Feedback extortion from buyer? Should I cancel items?

[mary_chariot]

Hello, I am dealing with a situation that I believe is feedback extortion. A buyer asked if I had anymore keychains from a certain series instock, I went ahead listed the items and then let them know I uploaded all I had. Someone else bought one of the keychains before the first buyer, this seems to be the keychain they wanted and now they are threatening with negative feedback because it sold out. The buyer has left two negative feedback on items they did "Buy Now" on, I do not believe they actually plan on purchasing these items as they have not paid and they sent me a private message in which they said they would not change their feedback unless I cancelled the other person's order and sold them the item.

I will not cancel the other person's order because they bought it fair and the upset buyer never told me which keychains they wanted and never requested any be put on hold. This buyer also used one account to contact me with and then another account to make the purcahse and leave negative feedback, I know they are the same person because of the real name and address on the accounts. Should I cancel the upset buyer's current two orders that they are using for their negative feedback extortion? Will that affect those negative feedbacks from being taken off? (if ebay does something about) I have used the report user feature and did a feedback revision request. Buyer has declined feedback revision and I have not heard anything from ebay yet. I called, but the associate only told me to do feedback revision request.

(Am I allowed to post he upset user's message here?)

[plantaddict]

It's a shame Ebay has allowed these types of buyers to remain. Why they don't suspend their accounts is beyond me, but I would certainly cancel. If you do the unpaid item the buyer could then pay and you will have to ship the items out or receive a defect for not doing so if you try to cancel at that time. I would do as the other poster suggested and cancel it now. Most likely even if you did ship they'll just open up a SNAD and send you back an empty package. Make sure to block both usernames as well. Me personally I wouldn't hide from these types of buyers and would straight call them out on their **bleep**, in the most polite way I could lol. I would be informing this particular one of a thing or two. Once they start being completely unreasonable and making threats it's already downhill so informing them of some ebay rules and such certainly isn't going to hurt especially done in a professional manner. It may even discourage them from the fraudulent activities they are looking to do, especially when they think they can get into trouble. Some of them will back down but I think too many seller's just refund and kiss their butts in the hopes of making the problem go away without bad feedback and so they think they can bully everyone around in much the same way.

[sin-n-dex]

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@fern*wood wrote:

I'm not sure I understand the let a CSR walk you through a cancellation.  They walk many sellers straight into forest fires. 

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Because when you decide to do it, it's always wrong, and you always get slapped for it.

When they walk you through it as if you don't know, and you get a call reference, it's a lot easier to say you were told to do it. It's not a guarantee there's no problems, but whenever I've called back, I've always said I didn't know how to cancel and was instructed to do it this way.

Cheers, C.

[fern*wood]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@fern*wood wrote:

I'm not sure I understand the let a CSR walk you through a cancellation.  They walk many sellers straight into forest fires. 

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Because when you decide to do it, it's always wrong, and you always get slapped for it.

When they walk you through it as if you don't know, and you get a call reference, it's a lot easier to say you were told to do it. It's not a guarantee there's no problems, but whenever I've called back, I've always said I didn't know how to cancel and was instructed to do it this way.

Cheers, C.

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I have never gotten a slap for a cancellation because I've only cancelled for an allowable reason.  I don't toy with them unless my buyer asks to cancel or it is a legitimate bad address.    I don't cancel due to non-payment, unless a buyer asks me to.

[missjen831]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

Open an Unpaid Item Dispute on each of the purchased items.

Add the grouch to your Blocked Bidder List.

Unfortunately, because there was a (failed) transaction you can't Block communication. (But try anyway.)

If he doesn't pay for the items, he gets Strikes and you can have the FB removed.

If you go to the Resolution Centre at the bottom of this page, you don't have to deal with customer service.

Open the UID (48 hours after purchase) and close it promptly (96 hours later.)

You will only need Customer Service to remove the FB. But get your fees back and give the grouch Strikes first.

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Remove FB first, then do UPI.

If you open a UPI and the customer pays, the FB will probably stick.

I wouldn't do a UPI because I don't want a buyer to pay after all that, so that's why I said to cancel. But not without being walked through it from a CSR.

Cheers, C.

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She should file the UID. It doesn’t matter what customer service tells you do....it won’t save you from a defect and if her buyer didn’t ask to cancel, she can’t just call customer service and have them walk her through the cancellation and get a free pass. 

[yuncreations]

call ebay, asap!!
good luck!

[sin-n-dex]

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@fern*wood wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@fern*wood wrote:

I'm not sure I understand the let a CSR walk you through a cancellation.  They walk many sellers straight into forest fires. 

