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Buyer left negative feedback and now cannot be contacted

I sold an item about a month ago to a non-USA buyer.  It was lost by USPS at one of the POs in the USA.  As soon as I was notified that the item had not been delivered, contacted USPS in an attempt to locate and sent a message to the buyer.  After the required 30 day wait period from USPS with nothing being found or being delivered, I contacted the buyer anf asked if they wanted an immediate refund, or should wait until USPS concluded it was certifiably lost.  At that point, without replying to me, the seller opened a case and left negative feedback: "Breaks purchase contract, never get items".  I immediately issued a full refund. Repeated messages via eBay and direct via their Paypal email, as well as messages FROM eBay to the buyer have had no effect, no reply of any sort.  I then left a response to the negative Feedback: "Shipped 1 day after payment, package lost by USPS, buyer informed, refund given".  Ship-Cover insurance paid the claim within 2 days, so they had no problem with understanding what happened.

 

This negative Feedback ruins my perfect >1200 Feedback score. 😞 🙂  Now as a practical matter, it means next to nothing.  But there is the principle of it. 🙂  In all fairness, there may be somewhat of a Language problem with this buyer, being in a foreign county, but I do not believe that is the case.

 

eBay of course will not change a Feedback, but is there anything more that can be done?   Can it be elevated to a higher level?  What happens if a buyer simple disappears off the face of the Earth?  Or is on vacation without communications access for an extended time (if that's even possible these days!)?

 

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

--- sam

 

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This is a followup.

 

I sent an official request to change feedback to the the buyer repeating the explanation.  Several days later they replied with this (paraphrased slightly due to translation from German sa the item was actually sold through eBay in Germany): "Item was sold a second and is not lost as claimed".  Of course this is totally false and there can be no proof.  I contacted eBay once again but they said there is nothing they could do since this statement is not part of the public Feedback.  And that "the seller is responsible for the entire shipping chain.".   So I asked: "If a USPS track crashes and packages are destroyed this is my responsibility?"  Well, they said, if it was a widespread catastrophe perhaps not, but an indiviual item lost is.   Really?  So I suppose I should only ship via the most expensive guaranteed service.

 

There apparently are specific cases where eBay can change feedback but this doesn't qualify.  One would be where a seller made false, abusive, or fraudulant comments in a public forum like the actual Feedback  or reply to it.  This does not qualify.

 

The saga continues...

 

--- sam