eBay

tiltedtimecompany · ‎04-10-2024

I had a buyer yesterday that purchased an item (a pocket watch) from me for $80. The description was spot on and it had photos of the item from every angle. The item was exactly as described.

Immediately after the buyer made the purchase (no more than 5 minutes later) they left negative feedback stating "Way to go. Your a dishonest scammer. It's getting sent right back." They then requested to cancel the order; all within 10 minutes of the original purchase.

I requested a feedback revision from eBay and it was declined saying it didn't violate any of eBay's policies. I contacted eBay for Business on Facebook and they suggested I contact the buyer, and request a revision from the buyer. I messaged the buyer politely asking what we could do to improve, and why they left the feedback they did. The buyer never responded.

I had eBay call me back so I could speak to a live person about this, and was informed that they would submit an appeal for the eBay feedback revision request that did not end in my favor.

I am extremely disheartened and frustrated by this experience. Why would eBay allow buyers to abuse sellers like this for no reason? What can I do beyond this to remove the false, defamatory feedback? What's stopping other sellers from doing this to their competition to tank their feedback ratings, and as a result; their sales? Why is it okay for a buyer to buy an item just to leave negative feedback to hurt a business?

tiltedtimecompany · ‎04-11-2024

The buyer was reported. I also reached out to eBay for business on FB requesting to remove my feedback on their profile. eBay's UI did not declare that the feedback would be left as a positive, so I assumed I could make it a neutral or negative on the next page. I was misled into leaving my remarks as a positive on their account, and have taken the steps to get it removed.

tiltedtimecompany · ‎04-11-2024

Hi Janet, I love your tag line

"For some......It seems wisdom has been chasing you, but you have always been faster."

Two things here:

I have now learned not to trust the AI descriptors and have begun to review all my listings for accuracy. Part of this description was AI. Attention to detail will be of utmost importance moving forward. The age old homage "Quality over quantity" needs to be in stronger focus here.

I also learned that I ALWAYS need to distinguish between the thickness of the gold used (GP, RGP, GF, etc.).

I would never knowingly mislead a buyer. I rely on their support and satisfaction to grow my business.

gurlcat · ‎04-11-2024

If you can come out of this situation (where you were very clearly wronged, through no fault of your own) with a "here's what I can do better" conclusion, then you are going to be ... not just alright but awesome. If you've been reading posts here a while, you know there are a lot of sellers who let far smaller grievances break them, and often it's because being a victim is the only goal they can fathom, so they cling to it. But sellers who strive to give good buyers a great experience even despite occasional tangles with bad ones and with policies that seem unfair (or are poorly executed by employees) -they're the ones who succeed here long term. Keep it up.

tiltedtimecompany · ‎04-12-2024

Thank you for your words of wisdom and support! It feels good to hear messages like this from other sellers, and provides hope - even in unfavorable circumstances. Thank you for taking the time to help me 🙂

gurlcat · ‎04-12-2024

Next time you're unsure about something or get the slightest sniff of some kind of trouble ahead, follow these steps:

1. See if you can find what you need to know in the website Help pages.

2. COME HERE rather than seek employee help (yet). And in fact, before you even write a post, use the search bar with a few keyword tries, to see if there are already threads by people in similar scenarios, and see what replies they got. If that fails, start a post. Don't take blunt-sounding replies personally; some people are simply like The Wolf in Pulp Fiction ("If I'm curt with you it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast, and you need to act fast if you want to get out of this").

If someone tells you exactly what you need to know, mark their reply Best Answer. It's not just an ego boost for them, it shows as an already-answered question in the feed titles page, so there isn't a continuous stream of people wasting their time reading your post and answering, and wasting everyone's time with notifications of new replies.

3. If nobody here can help, ask which would be the best route for employee help (phone, live chat, or Facebook). Facebook used to be the best, but I suspect the reason it has gone downhill and more automated is because it got recommended too much, and now they're flooded with people going there for step 1, asking stuff like "How can I end a listing?" etc. 😆