---

Because when you decide to do it, it's always wrong, and you always get slapped for it.

When they walk you through it as if you don't know, and you get a call reference, it's a lot easier to say you were told to do it. It's not a guarantee there's no problems, but whenever I've called back, I've always said I didn't know how to cancel and was instructed to do it this way.

Cheers, C.

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I have never gotten a slap for a cancellation because I've only cancelled for an allowable reason.  I don't toy with them unless my buyer asks to cancel or it is a legitimate bad address.    I don't cancel due to non-payment, unless a buyer asks me to.

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I don't cancel frequently, and the few OOS I might have gotten were one item out of twelve where I refunded the one item and comped the shipping to make up for the error. (In one case of OOS, I found the item three months later and sent it to him gratis. He thanked me by spending $300 in my store over the course of four orders).

As for needing to be walked through... I can only think of two times, buyer was on the BBL (for stealing/scamming my items), I got Trust & Safety involved. One of the buyers I cancelled on left me one neg every single day for one of the items until he ran out of items to neg me on. I got all of them removed, but it was a pain.

I think the OP's in a similar situation, only the BBL wasn't put in place yet.

Cheers, C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@missjen831 wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

Open an Unpaid Item Dispute on each of the purchased items.

Add the grouch to your Blocked Bidder List.

Unfortunately, because there was a (failed) transaction you can't Block communication. (But try anyway.)

If he doesn't pay for the items, he gets Strikes and you can have the FB removed.

If you go to the Resolution Centre at the bottom of this page, you don't have to deal with customer service.

Open the UID (48 hours after purchase) and close it promptly (96 hours later.)

You will only need Customer Service to remove the FB. But get your fees back and give the grouch Strikes first.

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Remove FB first, then do UPI.

If you open a UPI and the customer pays, the FB will probably stick.

I wouldn't do a UPI because I don't want a buyer to pay after all that, so that's why I said to cancel. But not without being walked through it from a CSR.

Cheers, C.

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She should file the UID. It doesn’t matter what customer service tells you do....it won’t save you from a defect and if her buyer didn’t ask to cancel, she can’t just call customer service and have them walk her through the cancellation and get a free pass. 

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I would be OK with that (I'm actually on the fence about what I'd do in this situation), however not until AFTER the neg is removed. If the buyer pays and she ships, the neg is going to stand. Removing the neg before getting paid is key.

Cheers, C.

[ohnojoey]

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@mary_chariot wrote:
...Buyer has declined feedback revision and I have not heard anything from ebay yet. I called, but the associate only told me to do feedback revision request.

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You don't have any negatives nor a record of revisions.

[mary_chariot]

Replying to myself just to update on what happened and the steps I took to resolve this. (TL;DR, I opened an Unpaid Item Case and negative feedback was removed)

• I determined the buyer was being unreasonable and was only using these 2 items to leave negative feedback and to force me to cancel someone else's order, they did not want these particular items. (it was feedback extortion)
• Since it was two items and a new invoice was requested, I sent them the invoice. I didn't want ebay to think the buyer wasn't paying just because I hadn't sent it.
• After that, I reported the buyer using the "report user" feature. I wrote out a small version of what happened. Recevied no replies back from ebay on this other than the report was received.
• I called ebay to find out what I should do to have the negative feedback removed. They told me to file a Feedback Revision, I felt like this wasn't what I wanted. (isn't this just asking the buyer to revise?) After asking her if the buyer would see this, she said no so, I put the reason as "possible feedback extortion". After I sent it, the email clearly says the buyer was sent this note. Yep, wasn't what I wanted at all, thanks...
• Buyer declined to revise feedback.
• After this I waited the 2 days and then filed an Unpaid Item case on both items.
• The day after I opened the Unpaid Item case, the feedback was already removed.
• Waited 4 days and closed the case on the fifth day.

Other things I did, blocked all accounts the buyer used to contact me with. I realize opening the Unpaid Item case was risky (what if they paid?), so I am very lucky the case went smoothly. I won't say this is always the answer to this kind of situation, but it worked out here. I am disappointed that calling ebay basically did nothing and I was never contacted by ebay about the report. I made sure to save all messages (copied into a document and screenshots), but so far I have not needed to provide anything. And that's the end! Thank you to everyone who replied with advice, I learned a lot and really appreciate everyone who took time to post something.

[threshold.sales.group]

Wow, terrible & wrong advice from c-s. Feedback revision requests by definition go to the buyer. 

Your situation was a text book case of malicious feedback. You created a listing per ebay policy, which forbids private listings, but as can happen another buyer jumps in and purchases the item.  The first person then purchases two of your items and immediately leaves negative feedback as retaliation for you following eBay policy (against private listings).  A coaching opportunity I suppose. 

