic I might've still bought it at his full asking price even. And maybe he DID just miss my email, but once I'd placed the negative feedback he got back in touch with me pretty quick so idk. Point is - even if I WANTED to remove the negative feedback (still not sure if it was sincere or if he just did so because he didn't realize I'd speak up), I can't seem to find a way to remove it, only to leave an 80 character follow-up statement. I think at this point I'm more **bleep** at ebay's handling of it than I am at the seller tbh and the fact it's so hard to figure out how to do this, just makes me that much more upset with ebay.

[pburn]

In order to revise your feedback, the seller has to send you a feedback revision request.

[jeannicho22]

You could have just opened an item not as described and returned the item which would have been the easiest (and eBay approved) method of fixing this.  I suspect you didn't want to do this because even with you having to purchase the missing part, it was still a heck of a deal.  Question, what did you expect eBay to do exactly? 

Sounds like the negative may have been warranted mostly because the seller didn't have the experience to say..... Return for refund.  At no point in time would I have ever entertained either of your options.

[mudshark61369 · Accepted solution]

@lstc-7,

Buyers cannot revise feedback on their own, you have to ask a seller to send a Feedback Revision Request. After that check your ebay messages. Once the request is sent you have 10 days to make the revision or the request times out.

Adding a follow up to the negative would have been a good thing to do in the mean time.

"seller sent me a refund to cover the cost of a missing part"

  Contacting the seller was the right thing to do, but when they did not respond within a few days, you should have either gone to your purchase history and to the right of the item title you would see a More Actions drop down arrow, click on that and you would seen, Item Not As Described. You click on that and open a dispute.

Or on the listing page where the seller's return policy is, under the price, Returns: Free 30 Returns |See details, button if you click on that it will open a page and you will see Returns then a button that takes you to eBay's Money Back Guarantee (MBG) policy.

blob:moz-extension://f8e37a64-b583-4f41-8e41-4ad29ba9468d/902f7aaf-c020-40b7-b8aa-632ad239f2a7

That would tell you how the MBG works an its time frame for opening disputes  and asking ebay to step in and issue a refund.  You should do that after reading these replies so you will know what to do in the future.

In case the screen shot I entered above does not work, below is a link to ebay's MBG policy.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy...

For future reference, you have 60 days from the date of purchase to leave feedback, and that is the last thing you should do, after giving a seller a chance to make things right.  I also suggest spending some time on these boards reading about how to deal with issues, and before contacting ebay's customer service find out what to do, by coming here and starting a topic. Their CS reps aren't the best.

[lstc-7]

Not to be argumentative, but I do have a few notes on this:
"You could have just opened an item not as described and returned the item which would have been the easiest (and eBay approved) method of fixing this."  Didn't eBay put the negative feedback feature in themselves? I'm trying to be nice to the seller by not leaving the negative feedback since they did resolve the issue, but I don't see how this wouldn't be an "eBay approved method of fixing this," even if I didn't want to remove the feedback.

"I suspect you didn't want to do this because even with you having to purchase the missing part, it was still a heck of a deal." Yeah. Did it sound like I was implying something else? Again, I said I probably would've still bought this at the full asking price if he'd had it advertised that way.

"Question, what did you expect eBay to do exactly?" Reach out to the seller either through an email or a phone call, and say something like: "This seller isn't happy about his purchase. You should probably get in touch with him." Even if the seller or eBay had just said, "Lemme see what I can do and I'll get back to you in a few days." At least that would've been better than the "My way or the highway" knee-jerk response eBay gave me. I mean hell you could set up an automated email that would go out to the seller and do that much. I'm not asking them to hold our hands through the whole thing, just get the guy at the table - we can hash it out ourselves.

But this was the line that made me reply because I just really don't understand it:
"At no point in time would I have ever entertained either of your options." Why not? Are you talking about the options I suggested to him? "either finding it and sending it to me, or paying me for the replacement part and the s&h to get it directly from the manufacturer"?

