Account Restricted for Leaving Honest Feedback for Buyer Who Missused Returns

[cheyennetradingco]

We have had our account restricted for leaving honest feedback on a buyer’s page.

Buyer requested return for item not as described claiming item not sealed.  We accepted return. Received it back, sealed exactly as stated in listing, uploaded picture of sealed item to return request. Issued refund of cost minus shipping through PayPal.  Ebay overrode our decision, taking money from our PayPal account to refund buyer in full. Buyer sent multiple abusive emails calling us a crook for not offering full refund. Buyer threatened negative feedback in messages and did actually leave negative feedback. We left honest feedback for buyer summarizing the bad experience we had with buyer misusing returns. Ebay restricted account because we were honest in our feedback about the buyer. 

Ebay gives option to leave feedback for buyer after transaction yet filters it so we can only leave positive.  Sellers get penalized with restrictions it we are honest.   Ebay is deciding more of these cases in favor of the buyer leaving sellers to pay the cost in return shipping fees and reputation. Buyers know they can abuse the policies and when confronted Ebay does nothing because they consider sellers as their “employees” instead of the entrepreneurial business people we truly are and consider our customers as their buyers not the consumers who desire our products at our prices. Thinking of moving $36,000 of listings to new platform totaling $80,000 in yearly sales.  Any suggestions?

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

We were talking about EBay.

Regardless there are malls all over America closing because their buyers went elsewhere. They did not come here.

[mam98031]

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@emerald40 wrote:

Yes it can sometimes happen.

But sellers here were taking advantage of it.

They were listing at .99 to get better placement.  They were not using a reserve to avoid paying the high fee.

And then cancelling because they were not going to get the price they wanted.

I encountered a lot of them.  So what buyer is going to bid and wait 7 days and wonder if the seller is just going to flake out on the transaction.

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Are you talking currently or years ago?

Most sellers know that the current rules on Ebay for sellers would cause a seller to have a very short career here if they were to act as you describe above very often.  

I'm sorry you've had this problem before.  I've experienced the same problem before and actually recently by a new seller that didn't know any better.  But under the terms in which a seller operates under now, they just can't behave that way for long and retain a selling account in good standing with Ebay.

[equid0x]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

We were talking about EBay.

Regardless there are malls all over America closing because their buyers went elsewhere. They did not come here.

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Malls are closing all over America because the middle class hasn't received a significant pay raise in 30 years. A quarter of America remains unemployed(despite what official numbers would have you believe). The younger, typical buyer demographic that would have patronized the malls years ago can't and doesn't because they are saddled with a 30 year "mortgage" for their education before they can even have kids or acquire a home, and then fail to market themselves for work because they are forced to compete with wages in overseas countries that are 1/7 or even less than the basic cost of living in the US. Basic food and cost of living expenses have quintupled since 1980 with no appreciable increase in pay. They can't do what the kids of the 80's and 90's did by buying on credit because after the '08 crash, none of them could get approved for a credit card or loan, especially without all that student loan debt hanging over their heads. Not to mention the wholesale shipment of virtually all labor jobs and many of the engineering and development jobs overseas. 

eBay had all of the buyers long before Amazon(company who makes no money in their retail business) did anything but sell books(and they never even made any money doing that!). Where did they all go?