[missjen831]

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@mary_chariot wrote:

Replying to myself just to update on what happened and the steps I took to resolve this. (TL;DR, I opened an Unpaid Item Case and negative feedback was removed)

• I determined the buyer was being unreasonable and was only using these 2 items to leave negative feedback and to force me to cancel someone else's order, they did not want these particular items. (it was feedback extortion)
• Since it was two items and a new invoice was requested, I sent them the invoice. I didn't want ebay to think the buyer wasn't paying just because I hadn't sent it.
• After that, I reported the buyer using the "report user" feature. I wrote out a small version of what happened. Recevied no replies back from ebay on this other than the report was received.
• I called ebay to find out what I should do to have the negative feedback removed. They told me to file a Feedback Revision, I felt like this wasn't what I wanted. (isn't this just asking the buyer to revise?) After asking her if the buyer would see this, she said no so, I put the reason as "possible feedback extortion". After I sent it, the email clearly says the buyer was sent this note. Yep, wasn't what I wanted at all, thanks...
• Buyer declined to revise feedback.
• After this I waited the 2 days and then filed an Unpaid Item case on both items.
• The day after I opened the Unpaid Item case, the feedback was already removed.
• Waited 4 days and closed the case on the fifth day.

Other things I did, blocked all accounts the buyer used to contact me with. I realize opening the Unpaid Item case was risky (what if they paid?), so I am very lucky the case went smoothly. I won't say this is always the answer to this kind of situation, but it worked out here. I am disappointed that calling ebay basically did nothing and I was never contacted by ebay about the report. I made sure to save all messages (copied into a document and screenshots), but so far I have not needed to provide anything. And that's the end! Thank you to everyone who replied with advice, I learned a lot and really appreciate everyone who took time to post something.

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eBay never contacts the reporting party. Whatever they do, is between them and the person who was reported. You should never expect to hear back after reporting something.  

[dtexley3]

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@mary_chariot wrote:

Replying to myself just to update on what happened and the steps I took to resolve this. (TL;DR, I opened an Unpaid Item Case and negative feedback was removed)

• [snip]
• I called ebay to find out what I should do to have the negative feedback removed. They told me to file a Feedback Revision, I felt like this wasn't what I wanted. (isn't this just asking the buyer to revise?) After asking her if the buyer would see this, she said no so, I put the reason as "possible feedback extortion". After I sent it, the email clearly says the buyer was sent this note. Yep, wasn't what I wanted at all, thanks...
• Buyer declined to revise feedback.
• [snip]

Other things I did, blocked all accounts the buyer used to contact me with. I realize opening the Unpaid Item case was risky (what if they paid?), so I am very lucky the case went smoothly. I won't say this is always the answer to this kind of situation, but it worked out here. I am disappointed that calling ebay basically did nothing and I was never contacted by ebay about the report. I made sure to save all messages (copied into a document and screenshots), but so far I have not needed to provide anything. And that's the end! Thank you to everyone who replied with advice, I learned a lot and really appreciate everyone who took time to post something.

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brian@ebay tyler@ebay  Based on the information above is there some CS training needed here?

[brian@ebay]

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@dtexley3 wrote:

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@mary_chariot wrote:

Replying to myself just to update on what happened and the steps I took to resolve this. (TL;DR, I opened an Unpaid Item Case and negative feedback was removed)

• [snip]
• I called ebay to find out what I should do to have the negative feedback removed. They told me to file a Feedback Revision, I felt like this wasn't what I wanted. (isn't this just asking the buyer to revise?) After asking her if the buyer would see this, she said no so, I put the reason as "possible feedback extortion". After I sent it, the email clearly says the buyer was sent this note. Yep, wasn't what I wanted at all, thanks...
• Buyer declined to revise feedback.
• [snip]

Other things I did, blocked all accounts the buyer used to contact me with. I realize opening the Unpaid Item case was risky (what if they paid?), so I am very lucky the case went smoothly. I won't say this is always the answer to this kind of situation, but it worked out here. I am disappointed that calling ebay basically did nothing and I was never contacted by ebay about the report. I made sure to save all messages (copied into a document and screenshots), but so far I have not needed to provide anything. And that's the end! Thank you to everyone who replied with advice, I learned a lot and really appreciate everyone who took time to post something.

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brian@ebay tyler@ebay  Based on the information above is there some CS training needed here?

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Hi @dtexley3, It does sound like the OP received inaccurate information. I can ensure the agent received coaching on how to properly handle situations like this. Thanks!