If that's what was advertised, then why wouldn't you want to give your buyer what they had paid for? Again, I'm not trying to be argumentative here - maybe there's some cost-benefit reason that I'm missing here or some kind of rule that eBay has for this kind of thing that (as someone who's not a seller on here) I'm unaware of. I just don't understand why you'd rather have the product back instead of the money in hand? I mean it's not as much as you had hoped for, but unless you're planning on slapping another sticker on it and trying to pawn it off on somebody else without the mic again, then what's the point? He could've saved himself $9 by just doing that, and then we both would've been better off and not have to go through all this. If I was a jerk, I wouldn't even bother with trying to fix this and then he'd be in even worse shape.

And mudshark61369

"Buyers cannot revise feedback on their own, you have to ask a seller to send a Feedback Revision Request. After that check your ebay messages. Once the request is sent you have 10 days to make the revision or the request times out.

Adding a follow up to the negative would have been a good thing to do in the mean time." I did do that, so I'll follow up once I get that message, but like I said: I wasn't trying to return it. I needed a headset. He wanted money. He had a headset he didn't want. I had money to give him. I thought that's how this capitalism thing worked.

[myangelandmyprincess]

To be perfectly honest removing the feedback would benefit you as well.  It's your only feedback left and it's a negative.  Along with that its a negative worded in a way that doesn't express the issue but just shows emotion.  Leave off the whole beginning. A negative is meant to be a warning for other buyers.  Something like "headset missing boom mic no response from seller" would have been better.  

[*madison]

but once I'd placed the negative feedback he got back in touch with me pretty quick so idk.

------------------------------------------------------------

It happens often, some sellers will ignore complaints until they getted negged, and then the sellers suddenly want to be helpful. It makes me laugh.

Let the seller keep the neg, it's been earned.

As a side note, ebay members are allowed to register more than one account, and the new accounts can be linked easily to paypal.

[jeannicho22]

You are welcome to leave a negative for the seller, you didn't get what you paid for and the seller didn't respond back to you... I guess that's not my rub.  I don't really know what you expected eBay to do about it except put the tools in place that either:

A.  Get you what you paid for OR

B.  Get you a full refund

I'm wondering if you purchased a highly discounted item from Best Buy (the last one) and upon opening it found it was missing a piece.  Would you really have expected them to contact the manufacturer for the piece or give you part of your money back?  My guess is they would not be open to either of your "options".

Sounds like eBay's "My way or the highway" response was giving you the same option I'm suggesting... Return for refund and you're not happy with that.  You've admitted that you would have purchased it even if the seller had disclosed the missing piece.  While I'm a believer that buyers should what they paid for, sounds to me like you want your cake and eat it too.  You wanted the highly discounted piece at a higher discounted price.  

You don't get to say... I'm keeping the unit, but I want you to give me back some of my money.  This is called price renegotiation after the fact and is a very common ploy used by scammers.  Please note, I am not calling you a scammer, simply explaining a fact.  You asked why I would want the product back instead of the money in hand, this is why.  Many sellers (myself included) take a stand that there are no partial refunds.  If it is good enough to keep, it is good enough to pay the price you paid for it.  Besides, you've admitted yourself that you probably would have paid the seller's asking price if they advertised it as missing the mic.  If you would be willing to pay the price, chances are there is another buyer out there who would have too.

I'm not really trying to be hard-nose here over what you feel eBay or the seller should have done, but merely open your mind to another way of thinking.

Seller should have sent what was advertised

Once item discovered not as advertised you could have offer you "options", but not expected them to be accepted

If your "options" were not accepted there is really no reason to further contact the seller, RETURN FOR REFUND

There was really no reason to get eBay involved other than opening a return.  That's how it works, that's eBay's involvement.

You hedged your bet and got what you wanted "and more", you decide if you want to remove the negative.

[castlemagicmemories]

gave him the option of either finding it and sending it to me, or paying me for the replacement part and the s&h to get it directly from the manufacturer.

You don't give him the option; he gives you options if any.  The eBay rep was right.  You open a case for not as described, send the item back, get refunded when the item is delivered to the seller, and you buy another item.

You need to know how buyer protection works.  You decided to do your own thing, not go through the procedure, and thus you decided to be out that money.

After resolving a case, the seller send you the form to revise the feedback.  A refund or partial refund after the fact doesn't necessarily correct the situation and make it magically all right, but there are two wrongs here that don't make a right.  You didn't go through a case, and the seller didn't resolve the issue.

Open a case when appropriate and pro actively protect yourself.  Also be aware of policies.  Many things don't need a call to CS to resolve.