This post is definitely more 'story' and 'rant' than 'question,' so if you're the kind of person whose thrill in life is to make snarky comments about long posts that you don't have the attention span to read, then just DON'T read and simply click away, m'kay? It's really simple, unless you have a legit disorder of some kind, like you can't even pass a book store without parking, running inside and yelling "THIS IS TOO MUCH! I'M NOT READING ALL THIS!" For anyone who DOES like to read stuff like Ebay horror stories, here you go. There might even be Ebay/online selling facts you didn't know about, within this post. Oh, and I guess I better give this warning: This post mentions or describes the practice of auctioning. It is by no means meant to promote the practice, nor to offend individuals who employ only Buy-It-Now selling practices. Nor to ask if they do. Nor to ask for their opinions on the wisdom of auctioning. At least 95% of my listings are BIN; I am keenly aware of which format to use for which kind of item.
A few weeks ago the Ebay gods sent me the ultimate test of faith. By 'ultimate' I mean a sale that checked all the nightmare buyer boxes, and by 'faith' I mean faith that going through all of Ebay's prescribed hoops and suggestions is what separates nightmares from reality. Thus far I had seen that ring true and have often tried to help other sellers see how some choices that seem disadvantageous are actually in their best interests. But this case here is about my first "chance" to see how third-party payment disputes are handled since I was switched to Managed Payments ("MP," henceforth), and how now I'm not so sure if "seller protection" may or may not always apply, even if you do everything right.
First was the somewhat disappointing winning bid on a huge lot of mixed vintage/costume jewelry. Certainly could have been worse, and I can 'own' the likely reason it wasn't better, and learn from it: In an effort to avoid an INAD or partial refund extortion attempt, I spelled out all the flaws without focusing much on the glory, of this lot. Like for instance I said that some of the pieces were broken or showed signs of wear and there were some single earrings, offered as potential craft items, but I didn't say much about the really nice intact pieces, nor try to get great closeup photos of the brand stamps or 925 sterling stamps, etc. The auction did fetch 7 bidders with a total of 18 bids, and I can't even blame the somewhat 'meh' end result on anything like poor timing (I started/ended it right at peak post-supper time, at least for US bidders), nor was it a case where the winning bidder was the only one clever enough to use a sniper bot (I could see that none of them did, in fact the winner employed old school real-time sniping, but started a foolish 22 seconds before closing and just increased her bid in real time to beat the current highest bidder's proxy bid, and she was just lucky THAT person wasn't paying 'live' attention, and that nobody had set a sniper bot).
Now, part of why I studied the final bids was because the winner didn't pay that night, and I wanted to see if I could tell why, because my jewelry 'lot' auctions offer surprise bonus goodies if the winner pays fast (this has worked VERY well for the most part, and I highly recommend it if you do auctions, have a bunch of inventory and would find giving up trivial amounts worth getting paid fast, especially since we are already waiting longer for our money because of MP). I checked the final bid pattern to see if she had won via sniper bot, because if so then she might not have known she won right away, and I would give her a bit longer. But no, she was right there looking at her screen and knew she won the very second of closing, yet didn't proceed to payment, nor in the hours following. And I wasn't running any other auctions so it wasn't like she was trying to win multiple for combined shipping. So, no bonus goodies for her, but hey, she would get the exact items in the photos that she made sure nobody else got, and have up to 5 days to pay, unlike any other retail, thrift, or auction store/venue that I'm aware of.
The next day she did show an ability to communicate (something most win-n-vanish buyers don't do). So, was it an explanation about her bank having an unexpected withdrawal or something? --Seriously, if slow payers would even bother LYING to me, I would appreciate their acknowledging me as not a vending machine but a human waiting on them, and sure I would give them the freebies, but going silent after acting like big money bags with more interest and ability to get something than anyone else who wanted it ...... yeah I'm not rewarding that BLEEP. But here was this winner, not offering excuses or asking questions, rather boldly TELLING ME "The shipping can be lower." Um, no it couldn't; I simply listed the shipping charge for a Medium Flat Rate (MFR) box, which this giant lot barely fit in, and was so heavy there's no telling how much it would cost to ship WITHOUT flat rate. By the way she could have written about the shipping cost BEFORE the auction closed. But I politely explained about the MFR. Several hours later she replied "Ok" ... then more hours later "Please surprise me send cute and good jewelry." --She still had not paid, LOL. So I asked if she intended to pay, and she (eventually) replied "Sure." Then sometime later, "I am still browsing you items, anyway the post office is closed." THE NERVE of this one! Yeah the post office was closed; by now it was 2:30 A.M. Sunday night, in fact even if she paid right then I'd have missed the 2 AM cutoff for scheduling a pickup for Monday. She finally paid sometime in the wee hours, and wrote, "I already send the payment, and be nice with me and send me good stuff , I will buy again Thanks" --Did she seriously think I was going to add bonus items to reward her for all that cheek? And did she think I'd WANT her to buy from me again? And yet, like a big dummy, and/or to avoid any trouble, I drove her bleeping box to the post office Monday, even though scheduling a Tuesday pickup would have met my TRS status requirement just fine.
