First negative feedback in 17 years because buyer retaliated to my fears of scam and PO BOX address

[zdynx]

[Summary of messages communciation at the bottom.]

Well, I just got the first real negative feedback in 17 years for trying to be too careful.  (The prevous and only negative feedback in 2003 was a mistake that the buyer retracted.)

Because ebay (and Paypal) favors buyers over sellers when conflicts arise, sophisticated buyers with intentions to scam use that to their advantage.  Therefore, I'm very paranoid about being a victim of a buying scams.  I'm not a business or PowerSeller so every sale counts.  Having any fraudulent chargebacks would be devastating.

I sold an item for $2774.  After the buyer sent Paypal payment, I noticed that the address was a UPS mailbox.  I'm not totally against shipping something to a PO BOX but as a personal precaution, and especially for something this expensive, I need to talk to the buyer on the phone to verify everything.

(My friend has a UPS mailbox and Chase VISA denied her credit application because she used that address on the application.  Apparently, many financial companies blacklist UPS mailbox addresses because of fraud.  Therefore, I'm not the only one that's wary of them.)

He refused to talk on the phone and insisted I just ship it to him.  The whole thing had too many red flags to me and so I just refunded his Paypal payment and cancelled the transaction.  This angered him enough to leave negative feedback.  Also, since the $285 ebay Final Value Fee is still on my account, I assume he clicked on "didn't agree to cancel" option, which means I still owe ebay $285 for money I don't have!

Is there anything I can do?  I'm more concerned about getting a credit for the $285 than the negative feedback.

I'm also not sure of how to process any lessons learned (if any) here.  Ebay doesn't let you prescreen buyers so once they've paid, you're at the buyer's mercy.  (Arguably, even if the buyer hasn't paid, you're still at their mercy since they can hold you up from relisting the item for 10 days.)  I don't like buyers issuing ultimatums, veiled threats, and bullying to pressure me to make a sale that looks dishonest.  I don't know what to do.  Continually paying FVF for money I don't have because of PayPal refunds is obviously unsustainable.

If you've read the messages, what should I have done differently?  Was I being unreasonable?  Is ebay the wrong venue for this type of high-priced gear?  Have scammers made selling high-dollar items unsafe for modest homeowners like me?  I can't afford fraudulent chargebacks as "cost of doing business" -- because I'm not a Powerseller business that uses other sales to make up for the bad ones.

I just read the recent thread of a seller being scammed out of a $6500 sewing machine here:  https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Victim-of-buyer-fraud/td-p/28471713

What should a seller do to try to prevent a nightmare like that?  Nothing? Is asking for a phone call verification to ship to an address that credit-cards blacklist really unreasonable?  Sure a phone call is not foolproof against scams but it's at least something.  And yes, ebay's policies says buyers have every right to force the seller to ship without extra verification but ebay is not the one suffering the loss of $2800 or $6500 here; it's us. 

Lastly, any suggestions for the text should I put as my response to the negative feedback?  Buyer wrote "seller canceled transaction for no reason" which is clearly false.  I think I had valid reasons for not wanting to lose $2800.

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[A quoted summary text of the messages exchanged is at the bottom with userid replaced with generic "John Doe" and "Buyer" and addresses replaced with fake Metropolis Gotham City.  It is not an exact transcript.  Hopefully this avoids it being marked as spam.]

(Read from bottom to top like messages in ebay messages system.)

[Seller]
There's nothing I can say on a private phone call that ebay would favor for me. The buyer (you) always holds the advantage. ebay judgment is always overwhelming in favor of The Buyer.

I could hypothetically say on the private phone call that "I'm going to ship you a box of bricks so ignore what the ebay product photos" and IT WOULDN'T MATTER. Ebay would just point back to what the ebay listing actually had.

The phone call was for my assurances of an honest transaction. It cost you, the buyer, nothing in the eyes of ebay.

I mean, I guess I could send "private" email to your JohnDoe@fakemail.com address. It still doesn't reduce your stance with ebay in any way even though ebay can't see all your personal emails. Your opinion about ebay not being in the loop of a private phone call doesn't make sense to me.

Could you set your vindictiveness aside and please confirm the cancellation of the transaction?

[Buyer, John Doe]
Transparency is accomplished by communicating on eBay. And I could just as easily say the way you were communicating, intentional or not, felt as if you trying to strongarm me into a private phone call, which by the way is against eBay policy.

[Seller]:
It is your right to leave negative feedback but it's not worth it to have 100% feedback if it means I lose $2800 because I didn't do proper due diligence on where I was shipping a very expensive item.

Maybe it's your (unintentional) style of communication but it had the tone of "blackmail" and I have to protect myself from potential scams. I'm distressed that my fears about this transaction going terribly wrong has irritated you.

