Tell me your WORST buyer horror story

[nonyme]

99.9% of buyers I work with are an absolute joy. I just ran into one after 16 years on eBay who was the absolute WORST I've ever encountered. Yee gads.

Note that all communication was through eBay's messaging system!

Started out with the buyer asking me for a discount on a multi-item purchase. I politely pointed out the items were already on sale, and offered her free shipping.

She took the offer ... then paid immediately, before I could invoice her for the free shipping ... and then sent me a message that she was "sad" about having to pay shipping when I'd promised her free.

*head desk* I immediately refunded her the shipping.

THEN she demanded that I falsify the customs infomation. (International buyer.)

Ummm ... no.

I sent her a polite note explaining I could not do this, referring her the appropriate page on eBay, and cringed, because I had a feeling this was going to go south.

Yup. Entitled buyer felt entitled. She demanded I either falsify the customs info or ship in two package so the $$ amts would be less so she wouldn't have to pay customs fees. Or, she wanted me to cancel the order and refund her money. She also complained about the GAS and time needed to pick the items up at her post office, as if this was my fault and something I should refund her for. (Basically, she stated that if she was paying "X" amount for shoes, she shouldn't have to pay for the gas to go get them, too.)

Yeaaaaah. I refunded her order and sent her a cancel transaction request.

Cue immediate threats to leave me negative feedback if I didn't ship her the order RIGHT NOW and ranting that I just didn't understand. (Note: I've refunded her at this point!.)

2 1/2 hours of hold time later, I managed to get somebody at eBay who spoke passable English, and filed a report with Trust and Safety. While I was on hold, the buyer sent me a message indicating she'd reported me to eBay and they said I had to ship to her and demanding again I ship in two packages. (Though this time she offered to pay for shipping, implying that she'd planned on that from the beginning. We'd initially agreed to free shipping. In any case, I've been told by Trust and Safety as a friendly warning in the past that splitting an order into multiple packages is still considered customs fraud if the purpose is to avoid fees.)

I had already blocked the buyer, but informed her she was blocked, and told her to never buy from me again, and reminded her that her money was refunded. I suggested she find another seller(s) with the same items, and buy at different times or buy from two different sellers, if she wanted to keep the cost below the point at which she would be assessed a customs fee. 

Buyer's response was so profanity laden I couldn't post it here without getting banned from the boards myself, and it wouldn't make much sense if I redacted the profanity. Suffice to say she wants me to go somewhere hot, and also feels I'm a deveil, whatever that is. She also threatened to have all her friends buy from me and leave me negs. I reported her for the abusive language and threats. I resisted the temptation to respond with something along the lines of, "Do you mean devil, dummKopf?" (Really, if you're going to curse at someone, at least learn to spell the words correctly.)

I blocked all of Germany.

Then she purchased two of the SAME items from me, using a different ID ... with the same last name, mailing address, and paypal account. (Dunno how that happened as I had her entire country blocked, unless a block takes a few minutes to take effect.) What, she thought I was going to ship them to her AFTER she threatened to have all her friends neg me into oblivion, threatened me with a neg for refusing to falsify customs info, and also told me she'd reported me to eBay? Entitled dummKopf is a dummKopf.

I then called eBay and reported her for being an unwanted bidder and using a second account to circumvent my block.
I refunded her money, and sent a cancel transaction request, which I figured she wouldn't accept, but at least I could close it after seven days.

Buyer denied the cancel transaction request.

I called eBay AGAIN and, to eBay's credit, the rep was able to credit me my fees and assured me she was bumping this issue up to her supervisor for immediate review. I expect the buyer will be NARU'd very quickly.

I'm just ... boggled, however. She's not a newbie (2006 account), she's a competing seller, she's not a child based on her profile photo, and ... what, I caught her on a bad hair day? My first thought was that I was dealing with somebody's self-entitled 13 year old brat, but the account's been around since 2006 and she didn't buy things I would expect a kid to buy. She bought vintage Barbie shoes.

O've been on eBay since 1998.  For sheer irrationality, she was my Worst. Buyer. Ever.

[imakesugar]

You do know that IF you can show a Delivery confirmation number that They will close the case in Your favor right?

[imakesugar]

I am like You i like to spend time looking at other items and MOST of the time I do buy more things. Especially IF they combine shipping. Sometimes I will be sure to buy something else when I get it at a BID I consider LOW. I want Sellers to make some money. 🙂

I have My automatic INP set at 7 days. That lets every Buyer get a chance to look at other things. I have been poor also and when I was on a limited budget sometimes I would message a Seller and let them know I either was still looking at items or ask them ahead of time for an extension on Payment. I'd rather make some money than be so strict and make None. i try and look at GOOD SELLERS items often and many of them i have ordered from them consistantly.

[mysmallstoremn]

I was an eBay seller for long time until eBay decided to be one-way feedbacks - I had 10,000+ positive reviews and started to get threats like you all describe, refund or else or "I bought the wrong item"so refund with no return (too lazy to go to UPS). It was manageable and I was still making money.

The best one was a guy from Germany using a friend's account in the US buying a $1,500 software. Shipped to the eBay/PayPal address on file and the day it was receive and signed off, I got a PayPal claim as item not received. It's where I discovered the guy lived in Germany lol

Proof of software received and signed for by the friend (eBay and PayPal account holder) PayPal refunded and got a negative feedback filled with German insults. That day I called it quit.

As a buyer I never leave negative feedbacks, just no feedback when I'm unhappy.

[barspille0]

You get some right horrid buyers on here. I've had two in the space of just one week, both entitled males.

First one had purchased some christmas sweets from me, sweets that were popular and limited edition and had sold out at the shops. I had forgotten to remove the price sticker before packing the item and posting it. Big mistake.