A few days later she wrote: "Hi I just received you package, And I’m very disappointed , because most all earring that J like is one one pair a lot salvage item most all lot unused, plus paid a lot shipping plus tax is hurt, I will like to get a less $ 25 credit back ….Thus lot is not worth the price" . I'll spare you the direct quotes of days of back-and-forth that proceeded from there, but suffice it to say that each of her emails had some (new) complaint, about something she could either see in the photos or read in the description, which I pointed out each time, and remember, SHE chose how much to bid, AND she really got a bunch of very nice pieces, worth far more in total than what she paid. But if you've encountered this kind of buyer before, you know their goal is to maximize their deal-getting AFTER the sale, by trying to get a partial refund, by hook or crook. If they don't explicitly threaten negative feedback (because they know it's a violation) that is still obviously an implied threat, OR they just keeeeeeep replying like a toddler to wear you down, OR there's the implication that if you don't refund some of the money, they'll do a return and you'll have to refund all of it. Well guess what, I offer FREE RETURNS -that's one of those suggestions that many sellers don't understand the benefits of, which are many, and this is just one example. In fact in this case, I'd have LOVED to get this lot back, to offer again with a better listing, or to break it into smaller lots. So of course, with lavish apology for her disappointment, I stated repeatedly that she could return it, even provided instructions to get the free shipping label. She finally just decided to give up and neg me.
I had 100% positive feedback on over 1000 sales (actually had a few bogus negs removed over the years, but only a few). Now you've probably seen negs where the seller replied underneath, and in cases where (if their rebuttal was true) they probably could have gotten the neg removed by Ebay, so the question is whether or not they knew that. As for whether the replies should clear up any buyers' concerns about trusting the seller, I guess it depends on what exactly they say in the replies, and also how many of these fires they're having to put out. There's one seller I can think of who sells 'mystery' jewelry lots (photos do not represent actual lot you will receive), and even though she spells that out in tons of RED lettering in her descriptions, plenty of her buyers are angry enough to neg her, so she has an abysmal 95.8% positive feedback. Her replies to negs are full of defenses that I'm sure are TRUE, but the general sense is "You were warned not to expect anything good," a declaration that the person has been reported as an abusive buyer, sometimes explosive outcries about the unfairness of the ebay feedback system (she reads like she's about to have an aneurism), and just the sheer number of negs is enough that I certainly would never give her a try. Likewise, I wouldn't want to make doing business with me appear ANYWHERE nearly as drama-prone as that, but this one buyer definitely struck enough of a nerve that I was inspired to highlight her BLEEP rather than just erase it, and maybe even use her as an example to avoid similar situations in the future. So instead of calling Ebay, I used the recently-expanded character limit to reply (see attached screenshot).
Well now FINALLY we arrive at the subject of my title. 3 weeks after the sale, she got her own inspiration, maybe from my reply, maybe just 3 weeks of pounding sand about not getting $25 back, I don't know. She filed a payment dispute with Paypal. Her claim included a whole new complaint she never mentioned before, smoke smell, which of course a seller cannot disprove (this woman is almost as smart as she is stupid). And her writing was even more horrific than ever before, "un accurate description very dirty smoke items, savage the smell creating headache, very disappoint , I try very hard to get hep with the selle she block to avoid help me r but i prefer PayPal help me, false description, savage, unwearable not fair wasting my money please hepl". So I called Ebay, and the CSR told me to do this on the dispute page: just attach a screenshot of the tracking, showing that the item was delivered. The dispute page didn't offer any way to include a written answer, like how my item WAS as described or the fact that she could have returned it, but this CSR said that's because the proof of delivery is ALL the payment party needs to see. She said I am "guaranteed" to win the dispute with only that evidence.
I'm dubious about that because I've heard so many other sellers' stories of Paypal and credit card companies siding with the buyer (who is THEIR customer, after all). Also, this CSR said it will likely take at least 10 days, and maybe UP TO A MONTH for this sale amount (including the shipping) to be taken out of 'hold.' And who is 'holding' it? --Ebay, even though I'm "guaranteed" to win. Sure doesn't sound guaranteed to me, sounds very much IN LIMBO. Mind you, I already received payment for this sale, but this amount is now being withheld against upcoming revenues, and right now I realize I have no idea how this will work. Like say I sell amounts OVER this 'held' amount; will I at least get the overage amounts in their normal payout timeframes? Or will ALL my sales revenues be held until I get this "guaranteed" win? And what if the CSR was wrong about proof of delivery being all I had to show Paypal, what if I LOSE, will Ebay charge me for it, or cover it for me (in which case WHY would they be holding the money now)?
And the bigger question is, what if this wasn't a mere $70, what if it were one of my much bigger-ticket items? What happens to a seller THEN, namely if an Ebay CSR gave the wrong advice on how to handle it?