(The more I think about it, the stranger it seems that a buyer wouldn't want to hear from the seller who's shipping a $3000 unit. It's just very weird in my 17 years of ebay transactions.)

I don't want to do hostile transactions with no transparency. Your correspondence with ultimatums gave me no assurances this was an honest transaction. Therefore, it's not true that "seller canceled transaction for no reason". I've explained my reasons several times.

If you could please confirm the cancellation of the ebay transaction so I can relist it immediately, I would greatly appreciate it. I quickly refunded your PayPal payment and would appreciate you returning the courtesy by quickly cancelling the ebay transaction. Thank you.

[Buyer, John Doe]
Unfortunately, that was not at your discretion to do and you have been reported. That's a shame seeing as you have 100% feedback.

[Seller]:
Sorry, I'm very afraid of this and I can't do it. I'm also concerned that you're not acknowledging my misgivings about this transaction.

I have refunded your Paypal payment.

I have cancelled the order with the reason: "Something was wrong with the buyer's shipping address"

Please confirm the cancellation so I can relist it. Thank you and I'm sorry we couldn't make this work.

[Buyer, John Doe]
So, I talked to eBay and they said you should ship because I already paid and its a legally binding contract.

[Seller]:
Ok, sorry for inconveniencing you. Hopefully, you can come up with something that makes me comfortable.

Just an fyi, there's 40 minutes left before the 6pm cutoff to ship it today. I can also ship it tomorrow and you'll still receive it for the weekend.

I'm putting your paypal address here for ebay records: JohnDoe@fakemail.com

[Buyer, John Doe]
Give me a minute to talk to eBay and see if I can figure out something.

[Seller]:
Ok, I understand. Can I refund your PayPal money and we can cancel this ebay transaction? I'm just not comfortable shipping there without a phone call.

It's a combination of red flags to me. The post office box is one issue. The other is a google search on your name in Metropolis doesn't turn up anything of note.

https://www.google.com/search?q="John+Doe"+Metropolis

Yes, your ebay profile says you've been a member since 2006 but I have no idea if your account has been hijacked or what. That's why I'm looking for warm and fuzzies by talking to somebody. (If you want to record the phone call, you're certainly welcome to do that.)

Of the previous 20 times I've requested a phone chat, this is the first time the buyer refused. I totally understand your stance but I just get this weird feeling that the unit is going to a black hole and I'm going to lose $2800.

[Buyer, John Doe]
I live at the Metropolis Gotham City Resort which is a hotel that also has condos in it, one of which I am renting. I don't trust the hotel with packages because they are rude and have bad customer service. Thats why I have a box at the UPS store. It is a personal mailbox, not for business. If anything were to go wrong, ebay has no way of knowing what we discussed in a phone call.

[Seller]:
I understand your concern. I'm not trying to do anything outside of ebay but simply to confirm the details. I looked at the shipping address and it looks like it's going to a UPS mailbox. When that happens, I prefer to talk to the actual person with a live voice call who bought this to help prevent scams. I'm not rich so I can't afford to send out a $2800 item to an address I'm not comfortable with.

To add to the ebay recordkeeping, if the #976 is also your mailbox for business mail, please put the name of that business in the reply. Thanks,

[Buyer, John Doe]
I prefer to do all communication on ebay so there is a record of everything.

[Seller]:
Hello, I got your PayPal payment and I'm ready to ship the compressor.

Since this is an expensive item, do you have a phone # I can call so we can chat for 2 minutes so I can verify the details? Thanks,

[goodluckselling]

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@zdynx wrote:

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@a_c_green wrote:

I assume that the quote above ("We don't allow our members to...") is referring to pre-sale contact only, since post-sale, they're handing it over to you anyway.

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Exactly!  That's the only sensible way to interpret it.  The sensible ebay rules are context dependent!  The context is obviously pre-sales.

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That does not give you the right to continue to badger the buyer with repeated attempts because they refused the first time.  You were essentially stalking the buyer trying to get an outcome to your liking.

Good Luck Selling!

[a_c_green]

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@zdynx wrote: 

• 5. Binding Sale and Shipping Obligations
  All sales are binding. The seller is obligated to ship the order or otherwise complete the transaction with the buyer in a prompt manner, unless there is an exceptional circumstance, such as: (a) the buyer fails to meet the terms of the seller's listing (such as payment method), or (b) the seller cannot authenticate the buyer's identity.

The "(b) the seller cannot authenticate the buyer's identity" is basically the rule that would support the verification of identity I was trying to do.  Ebay doesn't seem to have a similar rule to help the sellers avoid scams.  If ebay did include a similar rule, I'd feel better about selling expensive items here.

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I can assure you that if you think you can verify a buyer's identity with a phone call, it probably would be best if you didn't continue to sell high-priced items here, as you suggested, because it would only lead to (further) disappointment.

