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,

[zdynx]

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@goodluckselling wrote:

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• 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 misread what happened.  I wasn't trying to extract a secret home street address and change the shipping to the other address.  Instead, I wanted to verify that he was indeed the correct person attached to the UPS mailbox.  I would then willingly ship to that mailbox.

[sidemouse]

I would like to share with you my story about that "seller" phone call...

Some years ago I ordered an automotive part for my car.

A day (or three) later this individual CALLS me, tells me who they are...

So far so good, not that I really understood why they would call but basically...

And then wants to know the exact make, year and model of my car!

That's when I lost my cool.

And that is unfortunate but I felt like the seller thought I was dumb or stupid.  And that's what I said, I told that seller I knew what I had ordered and if they didn't send me the part I would file an Item Not Received claim (which in retrospect would've left an "out of stock" seller off the 'defect' hook but that's for another story since it clearly wasn't the case).

Back and forth it went  so long story short the seller cancelled the sale.

I called ebay to confirm the reason for cancellation, the CS rep said it was due to "buyer asked."

Which also explained why the feedback was later removed.

I then understood how some sellers manage to keep their feedback and sales record clean.

Rest assured, as a buyer I was far from pleased.

It's a semi-good thing the seller did me a favor by blocking me, I sure wish buyers could block sellers but the problem is their items can still show up in my search... It is only when I go to make the actual purchase that it gives me some sort of error that I've come to understand means I am blocked.

That's frustrating as well, may not be the seller's fault but showing items in the search is not helping.

Either way, that is how I learned that as a seller it is rarely (read: never) a good idea to call a buyer.

[mam98031]

@caninekopz

Did Ya'll read any of my posts?  Nope to quick to read what you want and bash me over the head.......thats OK I have a hard one.

You ASSUME too much!  I've read every post on this thread and I was NOT trying to "bash" you over the head.  Apparently disagreeing with you equals a bashing.  I don't have the same definition of that it appears you do.

What I am saying is that it is OK for a seller to protect themselves. 

I did not disagree with that.   But how a seller tries to go about that can be an issue, such as the case here.

I do not know the OP and have no affiliations with them.

I did not say or suggest you did. 

If you all feel the need to try to break down and reconstruct every sentence and make points then do so.  You are taking the whole thing out of context.

That isn't possible if I post exactly what you said.  Which is why I do it this way.

I am not saying that Ebay did any specifict thing wron in this particular instance. 

But you said Ebay needs to "step up" in your other post.  Which is why I asked what you felt Ebay need to do or should have done in this case.  

It has been a culmination of things over the last 8-12 months that Ebay has STOPPED protecting their sellers.  The go completeley against their policies to protect sellers.  You can not even get Ebay CS to talk to you about it any more.  They have BOTS making decisions.  This atmosphere on Ebay these days is completely Ebay's fault.

You said nothing like this in your previous post nor did you suggest your comment went beyond what this thread has been about.  That was not clear from your previous statement.  It appeared you were talking about  the deeper problem of seller protection which I fully agree with you is an issue, a very important issue here.  But seller protection had nothing to do with the position this OP found themselves in.

[city*satins]

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@bubbleman2010 wrote:

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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What makes you say that the buyer doesn't have a street address on record with eBay?  The buyer might.  It he does, eBay isn't required to supply it to the seller.

There's no requirement that a buyer supply a street address among his SHIP TO addresses.

[auronar7]

You spooked yourself. An arrest is just that: AN ARREST. It can be for any reason from jaywalking to late parking tickets to speeding.  It is not a conviction, a jail term, or even proof of real criminal activity.

Do you have real PROOF that your buyer was a convicted felon, a murderer, or a thief?

If you don't, then I'd say your paranoia got the better of you. Your buyer was in the right here. Keep all conversations on ebay in the future.

For the record, I've been here since 1999 and have NEVER called a buyer or had a seller call me. 

[city*satins]

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@zdynx wrote:

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@goodluckselling wrote:

---

• 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 misread what happened.  I wasn't trying to extract a secret home street address and change the shipping to the other address.  Instead, I wanted to verify that he was indeed the correct person attached to the UPS mailbox.  I would then willingly ship to that mailbox.

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Unless you are a telephone psychic, I'm unclear how you imagine that a conversation on the phone would accomplish that.

