@lalo9797 wrote:Anyway, thanks for listening to my podcast. If anyone else has had a similar experience I'd be grateful to hear from you.
I'm dealing with this same scenario at work - buyer purchased a rather expensive Shure wireless dual channel microphone system - 2 mics, 2 body packs, receiver, etc.
Purchase was made, paid, and product shipped via FedEx - direct signature required and insured. Two days later I get a notice from FedEx about a delivery exception -- no one at the address to sign. This happens two more times, then I see an address change request on the FedEx tracking, followed by more of the same delivery exceptions. The order was RTS and arrived just yesterday (Thursday), several weeks after it was purchased.
During this whole time, I would send the buyer a Message each time I received a delivery exception notice. No response from buyer, no communications at all for the entire duration of the transaction to date actually.
So it goes on a shelf and waits. If the buyer never contacts us, it will simply be resold. If they do contact us, we will only refund the purchase price less the round-trip shipping (FedEx does not do free RTS) and a restock fee.
We see something like this a few times each quarter. At first I would get really anxious about "setting things straight"... but they just kept happening. I have no clue why someone would make a purchase of that size, go thru the hassle of making payment, and then simple walk away. Did a rival DJ take them out? Did ICE trace them down based on this transaction and deport them? Were they arrested for jaywalking and are just finishing up a brief vacation at taxpayer expense?
So now we just wait. If they contact us, we work things out. If they never contact us, and especially if their eBay account goes dead, we just let it go and resell the product. Should they contact us in the future, we'll work things out. But keeping a desired product sitting on a shelf is just wrong. Buyers have responsibilities in a transaction just as sellers do. If they don't attend to their responsibilities, there are consequences.
-Bob.
@postingid7659 wrote:Incorrect. Don't sell an $1,000 item on (or to) an account with low feedback.
I find feedback largely irrelevant, I have had buyers with decent feedback not pay or otherwise mess around. There's no real penalty for it unless they're chronic abusers.
I'd personally rather see eBay track transactions rather than feedback -- transactions work for both buyer and seller. Total transactions, Unpaids, Returns, & Completed. Buyers would show initiated numbers, sellers would show completed numbers. So a buyer with 100 total transactions, 10 unpaids, 25 returns, and 65 completed might be considered a chronic disruptive buyer. A buyer with the same unpaids & returns, but with 2500 total transactions is about average, IMHO. Give sellers the ability to block buyers based on unpaids and/or returns within the past 90 days and transactions might get safer. Have eBay restrict purchases for buyers with high unpaids (over 10%) or high returns (10%) and transactions will become even safer.
Somehow, I don't think that's in eBay's playbook -- restricting buyers might be seen as limiting income...by totally ignoring the fact that sellers would likely be willing to list/sell more if they unpaids/returns levels dropped. You know... fewer transactions but for much higher selling prices is better than a truckload of transactions at $1 over costs.
At least that's how I see it from where I'm sitting.
-Bob.