From what I see in the discussion to date (and yes, I have indeed read all of it), this all came about due to your own nervousness about the sale. That in itself is understandable, but your... fixation, it seems... on vetting your buyer via phone call seems very misplaced. You simply aren't going to learn anything conclusive by questioning your buyer, nor does he have any obligation to entertain you on the phone. Nor, for that matter, did you even hint in your listing description that this would be a requirement of the sale (and an unsupported-by-eBay requirement at that).

In short, it would probably be best for your future sales if you limited them to in-person, face-to-face local pickups. When you're selling an item of several thousand dollars, your prospective buyers would probably be willing to do a little traveling to get it. 

[bubbleman2010]

I doubt very much if you'll get them back.  Your request for a proper street address wasn't a bit out of line everyone has a proper street address and a refusal to supply it let alone not having it registered on ebay is a early warning sign. Try giving a P.O. box number to the fire dept. when your homes on fire and see what they tell you. The majority of big box folks won't ship to a P.O. box you must supply them with a valid street address...

[zdynx]

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

---

  I'm not totally against shipping something to a PO BOX but as a personal precaution, and especially for something this expensive, I need to talk to the buyer on the phone to verify everything.

, these actions occurred BEFORE the buyer ever communicated with you, indicating that you WERE indeed spooked before you ever heard  a peep out of your buyer.  

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The point was that I was still willing to follow through on the sale even with the UPS mailbox.  We don't have to pedantically debate the word "spooked" to death but from my perspective, if I was truly spooked by just the mailbox, I would have never even bothered to ask the buyer to call him to attempt to complete the transaction.  I would have been so scared as to cancel the transaction immediately without ever exchanging a single word with the customer.

[goodluckselling]

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@zdynx wrote:

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@city*satins wrote:

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Have you looked at your current account?  You likely received a FVF credit already.  eBay doesn't send you a notification, despite their 10 days statement in their message. They just cancel the sale and credit the seller.

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It's been 23 hours and I haven't received FVF credit.  Maybe I ruined the FVF refund because I clicked "PayPal refund" 10 seconds before I clicked "ebay cancel & refund".  The previous posts seem to imply that it's absolutely critical that I click the "ebay cancel" first.  I didn't know the sequencing was that sensitive and doing it in the wrong order costs $285.

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Would not have really mattered in this situation.  If you had clicked refund on eBay first you would have had a chance to give a reason why, and you would have choosen something wrong with the address which is false. 

eBay monitors the message trail between buyer and seller when sellers use this option and your messages clearly do not indicate bad address.  Your messages indicate you do not like shipping to this kind of address.  Completely different things.

Good Luck Selling!

[castlemagicmemories]

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@bubbleman2010 wrote:  @bubbleman2010

I doubt very much if you'll get them back.  Your request for a proper street address wasn't a bit out of line everyone has a proper street address and a refusal to supply it let alone not having it registered on ebay is a early warning sign. Try giving a P.O. box number to the fire dept. when your homes on fire and see what they tell you. The majority of big box folks won't ship to a P.O. box you must supply them with a valid street address...

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I'm sorry, bubbleman, but this is puzzling.  What won't she get back?  She cancelled the sale and didn't send anything.  

[castlemagicmemories]

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@zdynx wrote:

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

---

  I'm not totally against shipping something to a PO BOX but as a personal precaution, and especially for something this expensive, I need to talk to the buyer on the phone to verify everything.

, these actions occurred BEFORE the buyer ever communicated with you, indicating that you WERE indeed spooked before you ever heard  a peep out of your buyer.  

---

The point was that I was still willing to follow through on the sale even with the UPS mailbox.  We don't have to pedantically debate the word "spooked" to death but from my perspective, if I was truly spooked by just the mailbox, I would have never even bothered to ask the buyer to call him to attempt to complete the transaction.  I would have been so scared as to cancel the transaction immediately without ever exchanging a single word with the customer.

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The point is that the fact that you are very paranoid about being the victim of buying scams, your words in the OP, translated to unease, "being spooked", which lead to the phone call.  If you weren't uneasy, or "spooked", there wouldn't have been a phone call, true?  Later you said that it was the first communication from the buyer that made you spooked.  I was just pointing out, from your OP, that you were already spooked due to your admission that you are paranoid about being a victime of buying scams~which lead to the phone call request.  You just weren't uneasy enough at that point to cancel, but you did get there in due course.

[goodluckselling]

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@goodluckselling wrote:

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@zdynx wrote:

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@a_c_green wrote:

I assume that the quote above ("We don't allow our members to...") is referring to pre-sale contact only, since post-sale, they're handing it over to you anyway.

---

Exactly!  That's the only sensible way to interpret it.  The sensible ebay rules are context dependent!  The context is obviously pre-sales.