[bubbleman2010]

UPS nor Fedex will deliver to a P.O. box I would have just canceled the sale and used problem with address. Sale would have been canceled and FVFs refunded instantly....

[sam9876]

The buyer provided a private mail box address.

UPS and FedEx will deliver to that type of address. 

[goodluckselling]

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@zdynx wrote:

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@goodluckselling wrote:

---

• 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 misread what happened.  I wasn't trying to extract a secret home street address and change the shipping to the other address.  Instead, I wanted to verify that he was indeed the correct person attached to the UPS mailbox.  I would then willingly ship to that mailbox.

---

I did not mis read anything.  Your message clearly show you wanted to ship to a physical address and you begged and pleaded with them until you upset them and gave the concern about the money and the product you were holding.

The explanation the buyer gave you was totally in line.  They told you they stay at a resort that has condos and packages are delivered to a front desk that they have had issues with, so they purchased a box to receive packages safely.  At this point the buyer has complete creditabilty.

Your carrier of choice was also UPS so the package would have been in the hands of UPS the entire journey and handed off to a UPS agent and given directly to the buyer from a UPS agent.

Good Luck Selling!

[mam98031]

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@bubbleman2010 wrote:

UPS nor Fedex will deliver to a P.O. box I would have just canceled the sale and used problem with address. Sale would have been canceled and FVFs refunded instantly....

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If you review the OP, you will see it is a UPS mailbox, NOT a postal service mailbox.  I think you misunderstand what this whole thread has been about.

[bubbleman2010]

OOOOPSY!!!! missed that UPS mailbox is even worst than a P.O. box

[mam98031]

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@bubbleman2010 wrote:

OOOOPSY!!!! missed that UPS mailbox is even worst than a P.O. box

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So your saying UPS won't deliver to a UPS mailbox?

Setting that asside, that really isn't what this thread is about.  It is about the OPs insistance that the buyer communicate with the seller via phone.  When the buyer did not want to comply the seller sent the buyer an email that, well lets say, was less than professional [3rd email from seller in the OP].  The buyer remained polite and factual in his responses to the seller, the seller set off a chain reaction that the seller can't seem to take ownership of.  The buyer in this case did not do anything wrong.

[bubbleman2010]

It can be whatever folks want seller dodged a bullet had they shipped it good bye item good bye money thats the reality of it all. Staying at a resort that stuff gets stolen from the front desk thats just rich in itself..

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@city*satins wrote:

However, the emphasis on "paid" is unnecessary and irrelevant. 

Contractually - it's not entirely irrelevant but that's a discussion for some other day. 

But  it sure wouldn't be irrelevant to most buyers, who will have to wait a few business days to see their payment returned and accessible if they funded it with a card. Most buyers don't keep that much money in their Paypal accounts, and the refund you issued won't be deposited in their Paypal account - it'll be returned to their card. That represents X number of days before they have those funds available again to buy the item from some seller who won't get the collywobbles and will actually ship to them.

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The same problem occurs if they paid with a bank account.  The refund won't clear until it clears the bank and then it just ends up as a PayPal balance that they have to transfer back to the bank unless they plan on spending out of PayPal  

[tunicaslot]

This wasn't a problem with the address as one of the nice things with a UPS mailbox is that the buyer actually has an address: ex. 111 Main Street, # 1234 Ebay USA . If they would have cancelled for problem with address - the buyer could call and fight the cancellation as the claim is unfounded and the OP would get an OOS defect which is what they will get anyway by cancelling with Paypal.

These are the advantages of a UPS mailbox vs a USPS PO box as referenced in the link I provided.

Here's what you get:

• A street address, not a P.O. Box number
  A street address can provide a professional image for your business.
• 24-hour access*
  Pick up your mail when it’s convenient for you. Your mail and packages stay-safe and confidential.
• Package acceptance from all shipping carriers
  We accept packages from all carriers, so you’ll never miss a delivery.
• Package and mail receipt notification
  We can text or email you when your mail and packages arrive.*
• Mail holding and forwarding**
  We’ll hold your packages in a secure location for pick up at your convenience or forward them to you, wherever you are.
• Call-in MailCheck
  Save time. Save a trip. Call us to find out if you have mail.
• Mail Boxes Etc. Certified Packing Experts®
  Access to our expert staff to help you find the right packing and shipping solutions.