Buyer emails me a few days later and claims he was "shocked" that I would charge what I did for the item, given the original price, and that he was going to notify other buyers that I was ripping people off. I replied to him and explained that postage cost £3, and that I was actually only making around £1 profit off the sale. W*nker.

Then another one, worse this time. And while I made a dumb mistake, he didn't have to be such a jerk. He had purchased a bathroom scale from me. It was a gift, or so I thought, from a friend, and it was unopened, or so I thought anyway, and I had put it in the cupboard as I was offended that my friend sent me a scale for my birthday. 

So I sold this on ebay recently, never having opened the box as again it appeared unopened, with original stickers that looked untouched, only to find that the buyer told me that inside was my son's DVD player which he left at this friends house. She had returned it in this scale box and never bothered to say anything, and we had just thought it was lost.  Who does that?

Anyway, I immediately messaged the buyer apologising profusely. I said I would refund in full once the buyer returned my son's property to me, and also I would refund postage costs. 

Buyer replied that was unacceptable, demanded that I front him the postage cost and that it be tracked at cost of £3.95 via ebay label, which he specified himself. So I did this for him. I also decided to just refund him in full straight away, purely to try to avoid any further grief off him. He then opened up a dispute just to spite me. He then messaged me and said he wasn't able to print the label, and that I'd have to find another way.  No thank you for the refund, just him being a total bullish d*ck.

So I went onto paypal and sent him £3.95, on top of the ebay label I had just paid for, and told him to just hand write my address on the parcel. I said "surely you can manage this"

So, in spite of the fact I had offered a full refund plus postage costs refund, plus an extra £1 gesture of goodwill, along with profuse apologies, he was being a completely unreasonable d*ckhead and making my life as hard as he could.

I know it was a stupid mistake, but it was a fluke, and nobody is perfect, and I just don't understand why someone would be such a d*ck when it's obvious you are clearly sorry and doing everything you can to put things right.

I do think there are buyers out there who target small sellers with a 100% feedback rating because they know they have power that way. They can get free items or abuse you because they know you fear negative feedback. I think ebay ought to change how they do the feedback including supending buyers for unfair negatives or bullish behaviour against sellers who are being reasonable. At the moment they do very little to protect sellers from this. And it's small sellers like me who suffer for it. I feel almost blackmailed by anyone who moans about anything.

And yes, I used to sell to Europe, and also experienced very difficult buyers so now it's UK only.

These people RUIN ebay and I hate them for it. I block anyone who is awkward or gives me s**t. I'd rather not sell than deal with them. Thankfully, most buyers are OK. But it only takes one or two to put you off.

[omm333]

I sold two genuine Ozwlad Boateng Suits, to a guy in Dewsbury I had the recipts and worked for Boateng a the VIgo St store in London. Thes seller purchased them and claimed they were fake.
The second was I purchased a Tom Ford fragrance and an Aunty Wainwrite charater who I guess did not like it so she claimed it was fake. I sent her a letter for Tom Ford Concession howver ebay ruled against me!
Then I have had a few threaten to come to my house and harm myself, if I did not remove negative feeback when they sol me good that were damaged. One sent a Techincs Turntable in a jiffy Bag and it was damaged in transit. I mean well a jiffy bag to protect a turntable. I have had this happen on a number of occsion namley from a certain group who al use 786 in thier email. I then had another person who gave false tracking info, they must have delivered an item in my area. Ebay found under Mohammeds favour he had given tracking information for a previous seller. The rack even stated it had been delivered on 14th March 2019. I have not made the purchase till 22nd and the due date was the 28th of March. 

[hyperrush]

Italian buyers are hard to preasure.

[cdems70]

Spoiler

A lady from Germany won an auction from me for over $350 and after winning she starts sending me questions about the product - more pictures from a different angle, etc.  So she said she would pay immediately once she gets the pictures.  So I sent them to her and she stalled around for 8 days before paying.  And it's almost impossible to give someone bad feedback anymore.  It's amazing that this loser had 100% good feedback.

[willsgarden62]

Years ago, about sixteen years ago, someone bought a Miss America Barbie from my wife. This was back in the day of money orders as payment. At first, the lady didn't want to pay. A couple weeks later after a case was opened by us, she said she mailed payment. We didn't get the money order, so we didn't ship. Eventually, the individual got angry and called the police on my poor wife. The police were told that the lady was a representative of eBay and she called them to report that my wife was a known scammer and had stolen money from her and dozens of others and maybe killed someone. After we sorted out what was really happening, the police apologized and told us to avoid the woman, drop all communication, and not cash the money order if it ever showed up. She had threatened our dog in email, so we were scared to even let the dog out to pee.

The woman had her husband call my house and we explained the payment hadn't come yet. He said he thought he'd mailed it. Then, she had him call back later and pretend to be eBay and threaten to have my wife thrown in jail. Then, she filled the answering machine with rants and threats and animal screams. After that, we assured the couple when the guy called back a third time that we'd return the payment if it ever arrived but that it hadn't yet. Finally, my wife quit eBay and we contacted multiple people there who finally listened to what was going on, confirmed the woman had falsely reported my wife to the police, and closed her account. For a long time, my wife was unwilling to even open the eBay start page. Now we just use it for yard sales four times a year.

We end up with two bad transactions a year but that has to be the worst horror story. My wife said that when the police had come to the house and beat on the door, she was in the bathtub. The stress from the whole thing caused her to miscarry the only time we've ever managed to get pregnant.  So I'm childless because some crazy eBay buyer decided to stalk my wife and terrify her.

[ben_inc]

I feel that pain, just got scammed out of $520.