---

That does not give you the right to continue to badger the buyer with repeated attempts because they refused the first time.  You were essentially stalking the buyer trying to get an outcome to your liking.

Good Luck Selling!

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It was a slight form of blackmail as well. 

• You had the buyers money,
• you had the product
• qualifying the buyer after the sale
• refusing to ship unless conditions were made
• trying to make conditons after the sale to your liking

All basic blackmail techniques.

Goiod Luck Selling!

[zdynx]

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

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The point is that the fact that you are very paranoid about being the victim of buying scams,

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Yes, it's fair that's there's a baseline of unease for certain ebay transactions.  It's similar to Craigslist sellers wanting to meet the buyers at a police station parking lot where there are active surveillance cameras.  A Craigslist might only meet at the police station for all transactions, or maybe only for some type of items, or some types of dollar amounts, or other factors.  It depends.  If I was selling a box of books, we can meet anywhere.  If I was selling a $5000 video camera, I'd insist we meet at the police station.

[zdynx]

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 can@goodluckselling wrote:

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It was a slight form of blackmail as well. 

• You had the buyers money,

All basic blackmail techniques. 

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Disagree here.  Sellers can't blackmail buyers.  That's the whole point of buyer scam paranoia.  With eBay/PayPal policies favoring buyers in almost all cases, it's the buyers that can blackmail the sellers.  The buyers hold the power over the sellers and not vice versa.  Buyers can wait up to 180 days to file SNAD and get all their money back and ship back a box of air.

[castlemagicmemories]

Great post, a_c.

The point is the OP's unease.  No one can fault her for that, that is a huge monetary loss if something goes wrong.  But a phone call is not necessarily going to magically make this right.   

As you say, a face to face local pick up might have made this work.  Perhaps the OP meant to list this as local pick up where calls may be necessary to facilitate pick up, but actually in that instance, messages can and should be used to keep communication on Ebay should there be a need for CS to review the messages.  

[whimsical_menagerie]

While I can understand the need for caution, I also understand a buyer not wanting to give their phone number to a person they don't know, who they are just trying to purchase one item from.   They fulfilled their obligation.  They ordered, and they paid.  You did not fulfil yours and insulted the buyer in the process by pretty much automatically assuming they were a liar and scammer.  Not a very professional way to do business.

As far as the final value fee goes, you can call Ebay and advise that the transaction was canceled and they will refund the fee.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@zdynx wrote:

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

---

The point is that the fact that you are very paranoid about being the victim of buying scams,

---

Yes, it's fair that's there's a baseline of unease for certain ebay transactions.  It's similar to Craigslist sellers wanting to meet the buyers at a police station parking lot where there are active surveillance cameras.  A Craigslist might only meet at the police station for all transactions, or maybe only for some type of items, or some types of dollar amounts, or other factors.  It depends.  If I was selling a box of books, we can meet anywhere.  If I was selling a $5000 video camera, I'd insist we meet at the police station.

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And I understand and don't blame you for this.  Many are uneasy listing high value items.

[sidemouse]

I'm struggling here, I really would have thought this had been mentioned but perhaps it has not?

If you do not feel comfortable shipping an item to a PO Box then you can EXCLUDE those from your shipping options (much like international destinations, I even believe it's on the same page but don't quote me on that it has been some time)... It's actually a fairly basic setting which is why I didn't mention it.

So if I may suggest, if you're not comfortable shipping to a PO Box you can change your settings before listing, during the listing and anytime up to but not after payment has been made.

To be safe I'd set that up before the listing went live but that's just me.

[goodluckselling]

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@zdynx wrote:

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 can@goodluckselling wrote:

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It was a slight form of blackmail as well. 

• You had the buyers money,

All basic blackmail techniques. 

---

Disagree here.  Sellers can't blackmail buyers.  That's the whole point of buyer scam paranoia.  With eBay/PayPal policies favoring buyers in almost all cases, it's the buyers that can blackmail the sellers.  The buyers hold the power over the sellers and not vice versa.  Buyers can wait up to 180 days to file SNAD and get all their money back and ship back a box of air.

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Then what exactly do you call your actions? 

• You had the buyers money,
• you had the product,
• you refused to ship to the address the buyer used unless they changed it to something you were happy with
• They told you they are not comfortable shipping to that location
• You harrassed them several times trying to get them to change there mind.
• Only after several attempts did you actually give up and refund them
•  and now are complaining that your stalking and demands scheme is going to cost you money.

At some point you will have to accept some of these actions you performed as bad character traits and make some changes.  I would start with total acceptance that you did not handle this very well and that this has been a great learning experience that you will benefit from moving forward. 

The FVF lose might be a best buy from your newly learned knowledge.

Good Luck Selling!